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I am sorry but I think that's bunk...With so much mixed marrying through out time there is no way to trace Jews to Ancient Israel the only time I have heard of it maybe happening is with the tribe of Levi...

There is no way to tell, That is like people saying they can claim blood relation to Jesus Christ by DNA...

My childhood rabbi (who trained me for my Bar Mitzvah) was the last Rabbi of Calcutta, India. His family was part of the mainstream Indian Jewish community, having coming from Baghdad 300 years ago. He knows the Bnei Menashe quite well (he's still alive, although he's in his 90s).

He told me that the Bnei Menahse story is bunk. He thinks they are a native tribe that once had some connection to Islam (which most of "Jewish" rituals come from) and was converted to Christianity this century. According to him, the Missionaries told them wild stories about them being a lost tribe as part of a tactic to deceive them into Christinaity (i.e. you are a Jewish tribe, Jesus was a Jew -- one of you -- and is your messiah, etc.).

That being said, these are people who fervently believe in Judaism now. I have no problem having them convert and move to Israel.

I am sorry but I think that's bunk...With so much mixed marrying through out time there is no way to trace Jews to Ancient Israel the only time I have heard of it maybe happening is with the tribe of Levi...

You are wrong. There was very little mixed marrying INTO Judaism. People who married out left Judaism, and their descendants ceased to be Jews.

Genetic testing has shown that ALL Jews (not just Levis) are very closely related to one another, and form one population group -- regardless of whether or not our ancestors lived in Yemen or Poland 100 years ago.

Actually, it isn't bunk. I said links to the Middle East on purpose. The Jewish people habitually marry within their faith. They've been doing this for a long long time, and so infusion of new genetic material isn't as common as you think.

Judy Siegel. "Genetic evidence links Jews to their ancient tribe." Jerusalem Post (November 20, 2001). Excerpts:

"Despite being separated for over 1,000 years, Sephardi Jews of North African origin are genetically indistinguishable from their brethren from Iraq, according to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They also proved that Sephardi Jews are very close genetically to the Jews of Kurdistan, and only slight differences exist between these two groups and Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. These conclusions are reached in an article published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics and written by Prof. Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University (HU) and Hadassah-University Hospital in Ein Kerem. Others involved are German doctoral student Almut Nebel, Dr. Marina Faerman of HU, Dr. Dvora Filon of Hadassah-University Hospital, and other colleagues from Germany and India. The researchers conducted blood tests of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Kurdish Jews and examined their Y chromosomes, which are carried only by males. They then compared them with those of various Arab groups - Palestinians, Beduins, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese - as well as to non-Arab populations from Transcaucasia - Turks, Armenians and Moslem Kurds. The study is based on 526 Y chromosomes typed by the Israeli team and additional data on 1,321 individuals from 12 populations... Surprisingly, the study shows a closer genetic affinity by Jews to the non-Jewish, non-Arab populations in the northern part of the Middle East than to Arabs."

The studies are extensive and exhaustive, and the percentage of links vary from barely statistically significant, to a strong correlation. Of course, these are studies done by Jews... Arabs probably have their own studies showing the opposite.

I would take serious issue with that. A story was done just within the last few days in which the dna of a line of women believed to be Amazon warriors from a period roughly 2500 years back - some 500 years before Christ, has been matched to the line of a single young girl living today. There is a way to tell. And it is DNA, among other things. There is plenty of historical factual and circumstantial evidence to bolster the claim. And this is not the only tribal group that has been located.

I am sorry but I think that's bunk...With so much mixed marrying through out time there is no way to trace Jews to Ancient Israel the only time I have heard of it maybe happening is with the tribe of Levi...

The only DNA test that I know of is for a particular marker that is supposed to represent a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses, since the Cohanim were subject to special restrictions to maintain their family line.

This same DNA marker has also been found among a tribe of Africans called the Lemba. So are the Lemba Jews or even Cohanim? The Bible says that if a Cohen intermarries a non-Jewish woman or a convert to Judaism or even a Jewish woman who has been divorced, their children become unfit to perform the Temple rituals. So does this mean their DNA changes in some way?

Nope, not bunk. The descendants of kohanim who have been tested (from all over the world, including the Lemba tribe in Africa) have a marker ("Y A P haplotype" is what it's called, if memory serves) on their Y chromosome showing they're descended from the same man. Traditionally, they are all descended from Aaron, brother of Moses. This relationship rubbishes the "British Israelite" and other racist movements (for those who didn't previously regard them as rubbish) and also "The 13th Tribe", another book of rubbish which claims that European Jews are descended from converts, not from the Biblical tribes.