Israel Calls NE Indian 'Jews'

[Guest guest]

Israel calls, ends 2,770-year exodus in India

"Even the Menashe themselves acknowledge that the idea of

rediscovering their roots resonated deeply with a people struggling

with their sense of identity, after the rapid spread of Christianity

all but wiped out ancient practices.

"Christianity made me feel alien in my own land," said Azriel

Hmar. "It was in contrast to our original customs."

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?

newsid=45424&headline=Israel~calls,~ends~2,770-year~exodus~in~India

Reuters

Posted online: Monday, April 25, 2005 at 1019 hours IST

 

Aizawl, April 24: In unison they dip their middle fingers into their

plastic cups of grape juice, calling out in Hebrew the names of the

10 plagues they believe their God sent to curse the ancient

Egyptians. Plastic Israeli flags and photographs of Jerusalem adorn

the chipboard walls. Saturday's feast could have been a celebration

of Passover anywhere in the Jewish world, but this is no ordinary

celebration and these are no ordinary Jews.

 

In India's remote hill states of Mizoram and Manipur, thousands of

people who believe they belong to one of the Biblical 10 "lost

tribes" of Israel are celebrating what they hope is their last

Passover before ending a 2,700-year exodus.

 

Three weeks ago, reports came from Israel that Sephardi Chief Rabbi

Shlomo Amar had accepted the B'nei Menashe as one of the fabled lost

tribes, and would send a team of rabbis to formally convert them and

bring them back to Israel.

"All our dreams have come true," said Liyon Fanai, who embraced

Judaism two years ago. Just as the Passover marked the Jews departure

from Egypt for Israel, so Liyon hopes this year will mark his

departure for the Promised Land.

 

On Thursday, a call came from Israel saying a place had been put

aside for him, his wife Leora and his 12-year son Sampson, in a Golan

Heights settlement.

 

MIXED UP GENES

 

"It is our Mitzvah, our duty to go," he said after blessing and

breaking the bread at a Sabbath gathering in his home in the Mizo

capital Aizwal, which spreads over the steep hills outside his

window. "Internally, I feel I am an Israeli... not an Indian."

 

On the face of it, it is hard to imagine a more unlikely story. A

tribe, exiled from Israel by the Assyrians around 720 B.C. somehow

finds its way, via Afghanistan and China, to this thin slice of India

sandwiched between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

 

On the way, they forget their language, their history and most of

their traditions. Their genes are so mixed up they look like their

Mongoloid neighbours, their memories so faded they speak a Tibeto-

Burmese language, rear pigs and eat pork.

 

Almost all that remains is a name -- Manasseh, Menasia or Manmase, an

ancestor whose spirit they invoke to ward off evil.

 

In 1950, a holy man from a remote village in Mizoram said the Holy

Spirit had appeared to him in a vision, to explain that the "children

of Manasseh" were in fact the children of Menashe, a son of Joseph --

and it was time to come home.

 

Gradually his ideas took hold, among a population that had only just

been converted to Christianity a few decades before. Today, there are

800 Menashe in Israel, most in West bank and Gaza strip settlements,

and 7,000 more in Mizoram and Manipur hoping for their chance to join

them.

 

The answer to an intriguing Biblical mystery, or simply a case of

mass delusion?

 

The case for the defence rests with Zaithanchhungi, a Christian woman

who has made her name researching and defending the Menashe's claims.

 

Before Christian missionaries came from Wales and England to these

misty, forested hills in the late nineteenth century, the Mizo, Kuki

and Chin peoples worshipped one Almighty God, albeit challenged by

more than a dozen other spirits.

 

'CROSSING THE RED SEA'

 

Some of the practices involved in animal sacrifice were similar to

ancient Hebrew traditions, while an ancient song among one tribe

talked of "crossing the Red Sea", with enemies in chariots at their

heels, she says.

 

Mizo woven shawls are not unlike Jewish prayer shawls in design. In

place of circumcision, is a cleansing ceremony eight days after a

child is born, involving burning of incense.

 

"This is trying to manipulate ethnology to fit your own

interpretation," counters Pachuau Biaksima, an elder with the

Presbyterian church to which most Mizos belong. "In any two tribes,

you cannot fail to identify similarities."

 

Biaksima sees Satan's hands at work, "the dark kingdom" filling idle

minds with "delusions of grandeur".

 

Even the Menashe themselves acknowledge that the idea of

rediscovering their roots resonated deeply with a people struggling

with their sense of identity, after the rapid spread of Christianity

all but wiped out ancient practices.

 

"Christianity made me feel alien in my own land," said Azriel

Hmar. "It was in contrast to our original customs."

 

Science has yet to give a conclusive answer to Mizoram's mystery.

Calcutta's Forensic Science Laboratory found no trace of typical

Jewish genes in the male Y chromosomes of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo, but

found some evidence of a possible, but diluted, maternal link to the

Near East.

 

Research by Israel's Technion institute and the University of Arizona

may provide more conclusive results, even if they are unlikely to

change the Menashe's fate. For now, the ball is in the court of

Israel's Chief Rabbinate -- a spokesman said a final decision on

whether to allow mass conversions outside Israel would be taken after

Passover ends on April 30.

 

In Aizwal, 23-year-old Samuel Lalrindika is back from Israel, on

leave halfway through three years of military service. He emigrated

with three friends in 2000.

 

"I am homesick. And I do face discrimination, because of my features

and because my Hebrew is not perfect," he said. "But this is the

Promised Land, and I have to fight for my country. I am an Israeli."