{"id":2525,"date":"2017-11-23T16:22:48","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T21:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kulanuarchive.kulanu.org\/?page_id=2525"},"modified":"2019-04-05T08:54:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T12:54:56","slug":"lost-jews-find-new-friends","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/communities\/india\/lost-jews-find-new-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lost Jews” Find New Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Effort to embrace believers, from Burma to Uganda,
\ngains steam as response to demographic woes<\/h2>\n

The New York Jewish Week, October 4, 2002 issue<\/a><\/h2>\n

by Gary Rosenblatt \u2014 Editor And Publisher<\/p>\n

The Jewish community, here and around the world, equates demographics with survival, so it\u2019s only natural that we obsess over our numbers. But we may be willfully ignoring a plausible solution to our ever-worrisome dwindling Jewish population.<\/p>\n

Consider: Communal officials today are eagerly anticipating the latest findings of the once-a-decade National Jewish Population Survey, due out next week, to see whether there are closer to 5 million or 7 million Jews in this country and, perhaps more important, whether assimilation is up or down from a decade ago. The 1990 study found the intermarriage rate to be 52 percent, setting off a chain of intense reactions, from self-criticism over the loss of a generation, to renewed efforts to bolster identity through social and educational projects, to acknowledging the inevitability of the trend and seeking ways to increase outreach to the intermarried.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, the fear is that if the Jewish population is shrinking, so too will our religious, social, educational and political strength.<\/p>\n

In Israel, the concern is even more profound. Locked in a struggle with its neighbors for its very right to exist as a Jewish state, Israel is well aware that its Arab population, now about 20 percent, is increasing more rapidly than its Jewish numbers. It\u2019s only a matter of time, then, for the Jews to be outnumbered. In a democracy that means in a few decades the Arabs could undo the Jewish state, quietly, through the polls, after failing for so many years on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

For more than 50 years now, Israeli leaders have been preaching to us one message we don\u2019t want to hear: aliyah.<\/em> More than our money, they want us living in Israel; the best way to ensure the Jewish state, they say, is to fill it with Jews.<\/p>\n

But if we\u2019re not willing to emigrate, why do we and the rest of the Jewish world, consumed as we are with bolstering our numbers, turn a deaf ear to the tens of thousands of people \u2014 maybe far more \u2014 in India, Peru, Africa, Japan, Spain, Burma and other exotic places who claim to be part of our people and long to settle in Israel?<\/p>\n

Many say they are remnants of the Ten Lost Tribes, a notion met with deep skepticism by historians, and some were converted to Christianity by missionaries along the way. But whatever their lineage, they identify now as Jews, pray in Hebrew and keep the laws of Moses, including Shabbat, kashrut,<\/em> circumcision and family purity, often despite persecution from those around them.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it time we took them seriously?<\/p>\n

The fact is that in recent years their voices, and those of credible advocates, have grown louder. Israel\u2019s chief rabbinate, a key factor in legitimizing Ethiopian Jewry more than a decade ago, has recently investigated and ruled favorably on members of the Bnai Menashe<\/em> of India as well as a small tribe from Peru, and helped them through the formal conversion process. Hundreds of these people are now settled in Israel.<\/p>\n

Supporters are urging far greater attention to these and other \u201clost Jews,\u201d insisting they represent a credible resolution of the dilemma over world Jewry\u2019s declining demographics.<\/p>\n

Moshe Cotel, a local rabbinical student and active member of Kulanu (Hebrew for \u201call of us\u201d), a group dedicated to finding and assisting lost and dispersed remnants of the Jewish people, says the prevalent Jewish communal response \u2014 or non-response \u2014 to these pleas is part racial, part economic and part based on a fear of diluting the purity of the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hogwash to lament the demise of the Jewish people when there may be millions of people who want \u2018in\u2019 and we refuse to deal with them,\u201d says Cotel, who gave up a successful classical music career in his 50s to study to become a rabbi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a tidal wave of conversion to Judaism coming in the next decades,\u201d he insists, \u201cand we\u2019ll either learn to surf or we\u2019ll drown in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With few exceptions, Cotel says, this issue is not on the radar of Jewish leadership. \u201cI tell them, \u2018Hey, wake up and get on your surfboard,\u2019 but they tell me I\u2019m hopelessly naive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cotel was part of a bet din,<\/em> or religious court, comprised of four Conservative rabbis (three from the United States and one from Israel) who traveled to eastern Uganda last February to conduct some 300 religious conversions for the Abuyadaya, a community of 600 native Ugandans who have been observing Mosaic laws for more than 80 years. (In 1919, a local governor named Semei Kakungulu, after studying the Bible, instructed his followers to adopt the laws of Moses. Though the group has dwindled, it has held to its traditions, in spite of discrimination, most virulently under Idi Amin in the 1970s.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people are practicing Jews and we owe it to them to help them in every way we can,\u201d says Cotel, who plans to return to Uganda in February to help in the conversion of another 100 or so of the Abuyadaya.<\/p>\n

Hillel Halkin, a well-known writer and translator who has lived in Israel for three decades, has written a fascinating new book out about his growing interest and belief in the Bnai Menashe,<\/em> a group of some 5,000 people in a remote corner of northeastern India who live as observant Jews, claiming a link to the biblical tribe of Menashe.<\/p>\n

The book, \u201cAcross The Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel,\u201d describes how Halkin\u2019s skepticism was reversed after visiting the community, which began in the 1970s and has been guided for the last two decades by Eliahu Avichail, an Orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem. Over the years he has helped some 600 of the Bnai Menashe<\/em> settle in Israel, where they underwent formal conversion. Another 100 arrived last month and more of their brethren would like to join them.<\/p>\n

Michael Freund is a former New Yorker living in Jerusalem who has come to espouse the cause of the Bnai Menashe.<\/em> A Modern Orthodox Jew who served as deputy director of communications and policy planning in the Prime Minister\u2019s office under Benjamin Netanyahu, Freund, after visiting the community, has agreed to succeed Rabbi Avichail as head of Amishav, the organization championing the Bnai Menashe.<\/em><\/p>\n

He believes that groups like the Bnai Menashe<\/em> and the descendants of the Marranos \u201cconstitute a large, untapped demographic and spiritual reservoir for Israel and the Jewish people.\u201d And while Freund opposes outright proselytization, citing traditional Judaism\u2019s hesitancy about such an approach, he says that since groups like the Bnai Menashe<\/em> have taken \u201cthe first step in our direction, it is time that we reach out and help them as they undergo the process of returning to the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe distinction, of course, is a fine one,\u201d he acknowledges, \u201cbut life is full of fine lines, and as long as we keep our eye firmly fixed on the line and do not cross it, then we will be able to accomplish great things.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the legitimate concerns about taking in \u201clost Jews\u201d is the possibility that millions of people with no ties to Judaism, living in poverty in a country like India, could seek to emigrate for Israel\u2019s greener pastures. The concept is ironic, of course, in that historically, seeking to identify as a Jew or come to Israel was considered foolhardy, if not dangerous. Advocates for the \u201clost Jews\u201d recognize that criteria must be established to prevent Israel from becoming overrun by immigrants, but say that is a far cry from dismissing those living as Jews, especially where there are too few Jews in Israel, or anywhere, for that matter.<\/p>\n

Freund says there is a more disturbing factor at play in our reluctance to take seriously the claims of \u201clost Jews.\u201d He believes many Jews have become \u201cso cynical about their own faith that they find it difficult to fathom that anyone would want to voluntarily join the \u2018tribe.\u2019 \u201d As a result, he says, \u201cwe mock and minimize these people\u2019s claims and convince ourselves they\u2019re crazy or we\u2019re crazy.\u201d But after meeting with converts from around the world, he says he has been deeply impressed by their \u201csincerity, conviction and love of Torah and the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to cultivate this phenomenon rather than ignore it,\u201d he asserts, advocating Orthodox conversion for those willing to undertake the process, to ensure full legitimacy.<\/p>\n

The Israeli establishment has run hot and cold on these would-be Jews. At times the interior ministry has been reluctant to pursue various claims or issue visas, but this spring 72 new immigrants arrived in Israel from Peru after undergoing conversion by a bet din<\/em> appointed by Israels chief rabbinate. They joined some 150 of their brethren from villages near Lima who settled in Israel in the last decade.<\/p>\n

Freund and other advocates would like to see the issue of \u201clost Jews\u201d become a national mission for Israel and world Jewry, coordinated and carried out in a planful rather than haphazard way. Kulanu\u2019s Cotel agrees, and in the meantime says he intends to be \u201ca Johnny Appleseed, visiting Africa, India and South America to help educate these people Jewishly.\u201d<\/p>\n

With aliyah<\/em> from the former Soviet Union slipping and no serious increase expected from the West, with Palestinians insisting on their right of return and a growing concern about Jews leaving Israel, we owe it to ourselves, as well as these highly motivated \u201clost Jews,\u201d to take them seriously. That requires not only exploring their claims and practices but our own image of what it means to be a Jew.<\/p>\n

At a time when demographers here debate the status of patrilineal Jews and half Jews and someone born of a Jewish mother who practices Buddhism, do we have a place in our hearts, and peoplehood, for a Ugandan tribesman or Indian farmer who prays to the God of Moses and Israel every Shabbat, longing for Jerusalem?<\/p>\n

The answer to that question \u2014 and whether or not we take it seriously \u2014 may tell us a great deal about the survival of the Jewish people in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Gary Rosenblatt\u2019s e-mail address is Gary @ jewishweek.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Effort to embrace believers, from Burma to Uganda, gains steam as response to demographic woes The New York Jewish Week, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1222,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-template\/full-width.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n"Lost Jews" Find New Friends - Kulanu<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effort to embrace believers, from Burma to Uganda, gains steam as response to demographic woes The New York Jewish Week, October 4, 2002 issue by Gary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/communities\/india\/lost-jews-find-new-friends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Lost Jews" Find New Friends - Kulanu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Effort to embrace believers, from Burma to Uganda, gains steam as response to demographic woes The New York Jewish Week, October 4, 2002 issue by Gary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/communities\/india\/lost-jews-find-new-friends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kulanu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/kulanu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-05T12:54:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/aba-40-chaya-weinstein-3-abayu-scaled-e1654011790549.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1830\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@kulanu_inc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Kulanu\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/kulanu\",\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/kulanu_inc\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/529768\",\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/kulanuvideo\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kulanu_inc\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kulanu-Site-Logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kulanu-Site-Logo.png\",\"width\":188,\"height\":188,\"caption\":\"Kulanu\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/\",\"name\":\"Kulanu\",\"description\":\"Supporting isolated, returning, and emerging Jewish communities around the world\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/communities\/india\/lost-jews-find-new-friends\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kulanu.org\/archive\/communities\/india\/lost-jews-find-new-friends\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"Lost Jews\\\" Find New Friends - 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