\u201cSome Israelis are more willing to give land to Palestinians than to give a warm bed to brothers who left a long time ago,\u201d says Esther Thangsom, 24, who came to Israel 18 months ago. \u201cOthers go out of their way to welcome us back.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it doesn\u2019t matter whether people make the way home easy or hard, because God helps us,\u201d she says in her calm and gentle manner. \u201cWe\u2019re a patient people. We\u2019ve waited almost 3,000 years; we can wait a few years longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thangsom is part of a new immigrant community in Israel that now numbers 340. They are known as Bnei Menashe,<\/em> or Shinlung,<\/em> names acquired at different stages of their long journey. The first signifies their belief that they\u2019re descended from the Israelite tribe. According to their tradition they lived as part of the Hebrew nation till the days of the First Temple, when they fled east from the Assyrian conquerors of 744 B.C.E. and, 400 years later, farther east still from the armies of Alexander the Great, through Tibet and into China. Believing they were the only Jews left, they lived quietly under the Chinese until the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n Late in the thirteenth century they were threatened once again by conversion to Christianity. They fled south to Indochina, where they acquired their second name. For two generations they found refuge in a remote valley of caves; Shinlung<\/em> means cave dwellers. The Chinese eventually found them, seized their holy parchment (which they believe was the Torah) and drove them into today\u2019s Thailand and Burma. From here many migrated into the north Indian provinces of Mizoram and Manipur, where it is estimated 1.25 million to 4 million live today. There are 10,000 actively Jewish Bnei Menashe<\/em> in 13 towns. Of this number 3,500 have formally converted to Orthodox Judaism.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never felt we belonged in India,\u201d asserts Ruth Thangsom, 25, Esther\u2019s sister. The family comes from Manipur and their features, like those of other Bnei Menashe,<\/em> are Mongolian. \u201cWe felt lost. We don\u2019t look like Indians, we don\u2019t think like them or identify with them. We were sojourners. We always knew we belonged to the land and people of Israel. In college, when I was studying for my B.A. in English literature, I used to think: What I want more than anything is to be in Israel, where I can live according to the Torah and the mitzvot.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up with a longing to be Jewish and to come to Israel,\u201d says Esther, a psychologist who is studying social work. \u201cI used to tell my friends at boarding school in New Delhi: \u2018I\u2019m not Indian. It\u2019s a geographical and political mistake that I\u2019m here. One day, I\u2019ll live in Israel.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve wanted to come to Israel ever since my midteens when I [found out about] Israel,\u201d says Shmuel Joram, 38, a draftsman who grew up in Mizoram. Like so many Bnei Menashe<\/em> he speaks quietly and respectfully, but with determination and conviction. Today Joram, the Thangsom sisters and their brother Yitzhak, 30, an economist, all live in Jerusalem. They have formally converted to Judaism and are citizens. If they don\u2019t yet feel Israeli, they have a strong sense of having found their place. \u201cIn my heart, I resented undergoing conversion when I feel so utterly Jewish,\u201d says Yitzhak with controlled dignity. \u201cBut as our path back to our roots was through Christianity, I accept it was necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n After the loss of their precious parchment, they nursed a tradition that one day a white man would come to return their holy books. When a Reverend Pettigrew arrived in India from Britain in 1813, ablaze with Baptist fervor and copies of the Christian Bible, the Bnei Menashe<\/em> believed the prophecy had been fulfilled. Large parts of the book, from Adam and Eve to the Exodus from Egypt, echoed their oral tradition. Within a decade, the whole community was Christian.<\/p>\n \u201cOur grandfather was orphaned young and raised by missionaries,\u201d says Yitzhak. \u201cThat\u2019s how our family became Christian. Our father reversed it. He was a deeply religious man who sought the truth. I remember him giving me a siddur<\/em> and telling me: Judaism is the true faith.\u201d<\/p>\n The way back was shown by a community member who came to be regarded as a modern-day prophet.<\/p>\n \u201cHis name was Challa Mala,\u201d explains Joram. \u201cIn the 1950\u2019s, he had a vision that the Bnei Menashe<\/em> were Israelites. His vision ignited the community. They stopped working and began preparing to return to Israel, expecting daily the appearance of the Messiah. A delegation was sent to the Israeli consulate in Calcutta.\u201d<\/p>\n This first attempt to return collapsed quickly in the face of opposition from local Indian authorities and Jewish leaders. But a connection had been forged and the Bnei Menashe<\/em> stayed in touch with Jewish communities in Calcutta and Bombay 600 miles away. Members like the elder Thangsom embraced their Judaism.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you find the truth it hits your heart,\u201d Joram says. \u201cI remember my father weeping because he had found the true faith.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 1970\u2019s a group of educated middle-class Bnei Menashe<\/em> made a formal decision to return to Judaism. They built synagogues, took on Sabbath observance and brit mila.<\/em> It was shortly after this that Rabbi Eliyahu Avihail first heard of them; one of the many letters they wrote asking for help in coming to Israel was passed along to him. \u201cI was interested, of course,\u201d Avihail says. After several attempts he obtained permission to go into Manipur and Mizoram, an area closed because of a border conflict. He also met community representatives in Calcutta and managed to bring two of them to study in Israeli yeshivot,<\/em> so they could return to India as Jewish teachers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more I got to know the community, the more certain I became that their tradition was true and they were indeed descended from the tribe of Menashe,\u201d says Avihail. \u201cTheir customs are very close to prerabbinical Judaism. They have songs thousands of years old, with words from the Bible. One is: \u2018Let us go to Zion!\u2019 even though they didn\u2019t even know what Zion was. They give their children names unknown in the surrounding Indian community, such as Apram, Yakov, Sinai and Shilo. Among their customs are white garments for the kohen,<\/em> an altar and animal sacrifices. The kohen<\/em> will not speak God\u2019s name. They have a garment that resembles blue and white tzitziot.<\/em> The eating of blood is prohibited. They have laws of family purity and follow a lunar calendar. Corpses are seen as impure.<\/p>\n \u201cAll this is too close to be coincidence\u2014and too far to have been recently brought to them. These are ancient customs, corrupted over time.\u201d<\/p>\n In their scrolls there were strange stories about Adam and Eve, the Flood, Avihail points out. \u201cThe Tower of Babel, for example, was built to wage war on God, Who turned the stones to poison, whereupon the builders forgot their language and were dispersed.\u201d<\/p>\n Avihail began his long struggle on their behalf. \u201cIn 1988 we made a symbolic beginning, converting 24 in Calcutta,\u201d he says. \u201cBut then as now Israel\u2019s interior ministry reaction was: Do you want to submerge Israel with these people? But I persisted, and ended up pleading the case before the Supreme Court. It found in our favor and in 1989 I brought over the first group and settled them in Kfar Etzion.\u201d<\/p>\n Avihail\u2019s aim is to bring the 10,000 or so Bnei Menashe<\/em> who are today practicing, if not yet converted, Jews. With every incoming group, however, he faces a major struggle. \u201cIn 1993 I brought [some] with the help of the Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, which paid for the plane,\u201d he says. \u201cDays before they were due, a scare story was leaked to the Hebrew press that \u2018untouchables\u2019 were about to flood the country. This delayed their aliya<\/em> by seven months-and they\u2019d already sold their homes and businesses. I turned to the Lubavitcher rebbe, who was then very sick. \u2018Should I be doing this?\u2019 I asked him. \u2018Yes!\u2019 he said. \u2018Bring them to Israel!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael\u2019s Chief Rabbinate has been good to us,\u201d says Yitzhak. \u201cThey insist on a full Orthodox conversion [bet din<\/em> and mikve<\/em>] but I think they go easier on us than on other converts by not making us wait months before being called to the bet din.<\/em> They recognize our genuine faith. The absorption ministry has also been helpful and is giving [us] temporary resident status so we can live in absorption centers while we study Hebrew and Judaism.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the interior ministry is very different. They delayed granting us citizenship for almost a year after the bet din<\/em> converted us. Their tactics included streams of questions about our conversion, like: How did you step into the mikve?<\/em> They insisted each of us produce a full genealogical tree. It was only when we threatened to go to the Supreme Court that they gave us our citizenship papers.\u201d<\/p>\n Today the Bnei Menashe<\/em> are scattered throughout the country; they have settled in and are doing well. Some are in higher education, others run small businesses, many live on settlements\u2014Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Beit El, Eilon Moreh and Gush Katif. Most are politically right wing (\u201cWe all want peace,\u201d says Esther), all are ready to serve in the army, and all, without exception, are religiously observant.<\/p>\n Some are married to English-speakers from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States (Yehoshua Wertheime of Boston, for example, has married into the community); others have married Jews from other Indian communities (like Elisheva Ganteh who married Yehuda Ben Eliayahu, originally from Cochin); but most, like the Thangsoms and Joram, hope to marry within their own community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t know all these people in India, but we feel very close,\u201d says Ruth. \u201cThere\u2019s always somewhere to go on Shabbat and festivals and we share one another\u2019s weddings and bar mitzvas. There are already sabra Bnei Menashe<\/em> in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n The Thangsoms and Joram are still living and studying in the Nahalat Zvi yeshiva,<\/em> where they prepared for conversion. \u201cIt\u2019s home to us,\u201d Joram says. \u201cThe rosh yeshiva<\/em> [yeshiva head] totally accepts us \u2019raw\u2019 from India. He carries the spark of holiness within him. I\u2019m planning to stay on for another year. Then I\u2019ll think about my career and how to earn money and settle down.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruth, too, wants to continue her Jewish studies. \u201cWithout learning you miss out on what it takes to be a Jew,\u201d she says. \u201cEvery Jew needs to find his own path, but you can\u2019t find it without knowledge.\u201d After full-time study, she\u2019d like to teach.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be educated in your faith,\u201d says Esther. \u201cWe\u2019d be missing the point of being in Israel if we didn\u2019t know how to connect with God. Being in Israel is not enough. The soul is important, too.\u201d<\/p>\n For the remaining Bnei Menashe<\/em> in India who are interested in living a Jewish life, moving to Israel would be more than enough for the moment. Many enjoy comfortable middle class lives, but their hearts are in their ancestral land. They also faced danger 18 months ago, when their communities in Manipur were attacked by neighbors from the Naya tribe. Two synagogues were burned and several people were killed.<\/p>\n But this isn\u2019t why the Bnei Menashe<\/em> want to come. \u201cThey want to live in Israel for the same reasons that we do,\u201d says Joram, \u201cthe same reasons that any Jew wants to live in his own land. Because it\u2019s ours. Because it\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wendy Elliman. Hadassah magazine, October 1999 \u201cSome Israelis are more willing to give land to Palestinians than to give a <\/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