JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Six soldiers from the “Bnei Menashe” community in northeastern India have joined an Israeli army unit together. They were inducted into the IDF in a ceremony this month. The “Bnei Menashe” community, which has a population of 10,000 worldwide, claims to be directly descended from the “lost tribe” of Menashe, one of the original 12…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Some 102 immigrants to Israel from India, members of the Bnei Menashe Jewish community, are ready to leave their absorption center. The olim, who came to Israel in February from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, have completed their required formal conversion to Judaism and intensive Hebrew language studies, the Shavei Israel…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ten Indian-Jewish couples from the Bnei Menashe “lost tribe” were married in a Jewish ceremony at an absorption center in northern Israel. The group wedding remarriage ceremony on Sunday in the Kfar Hasidim community was part of the couples’ formal conversion to Judaism. The couples, who immigrated from India, ranged in age…
(JTA) — One hundred and two members of the Jewish community in India, who trace their heritage to one of Israel’s lost tribes, are moving to Israel this week. The immigrants, who hail from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram — home to the second largest concentration of the country’s Bnei Menashe community, as they…
TEL AVIV — According to ethnographers and Israeli geneticists who have investigated the matter — and even most members of his own ethnic group in India — Hanoch Haokip’s claim to be descended from one of Israel’s so-called “Lost Tribes” is, at best, highly debatable. But Haokip, a member of a small subgroup of indigenous…
Forty-three Bnei Menashe, who claim to be Jews descended from the biblical tribe of Menashe, arrived in Israel on aliyah. The new immigrants moved to Israel on Thursday from the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. Some 250 Bnei Menashe have made aliyah in June, among 410 who have arrived in Israel since January. Some 900…
Hundreds of Indian citizens who claim to be Jews descended from the biblical tribe of Menashe will begin arriving in Israel in December. The aliyah of 899 Indians, known as Bnei Menashe, was approved by Israel’s Knesset this week and will last for a year, according to Shavei Israel, an organization that tries to find…
Israel’s government approved the immigration of the Bnei Menashe, an Indian tribe that claims Jewish ancestry. The approval comes after a five-year gap since the last group of Bnei Menashe arrived in Israel. Members of the group, who claim descent from the lost tribe of Menashe, must undergo a conversion process even though it is…
