Others considered these people economic migrants rather than true Jews. Critics believed that the government's policy of settling the Bnei Menashe immigrants in the unstable Judea, Samaria and Gaza Strip was part of a recruiting campaign to help increase the size of Israel's Jewish population. Hundreds of them emigrated to Israel, some of them completed the formal conversion requirements there because they wanted to be accepted as Jews. In the late 20th century, many of the Bnei Menashe started to study normative Judaism. He investigated this group's claims of Jewish descent in the 1980s. Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail is the founder of Amishav, an organization which is dedicated to finding the Lost Tribes and facilitating their aliyah. On, some Messianic communities founded the Manipur Jewish Organization (later renamed the United Jews Organization, NEI), the first Jewish organization in northeast India.Īfter these people established contacts with other Jewish religious groups in Israel and other countries, they began to practice more traditional rabbinic Judaism in the 1980s and 1990s. They had no connections with other Jewish groups in either the diaspora or Israel. While they believed that Jesus is the promised messiah for all Israelites, these pioneers also adopted the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, the celebration of holidays, the observance dietary laws and other Jewish customs and traditions which they learned from books in the early 1960s. During the 1950s, this group of Chin-Kuki-Mizo people founded a Messianic movement. In approximately 721 B.C.E., the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom, exiled the leading ~20% of the ten tribes living there, and enslaved them in Assyria (present-day Iraq).Īccording to Lal Dena, the Bnei Menashe have come to believe that the legendary Hmar ancestor Manmasi was the Hebrew Menasseh, son of Joseph. The northern Kingdom of Israel was made up of the remaining ten tribes. Most Jews today are descended from the southern kingdom. The southern one, known as the Kingdom of Judah, was made up mostly of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi. In the time of the first temple, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. After undergoing the process for formal conversion, they will be allowed aliyah (immigration). The chief rabbi of Israel ruled in 2005 that the Bnei Menashe were recognized as part of a lost tribe. In the early 21st century, Israel halted immigration by the Bnei Menashe after a change in government, the immigration was allowed again. A Kolkata study in 2005 suggested that a small number of women sampled may have some Middle Eastern ancestry, but this may also have resulted from intermarriage during the thousands of years of migration of Jewish peoples. In 2003–2004, DNA testing of several hundred men of this group did not provide conclusive evidence of Middle Eastern ancestry. In the late 20th century, Israeli rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, of the group Amishav, named these people the Bnei Menashe, based on their account of descent from Menasseh. : 6 Members are from the Chin, Kuki, and Mizo ethnic groups amongst others. : 7 All of them practiced Christianity prior to that. The movement began in 1951 when a tribal leader reported having a dream that his people's ancient homeland was Israel, with others then embracing the idea that they were Jews. : 3 The community has around 10,000 members. The Bnei Menashe ( Hebrew: בני מנשה, "Children of Menasseh", known as the Shinlung in India ) is a community of people from various Tibeto-Burmese ethnic groups from the border of India and Burma who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, with some of them having adopted Judaism. Mizo, Hmar, Kuki, Zomi, Chin, Kachin, Shan and Karen Hmar, Gangte, Vaiphei, Kom, Lai, Paite, Mara, Kuki, Simte, Mizo, Hebrew
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