Indian 'lost tribe' set for their promised land

A GROUP of 51 Indians who claim to be descendants of one of the ten lost biblical tribes were on their way to Israel last night, in what is viewed by their supporters as a fulfilment of prophecy.

They were converted to Judaism in India by rabbis after Israel's chief rabbinate last year recognised about 7,000 people from the remote north-eastern states of Mizoram and Minapur who claim ancient Israelite ancestry through belonging to the Bnei Menashe, one of the ten tribes that were lost after being exiled by the Assyrians in 586BC.

Michael Jankelowitz, spokesman for the Jerusalem-based Jewish Agency, which is co-ordinating the Indians' arrival, said "they have lived a Jewish way of life for decades" including by keeping Saturday as the Sabbath and observing Jewish dietary laws.

The "homecoming" highlights the strange mix of religion and nationalism that a country that views itself as the heir of biblical forebears can throw up. Ironically, the arrival of the Indians comes soon after a senior government minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raised questions about the future of Israel's Arab citizens, by advocating making Israel "as much as possible" a homogenous Jewish country.

The Indians' Jewish practices were observed after 1953, when a holy man from a remote village in Mizoram said the Holy Spirit had appeared to him in a vision, to explain that the Christian tribe he belonged to were actually the children of Menashe, son of the biblical Joseph, and that God instructed them to return to what he determined to be their previous religion, Judaism and to their homeland, Israel.

Some researchers say certain practices involving animal sacrifice were similar to ancient Hebrew traditions, while an ancient song among one tribe talked of crossing the Red Sea.

The tale of how the community's ancestors supposedly came to India's north-east - sandwiched between Bangladesh and Myanmar - is grand in its historical sweep but short on scientific support. Exiled from ancient Israel by the Assyrian empire around 730BC, the tribe was apparently forced east and travelled through Afghanistan and China before settling in what is now India's north-east.

On the way, they forgot their language, their history and most of their traditions.

The Israeli rabbinate said that because of their separation from the rest of the Jewish people for millennia, the Bnei Menashe would have to undergo conversion in India before being eligible to immigrate to Israel under the country's Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to anyone with a Jewish maternal grandparent.

"We are returning to the land of our forefathers. I am very happy," Eleazor Sela, a Bnei Menashe leaving for Israel with his wife, said yesterday.

In Israel, Hanan Porat, a leader of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, said "You have to be careful with the matter of the ten tribes, but I definitely see this process as joining in the process of an ingathering of the exiles."

THE MAN WITH A MISSION TO DISCOVER PAST LINKS

AN ORTHODOX rabbi who has spent the last half century searching for descendants of the lost tribes is the man who "discovered" the sons of Menashe.

His quest to bring the lost tribes back to Israel began in 1979, when Eliyahu Avihayil was shown a letter sent to a friend from India, from a group calling itself "the Jews of north-east India".

"I decided to find out who they are," Rabbi Avihayil said.

"Within two years I held that they belonged to the tribe of Menashi."

Among the clues that he took to be telltale signs, he said, were traditions resembling those of the ancient Israelites, including having places of refuge for those who had killed someone by mistake.

Rabbi Avihayil said his research revealed that the descendants of Menasseh also practised circumcision, albeit with sharpened flint rather than a knife.

In 1982, Rabbi Avihayil travelled to India, where he met Bnei Menashi . Then in 1989 he sent a religious official there to convert 24 people.

By Rabbi Avihayil's estimate, there are tens of millions of descendants of the lost tribes of Israel living in Japan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Thailand and Burma.

"It is not our task to bring all of the ten tribes back, that is the task of the Messiah," he said.

"But it is our task, before the Messiah comes, to create an opening in this matter."