Politics
Aliyah keeps the hope alive in Indian Jews,By NIBEDITA
Goa Khabar:235 Bnei Menashe immigrants arrived in Israel October 2021 to begin the new chapter of their lives.
B’nei Menashe community is one of the ten lost Jewish communities in Israel. It is believed that the people from this community traveled all the way from Assyrian empire to the north east of India. Although they’re settled in India for about 2700 years, yet according to the prophecy in The Bible,the Jews are returning to their promised land of Jerusalem.
Why are the descendants of the Jews who took the longest ever exile returning back to Israel? Well, here are two different sets of replies to it- one contains logic while the other associates strong faith.
After a healthy interaction with the community members of B’nei Menashe in Israel and the Chairman of B’nei Menashe council in India, Alam Hangshing at the book release event in Tel Aviv, I came across a beautiful realisation that faith and logic can coexist and support each other. B’nei community is a thriving example of it.
“I am the chairman of B’nei Menashe in the north east, primarily in Manipur. A rough estimate of 5000 people are still living in Mizoram and Manipur. We are helping the community to do Aliyah but it is going at a very slow pace. There are 200 families shifted from India to Israel every year. By the time we are successful in shifting all these 5000, many more would be born,” he explained.
Biblical Israel is generally thought of as that region south and southwest of the Lebanon mountains, north and east of Egypt, east of the Mediterranean coastal plain, and west of the Arabian desert. According to the prophecy, every Jew shall return to their promised land someday.
While talking about religion and the confusion between Christianity and Judaism he said, “Christianity is very strong in the north east. The churches are very protective of their religion. The difference in Judaism is that there’s no forced conversions.We do not go around preaching people. People seek the path of religion on their own. They practice Shabbat as a community.”
The book release event was successful as octogenarian people associated with the tribe have attended the program. The book ‘Lives of the children of Manasia’ is written by Isaac Thangjom and edited by Hillel Halkin. The book consists of oral history interviews of the community members, their individual life stories, the myth and misconceptions of Judaism.
Speaking to the author Isaac Thangjom about how the community serves the children of Manasia, he answered, “We help the poor tribal children to educate themselves. In Israel, the government gives free education to everyone till their school. After that there’s a mandatory military service for three years. By the time they seek college education, the children are turned into adults and they have their own choices for life. Some become entrepreneurs while some get back to college or take a trip to a different country to venture out and learn more about life.”
“As a community, we take responsibility for a child’s education after school. We also have a musicology project, oral history project, vocational fellowship, teaching the elderly and many other associated works,” Isaac said with a contented smile on his face.
The older section of this community members are migrating to Israel for peace in their retirement life while the younger section are traveling down to get better education and global training facilities.