-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
'Lost tribe' members seek a return to Israel
By Alan Philps in Jerusalem
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001851641145319&rtmo=faMNloYs&atmo=99999999
&pg=/et/00/1/13/wtri13.html
Bnei Menashe [also known as the Shinlung]
Law of Return - Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Jerusalem Post
Black Africans also claim to be Jews
MEMBERS of a people who claim descent from one of the lost tribes of Israel
have asked for permission to immigrate from India to the Jewish state, 2,700
years after their tradition says that they were forced into exile.
The Israeli authorities fear it would open the floodgates for millions of
people around the world who claim a perhaps mythical link to one of the 10
tribes which disappeared in the 8th century BC. The request comes from the
Shinlung people, a collection of tribes who live in the Indian states of
Mizoram and Manipur, and across the border in Burma.
They were converted to Christianity in the 19th century but believe that
they are descended from the lost tribe of Manasseh, one of 10 taken into
exile by the Assyrians in 722 BC to what is now Iraq. Activists from the
Shinlung people asked the Israeli parliament's immigration and absorption
committee on Tuesday to allow 100 members a year to enter the country as
immigrants and receive the subsidies and benefits that any Jewish person
from the Diaspora would receive.
But an ultra-orthodox member of the committee, Rabbi Shmuel Halpert, said:
"If you bring one, think how many non-Jews will come." He said that there
were millions of people of Spanish origin - in Spain, Portugal and Latin
America - who were descendants of Jews forced to convert to Christianity,
but who kept up some Jewish practices in secret.
He said: "They have far more of a clear link to the Jewish people." The
government's adviser on immigration, Anna Isakov, said no more Shinlung
should be allowed into Israel until a thorough investigation was made of
their claims to be the lost tribe of Manasseh.
Estimates of the numbers of the Shinlung vary from 1.5 million to three
million, but only 3,500 are understood to be practising the Jewish faith
actively. The cause of the Shinlung is being promoted by Rabbi Eliahu
Avihail. Thanks to his efforts, 450 members of the tribe have entered Israel
over the past 10 years, but each has to go through a year-long conversion
process, as their claims to being Jewish are not recognised.
Rabbi Avihail said yesterday: "Their traditions have many similarities with
that of the ancient Israelites. They carry out circumcision of male children
on the eighth day after birth, using sharpened stones, as was done in
Biblical times. They carry out sacrifices on altars." One song which has
apparently been handed down for millennia contains the lines: "We crossed
the Red Sea on dry land. At night we crossed with a fire and by day a
cloud." They also mark the Passover with an evening meal, as Jews all over
the world do.
Rabbi Avihail says it is unfair to say that the Shinlung want to move to
Israel for a better life. He said: "They are rich and well-educated in
India. They have cars and servants and nice homes. They lack nothing, and
when they come here they live as paupers."
Behind the government's reluctance to accept them lies a serious fear about
the Jewish character of the state of Israel. More than half of new
immigrants from the former Soviet Union last year were not Jewish according
to rabbinical standards. There are many other "lost tribes" which might want
to enter Israel, including the Pathans, who live in Afghanistan and Pakistan
and number about 10 million.
30 July 1998: Israel may relent on passports for gentiles
3 July 1998: DNA test to prove migrant is a Jew
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