By - Karen Lawlor - Tariang
M
izoram must be among the last places on earth where you’d think there was a sizable Jewish population. Think again. The Jews of this remote region in India believe they are descendants of a legendary lost tribe of Israel that, according to the Old Testament, disappeared almost 3,000 years ago. For many among thousands of those living in Mizoram and Manipur, Israel is the Promised Land. According to an Israeli association formerly called Amishav — "My people return" — there are 1 million to 2 million Bnei Menashes living in the hilly regions of Burma and northeast India.
Let’s begin by explaining some of the Bible, as well as a small history lesson of the Mizo people. In Genesis, God promised Abraham that his descendants would become "a great nation," but the line begins with Jacob, Abraham's grandson. Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, does not have a tribe bearing his name. Instead, Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are blessed by Jacob as his own and each fathers a separate "tribe". The Menashes are descendants of Menasseh.
After an Assyrian invasion circa 722 B.C., Jewish tradition says 10 tribes from the northern part of the kingdom of Israel were enslaved in Assyria. Later the tribes fled Assyria and wandered through Afghanistan, Tibet and China. About 100 A.D. one group moved south from China and settled around northeast India and Burma. These Chin-Mizo-Kuki people, who speak Tibeto-Burmese dialects and resemble Mongols in appearance, are believed to be the Bnei Menashes. According to the local folklore, the Mizos' Jewish connection goes back more than 1,000 years to a remote cave in China where the scattered remnants of the lost Jewish tribe of Menashe were holed up. They called themselves Chhinlung, after the cave, and over the years they made their way south through Thailand, settling for good in the hill tracts of Mizoram and Manipur.
Coming back to the present day, in 1952, a local headman plunges into a trance, has a vision of sorts, and announces that God has told him that the Mizos are the lost tribe. A group of believers then set off for the Promised Land, under the notion that it might just lie around the corner. Some actually reach as far as Assam and Nagaland, but no one quite makes it to Israel. This unproductive attempt inspired one of the relatives of one of the travellers to investigate this entire claim.
This relative, Zaithanchhungi, a former teacher, went to Israel in 1983. There she met Eliyahu Avichayil, an Orthodox rabbi whose Amishav organization searches the world for descendants of the lost tribes. He showed immediate interest in her story, saying Jews had been scattered as far as China. He urged her to return to India to catalogue Mizo history. She came up with a list of perceptible similarities, including the construction of altars, the sacrifice of animals, funeral customs, marriage and divorce dealings, a belief in an all-powerful deity and the symbolic presence of the number seven in many festivities. There were also apparently other links in things like medical instruments and household practices. According Shavei Israel, India has more than a million people who are ethnically Bnei Menashes. Since they lived for centuries in northeast India, mingling with local people, many of their Jewish traditions became diluted. And after Welsh missionaries arrived in the region in 1894, nearly all Indian Bnei Menashes converted from their animistic beliefs to Christianity. More recently, DNA studies at the Central Forensic Institute in Calcutta conclude that while the tribe's males show no links to Israel, the females share a family relationship to the genetic profile of Middle Eastern people. The genetic disparity between the sexes might be explained by the marriage of a woman who came from the Middle East to a man of Indian ancestry. Additional genetic studies on the Indian tribes are ongoing at the University of Arizona and the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel.
The Jews in Mizoram have been trying to “return” to Israel for the past 50 years. After Zaithanchhungi’s initiatives, there were a spate of actual conversions, and over 400 men and women made the journey, and have been settled in Israel – mainly in the occupied territories. Zaithanchhungi, who was skeptical about Mizos belonging to Israel when she began her research, claimed she found that Mizo "prophets" like Chala of Buallawn village had declared way back in 1950 that Mizos were the lost tribes of Israel, the descendants of Menashe. It took them twenty five years before the Israeli government would acknowledge their claims of being one of the lost ten tribes of Israel. After being recognized, they were allowed to migrate to Israel and settle. In order to migrate they need to be accepted as Jewish and have to undergo a conversion ritual, a requirement fulfilled by visiting Rabbis. Which then brings up the question – If they were Jewish to begin with, why the need for conversion?
Israel does not acknowledge the Mizos as Jews, though the Interior Ministry said that 100 Mizo tribesmen would be allowed annually to enter the country as tourists. Is they were practitioners of the Jewish faith, they would be allowed to become immigrants under the Law of Return, which grants citizenship to all Jews. According to embassy statistics, over 2,000 Mizos have applied for Israeli visas over the last five years. An average of 30-50 Mizos actually make the trip each year. But in 2003, when the Interior Ministry decided to end the Bnei Menashe aliyah ("right of return" to Israel), Shavei Israel activists started intense lobbying through the chief rabbinate to get the Indian group accepted by Israel as one of the lost tribes. They succeeded when the March statement came from the chief rabbinate.
The topic has been an issue of debate for many years, and has not unexpectedly, created political complications. The mass conversions to Judaism, initiated by the Shavei Israel activists have been frowned upon by both the majority Christian population of Mizoram, as well as some sections of the Indian and Israeli Governments. Today, next to Aizawl’s many churches, lie a sizable number of Synagogues. Community centers have been established by the Shavei Israel to tech the Bnei Meneshe Jewish Tradition and Modern Hebrew.
A trip to the state capital, Aizawl, will leave one plainly confused as to whether they are in Tel Aviv or Mizoram – where shops carry names like Israel Stores and Zion Tailors. One hillside locality is called Bethlehem, another Salem. The names seem to have been plucked right out both the New and the Old Testaments, clearly reflecting the confusion of the Mizo society over their religious identity.
M
izoram must be among the last places on earth where you’d think there was a sizable Jewish population. Think again. The Jews of this remote region in India believe they are descendants of a legendary lost tribe of Israel that, according to the Old Testament, disappeared almost 3,000 years ago. For many among thousands of those living in Mizoram and Manipur, Israel is the Promised Land. According to an Israeli association formerly called Amishav — "My people return" — there are 1 million to 2 million Bnei Menashes living in the hilly regions of Burma and northeast India.
Let’s begin by explaining some of the Bible, as well as a small history lesson of the Mizo people. In Genesis, God promised Abraham that his descendants would become "a great nation," but the line begins with Jacob, Abraham's grandson. Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, does not have a tribe bearing his name. Instead, Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are blessed by Jacob as his own and each fathers a separate "tribe". The Menashes are descendants of Menasseh.
After an Assyrian invasion circa 722 B.C., Jewish tradition says 10 tribes from the northern part of the kingdom of Israel were enslaved in Assyria. Later the tribes fled Assyria and wandered through Afghanistan, Tibet and China. About 100 A.D. one group moved south from China and settled around northeast India and Burma. These Chin-Mizo-Kuki people, who speak Tibeto-Burmese dialects and resemble Mongols in appearance, are believed to be the Bnei Menashes. According to the local folklore, the Mizos' Jewish connection goes back more than 1,000 years to a remote cave in China where the scattered remnants of the lost Jewish tribe of Menashe were holed up. They called themselves Chhinlung, after the cave, and over the years they made their way south through Thailand, settling for good in the hill tracts of Mizoram and Manipur.
Coming back to the present day, in 1952, a local headman plunges into a trance, has a vision of sorts, and announces that God has told him that the Mizos are the lost tribe. A group of believers then set off for the Promised Land, under the notion that it might just lie around the corner. Some actually reach as far as Assam and Nagaland, but no one quite makes it to Israel. This unproductive attempt inspired one of the relatives of one of the travellers to investigate this entire claim.
This relative, Zaithanchhungi, a former teacher, went to Israel in 1983. There she met Eliyahu Avichayil, an Orthodox rabbi whose Amishav organization searches the world for descendants of the lost tribes. He showed immediate interest in her story, saying Jews had been scattered as far as China. He urged her to return to India to catalogue Mizo history. She came up with a list of perceptible similarities, including the construction of altars, the sacrifice of animals, funeral customs, marriage and divorce dealings, a belief in an all-powerful deity and the symbolic presence of the number seven in many festivities. There were also apparently other links in things like medical instruments and household practices. According Shavei Israel, India has more than a million people who are ethnically Bnei Menashes. Since they lived for centuries in northeast India, mingling with local people, many of their Jewish traditions became diluted. And after Welsh missionaries arrived in the region in 1894, nearly all Indian Bnei Menashes converted from their animistic beliefs to Christianity. More recently, DNA studies at the Central Forensic Institute in Calcutta conclude that while the tribe's males show no links to Israel, the females share a family relationship to the genetic profile of Middle Eastern people. The genetic disparity between the sexes might be explained by the marriage of a woman who came from the Middle East to a man of Indian ancestry. Additional genetic studies on the Indian tribes are ongoing at the University of Arizona and the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel.
The Jews in Mizoram have been trying to “return” to Israel for the past 50 years. After Zaithanchhungi’s initiatives, there were a spate of actual conversions, and over 400 men and women made the journey, and have been settled in Israel – mainly in the occupied territories. Zaithanchhungi, who was skeptical about Mizos belonging to Israel when she began her research, claimed she found that Mizo "prophets" like Chala of Buallawn village had declared way back in 1950 that Mizos were the lost tribes of Israel, the descendants of Menashe. It took them twenty five years before the Israeli government would acknowledge their claims of being one of the lost ten tribes of Israel. After being recognized, they were allowed to migrate to Israel and settle. In order to migrate they need to be accepted as Jewish and have to undergo a conversion ritual, a requirement fulfilled by visiting Rabbis. Which then brings up the question – If they were Jewish to begin with, why the need for conversion?
Israel does not acknowledge the Mizos as Jews, though the Interior Ministry said that 100 Mizo tribesmen would be allowed annually to enter the country as tourists. Is they were practitioners of the Jewish faith, they would be allowed to become immigrants under the Law of Return, which grants citizenship to all Jews. According to embassy statistics, over 2,000 Mizos have applied for Israeli visas over the last five years. An average of 30-50 Mizos actually make the trip each year. But in 2003, when the Interior Ministry decided to end the Bnei Menashe aliyah ("right of return" to Israel), Shavei Israel activists started intense lobbying through the chief rabbinate to get the Indian group accepted by Israel as one of the lost tribes. They succeeded when the March statement came from the chief rabbinate.
The topic has been an issue of debate for many years, and has not unexpectedly, created political complications. The mass conversions to Judaism, initiated by the Shavei Israel activists have been frowned upon by both the majority Christian population of Mizoram, as well as some sections of the Indian and Israeli Governments. Today, next to Aizawl’s many churches, lie a sizable number of Synagogues. Community centers have been established by the Shavei Israel to tech the Bnei Meneshe Jewish Tradition and Modern Hebrew.
A trip to the state capital, Aizawl, will leave one plainly confused as to whether they are in Tel Aviv or Mizoram – where shops carry names like Israel Stores and Zion Tailors. One hillside locality is called Bethlehem, another Salem. The names seem to have been plucked right out both the New and the Old Testaments, clearly reflecting the confusion of the Mizo society over their religious identity.
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