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Bnei Menashe

Bnei Menashe
Total population
10,000[1][2]
Regions with significant populations
 India5,000[1]
 Israel5,000[1]
Languages
Various Kuki-Chin languages, Hebrew[citation needed]
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Mizo people, Kuki people, Indian

The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew: בני מנשה, "Children of Menasseh", known as the Shinlung in India[3]) is a community of Indian Jews from various Tibeto-Burmese[4] ethnic groups from the border of India and Burma who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel,[3]: 3  allegedly based on the Hmar belief in an ancestor named Manmasi.[5] Some of them have adopted Judaism.[3] The community has around 10,000 members.[1]

The movement began in 1951, when a tribal leader reported having a dream that his people's ancient homeland was Israel; some tribal members began embracing the idea that they were Jews.[3]: 7 [4] Before the movement's start, the community was largely a Christian one.[3]: 6  Members are from the Chin, Kuki, and Mizo ethnic groups amongst others.[3]: 3 

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 Manasseh.[6] In 2003–2004, DNA testing of several hundred male community members did not yield conclusive evidence of Middle Eastern ancestry. In 2005, a Kolkata-based study found evidence of maternally descended Near Eastern ancestry but suggested the findings were an artifact of thousands of years of intermarriage between peoples of the Near and Middle East.[7][8] In the early 21st century, Israel halted immigration by the Bnei Menashe; after a change in government, the immigration was allowed again. The chief rabbi of Israel[which?] ruled in 2005 that the Bnei Menashe were recognized as part of a lost tribe. After undergoing the process for formal conversion, they will be allowed aliyah (immigration).[citation needed]

  1. ^ a b c d "Bnei Menashe: community members demand aliyah, killed in violent India unrest". The Jerusalem Post. 5 May 2023.
  2. ^ Reback, Gedalyah. "3,000th Bnei Menashe touches down in Israel". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Weil, Shalva (1 July 2004). "Lost Israelites From the Indo-Burmese Borderlands: Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion Among the Shinlung or Bene Menasseh". The Anthropologist. 6 (3): 219–233. doi:10.1080/09720073.2004.11890858. ISSN 0972-0073. S2CID 54579157.
  4. ^ a b "India's 'Lost' Jews Seek a Place in Israel". NPR.org.
  5. ^ Dena, Lal (26 July 2003). "Kuki, Chin, Mizo – Hmar's Israelite Origin; Myth or Reality?". Manipur Online. Archived from the original on 2 February 2007. Retrieved 4 March 2007.
  6. ^ Fishbane, Matthew (19 February 2015). "Becoming Moses". Tablet Magazine. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  7. ^ Maity, Bhaswar; Sitalaximi, T; Trivedi, R; Kashyap, VK (2004). "Tracking the genetic imprints of lost Jewish tribes among the gene pool of Kuki-Chin-Mizo population of India". Genome Biology. 6 (1): P1. doi:10.1186/gb-2004-6-1-p1.
  8. ^ Asya Pereltsvaig (9 June 2010), Controversies surrounding Bnei Menashe, Languages of the World

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