| |
November - December 2000 The Sabbath Sentinel
Lost Tribe-Members Seek a Return to Israel
by Allan Phillips
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. Israeli authorities fear that such an immigration
would open the floodgates for millions of people around
the world-anyone who might claim a perhaps mythical link
to one of the 10 tribes which disappeared in the 8th
century BC.
This particular 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 tribes taken into
captivity 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, Rabbi Shmuel Halpert (an ultra-orthodox member
of the committee) said, "If you bring one, think how many
non-Jews will come." He stated that there were millions of
people of Spanish origin-in Spain, Portugal and Latin America-who
were descendants of Jews that were 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 yearlong conversion process, as their
claims to being Jewish are not recognized.
Rabbi Avihail declared, "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.
TSS
November - December 2000 The Sabbath Sentinel
|