India – The 7,200 members of the Bnei Menashe community of northeastern India ushered Hanukkah with joy and ceremony.
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“For most of their sojourn in exile, the Bnei Menashe did not observe Hanukkah nor were they aware of its existence until the modern era. This, due to a very simple reason: Their ancestors were exiled from the land of Israel some 560 years before the historical events which Hanukkah commemorates,” Shavei Israel Chairman and founder Michael Freund said.
“But as part of their return to the Jewish people, they have embraced the holiday and made it their own, celebrating it together with Jews everywhere. The Bnei Menashe still in India are anxiously awaiting a decision by Israel’s government to allow them to come home to the Jewish state, and we pray that their dream will soon be fulfilled.”
The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for “sons of Manasseh”) claim descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who were sent into exile by the Assyrian Empire more than 27 centuries ago. They live in India’s northeastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram.
Throughout their exile, the Bnei Menashe nonetheless continued to practice Judaism just as their ancestors did, including observing Shabbat, keeping kosher, celebrating the festivals and following the laws of family purity. And they continued to nourish the dream of one day returning to the land of their ancestors, the Land of Israel.
We are being gathered from the four corners of the Earth…wake up everyone it’s time!
This is such a farce. Why do legitimate news sources help perpetrate the fraud of these so-called bnei menashe? Does anyone not know their REAL history?
These people are tibeto-burmans who were converted from paganism to welsh pentacostalism around 1900. About 50 years later, one of their leaders called Chalianthanga had a dream in which he said G-d had directed him to return his people to their pre-xtian religion, Judaism. Prior to that moment, they had no tradition of being a lost tribe or having ANY connection to am yisroel (except maybe the xtian idiocy of being “grafted in”).
This is pure drek. If they convert, that’s one thing, but to believe this fairy tale that they are a lost tribe in nonsense built on nonsense