Now Where Did I Put That Tribe…?
On Wednesday, 30 March, Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar declared that a group of Shinlung people from the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur were descendants of the ancient Israelites — they are, by their belief, the lost tribe of Menasseh: the Bnei Menashe. Rabbi Amar is sending a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the long-lost Jews to orthodox Judaism, perhaps en masse, thus allowing six to seven thousand of these people to be “repatriated” to Israel. If the return of a lost tribe from the Assyrian Captivity three millennia ago isn’t weird enough for you, get this: the rabbinical mission and the “return” are being funded in large part by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an organisation alligned with the Christian Coalition, and perhaps funded on the order of 98-99% by evangelical Christian donors. (This figure is a little unreliable.) That seem a little sketchy to you?
As it turns out, the Bnei Menashe had been coming to Israel a few at a time (a monthly emmigration of around eighty people) until Interior Minister Avraham Poraz froze immigration in 2003. At that time, there were approximately 800 Bnei Menashe in Israel, the vast majority of them in settler colonies in the West Bank and Gaza. According to Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of the IFCJ, there has been a concern on the Israeli Left that the Bnei Menashe are being used simply as ‘fodder for the territories’. The Left may have good reason to be concerned.
Conservative ex-politico and sometimes blogger Michael Freund heads Shavei Israel, an organisation that specialises in ‘[reaching] out to “lost Jews”‘. Shavei has had an instrumental role in settling the Bnei Menashe. Freund told the Jerusalem Post ‘We tried to get them settled in Mitzpe Ramon and Dimona… We turned to the religious kibbutzim in the Galilee. But every single place inside the Green Line refused for economic reasons.’ Freund’s credibility, however, is a little suspect. Two weeks ago (days before Rabbi Amar’s declaration), Freund complained in his blog about the Israeli government’s plans to dismantle settlements — not because of his support for the settlers, but because it would show Hamas ‘that violence is the most effective way for them to achieve their objectives’. He describes Palestinians as a hostile enemy, and believes that the abandonment of Gaza would be the beginning of the collapse of the Jewish state. To bring things full circle, it turns out that Freund’s Shavei is supervised by the Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel. The self-same Chief Rabbinate whose 30 March declaration will make it possible to flood six to seven thousand of the Bnei Menashe into Gush Katif and other Gaza settlements, thrusting them, in the words of the New York Times, ‘onto the front lines of the Middle East conflict’. You see, once the Bnei Menashe are converted to Orthodox Judaism, there’s no way for the Interior Ministry to keep them out of Israel: They are guaranteed citizenship by the Law of Return.
The one strange outstanding piece of this puzzle is the role played by IFCJ and its Christian backers. Apparently, a great number of evangelical Christians believe that the reunification of the original tribes of Israel is a necessary prerequisite for the Second Coming. Similarly, many Orthodox Jews believe that this is a prerequisite for the First Coming. It isn’t clear, however, that the majority of Christian donors have apocalypse in mind: there’s a growing sentiment of pro-Semitism (for the right kind of Semites) on the Christian Right in America, and this may be nothing more than simple neighbourly charity.
From the tenor of this piece thus far, you can probably guess where I stand: The settlements shouldn’t be there. Israel shouldn’t be a Jewish state (though the Jews who live there now have every right to keep their homes — they can’t be blamed for the deeds of previous generations of Zionists). The Bnei Menashe shouldn’t be placed in a central position in the current conflict. However, I would stop short of calling this a conspiracy. In general, any conspiracy that can be uncovered by a little Googling is a pretty darned lousy conspiracy. Freund doesn’t appear to be making grabs for power — he seems to truly believes in what he’s doing. And Rabbi Amar, though he’s recommended the conversion of the remaining Beta Israel in Ethiopia, isn’t spotting lost tribes right and left (and many, many are the candidates). Shavei and the Rabbi are going around the Interior Ministry’s back, but their hands are above the table.
Unfortunately, sincere though the players may be, they’re not the ones who are running risks. There have been few reports of Palestinian reactions to the settlement. In general, one can assume that the non-settler populace of the area isn’t thrilled, but do they view the Bnei Menashe any different from the settler Israelis? Sadly, we have just as little information from the Bnei Menashe themselves. All accounts report that the Jews of Mizoram and Manipur are thrilled at the prospect of moving to Israel. But I have not yet seen any information indicating whether or not they know what’s in store for them on the wrong side of the Green Line.
Sources
The original post which got me interested in this story was from the Anthro-L listserv.
1 April article from Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/559669.html
2 April article from The Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1550821,00.html
6 April story from The Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1112668202719
25 December 2003 article from The New York Times: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IslamicNewsUpdates/message/3984