Video: Sefardi Chief Rabbi Goes To Meet Members Of "Lost Tribe" Of Jews From India

Approximately 1700 Bnei Menashe from India now live in Israel. Over the past few months, 274 have immigrated to Israel. Israel's Sefardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar went the absorption center where the new Bnei Menashe immigrants are housed today to meet them. Here's video:

 

Comments

[rebitzman]

The Cochin synagogue is beautiful - and has been in "operation" for centuries. That it is on "Jew Street" should be overlooked.................

[A. Nuran]

How long until Ashkenazim say they're not really Jews?

[Maskil]

Posted by: A. Nuran | March 13, 2013 at 09:59 AM

They all converted. They're in. It was thousands of years without nationalism to keep them from intermarrying. There was no opinion that they were halachically Jewish, just a lot of tradition with historical evidence that they descended from the Menasheh, with no opinion or obligation to absorb them or encourage their return (just some messianic Zionists that went on a personal mission with the hope that bringing back those decendands that could be traced, abeit Gentiles, would lead to the end of days).

[Atheodox Jew]

Bruchim Habaim!

Those kids are sweet. And the woman they interviewed is lovely and articulate. Nice to see that kind of gentle idealism and positive energy. I hope they succeed here.

[Reese]

Beautiful. Hopefully, these wonderfull people can handle the type of Israeli who has no filter from their brain to their mouth and spew whatever garbage they are thinking out.

[Maskil]

Beautiful. Hopefully, these wonderfull people can handle the type of Israeli who has no filter from their brain to their mouth and spew whatever garbage they are thinking out.

Posted by: Reese | March 13, 2013 at 12:33 PM

It will be tough for the adults, but the kids in the video will know no other way of life or culture, and a day will come when they think their kids are normal.

[Dave]

What wonderful news!

[Jake]

Shmarya
Thanks for bringing us this sweet video!

[Jacob Mendlovic]

Kol Hakavod to those who brought them to Israel.I wish these new Jewish immigrants Hatzlacha!

[Yosef ben Matitya]

looking forward to see the kaifeng community making it to israel!

[Dave]

Hi Yosef, If you are interested in teaching the Kaifeng community Hebrew or the siddur or zemirot, please go to Kulanu.org or Google "Sino-Judaic Institute". We could use all the help we can get.

[Neo-Conservaguy]

Beautiful - but, what's with the "Shema` Israel, HASHEM elohenu, HASHEM echad"? Why would these children have been taught to say HASHEM when saying the entire phrase? It's a silliness that many people advocate without even understanding the underlying issues.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Dave | March 13, 2013 at 08:33 PM

tks, dave. i don't know mandarin, nor can I read chinese script classic or simplified. otherwise, I would be honoured.

[Ben]

Interesting how Israeli Rabbanut works. They go to the far corners of the world to bring close tribal people of Amazon, Africa and India with dubious connections to Jewish people and are numbered in hundreds or somtimes thousands. At the same time they kick away Millions of people with known Jewish heritage, but who happen to be children of Jewish fathers. Go figure.

And I'm not against their quest to discover the lost tribes, but it does look strange under the circumstancies. I wonder whether or not this quest is a psychological compensation for distruction of millions of Jewish families.

[Maskil]

Hi Yosef, If you are interested in teaching the Kaifeng community Hebrew or the siddur or zemirot, please go to Kulanu.org or Google "Sino-Judaic Institute". We could use all the help we can get.

Posted by: Dave | March 13, 2013 at 08:33 PM

They assimilated over 300 years ago. But they, in contrast, descend from rabbinic Jewry, and thus do not fulfill the messianic lust of these Zionists who want to repatriate the descendants of the lost tribes from the Israelite kingdom so as to herald the end of days.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Ben | March 14, 2013 at 05:11 PM

u hit the nail on the head, ben.
indeed their treatment of many fsu olim is wicked and revolting.
imagine in the year 2525, a jew is looking back at the history of his people.
he will be told the story of the millions of jews persecuted and suffering under the soviet yoke in a tale reminescent of that of the israelites in the land of pharaoh.
then the jews prayed to the almighty, and after many years, the almighty heard their prayers and liberated the millions of brethern from the wicked soviet yoke.
little did god imagine -the story would go on- that after their arrival to israel, the rabbis, upon discovering that the millions -locked for a biblical 70 years in the extended gulag- came to israel without shtreimels and capotes, well, those rabbis started praying to god to take them out. calling them eirev rov and other insults.
placing ourselves in god's shoes, so to speak, i would imagine that god would be extremely upset given the circumstances.

[dd]

this ruth haopik does not look indian ,but some kind of asian . she is brainwashed to the core .
what's next ? bangladeshi, sri lankan or nepalese 'jews' coming out of nowhere .
has anyone heard about the 'lost tribe jews' of west papia or the indigenious xingu 'jews' of the amazon forest ? yeah, right. just kidding .the rabbi to the left is laughing his head off listening to these kids . so unusual. israel is getting more and more exotic .
they should go and bring to israel jews from lost tribes in finland or sweden .

[spacedout BT]

These families are part of the isolated tribal community of Mizoram, a jungle area between India and Myanmar. My question is have they been exposed to British missionaries for the past 150 years that fed them all kinds of misinformation?

[CtheSeraphsSeed]

That is pure comedy! In the very near future We will look back at this deliberate staged-show debacle and laugh. Every single convert is suffering an identity crisis. Oh well until then, it's nothing but unfunny fakery. These Actors=hypocrites and their foreign consorts as unwitting pawns of KhAzazel, his very own personal wild herd of scapegoats.