[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[LauraleeBraswell]

I recently learned yesterday, that there were Asian Jews. Israel has also extended citizenship to black Jews. There are actually Black Jews not by conversion but by heritage! One thing about Judaism, is that wherever the tribes went the people made a tremendous effort to keep in the traditions of their culture. I think you could say, more than most cultures. Although there is of course, intermarriage which you can see from the diversity of Jewish people, they have managed to stay Jewish. Amazing.

[mjp]

lost tribe of Manasseh

[Tolik]

Was there any genetic research confirming this?

I have zero problem with mass conversion (regardless when it happened, maybe centuries ago), but the claim of a missing tribe can be confirmed now genetically I think.

[Tolik]

On another hand, if they are mishugina enough to want this, let'm be, who cares...

[Alouette]

Avraham Poraz of the Shinui Party decided to halt the Bnei Menashe aliyah, reportedly because he objected to the fact that they were all religiously-observant

Oh, the horror! Religious Jews moving to Israel! This must keep Poraz & co. awake all night.

[blam]

GGG Ping.

Amar: Bnei Menashe are descendants of ancient Israelites

By Yair Sheleg

Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided on Wednesday to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites.

Amar also decided to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization.

The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews (IFCJ), a group that raises money among evangelical Christians for Jewish causes, has undertaken to finance the process of converting the Bnei Menashe community and bringing them to Israel.

The Bnei Menashe community consists of close to 7,000 members of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribe, which lives in northeast India near the border of Myanmar (formally Burma). For generations they kept Jewish traditions, claiming to be descended from the tribe of Menashe, one of the ten lost Israeli tribes that were exiled by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C.E. and have since disappeared.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the tribe's members converted to Christianity, but about 30 years ago, some of the community began moving back to Judaism and set themselves apart from the rest of the tribe.

A number of researchers who visited the group over the years got the impression that their traditions are authentically Israelite in origin. Two genetic studies carried out over the past year have attempted to examine the issue. The studies compared DNA samples taken from several hundred members of the Kuki tribe to a DNA Jewish profile and to a general Middle Eastern profile.

A study performed by scientists in Kolkata concludes that while the masculine side of the genetic profile has no affiliation to the nation of Israel, the feminine side has a certain family relationship to the genetic profile of Middle Eastern people. The difference between the masculine and feminine sides may be explained by the marriage of one of the mothers of the tribe, who came from the Middle East, to a local native.

A second genetic study is still being conducted by the Technion in Haifa.

About 12 years ago, the Interior Ministry allocated an annual quota of 100 immigrants from the Bnei Menashe tribe. So far some 800 of them have immigrated and undergone conversion in Israel. The majority of them live in settlements in the territories, including 250 people in Gaza's Gush Katif.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. Jacobovici's "Lost Tribes" video has a segment on this group.

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[ElkGroveDan]

This is really going to bring some growth to the convenience store industry in Israel.

[Alouette]

FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.

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[Zionist Conspirator]

I'm not a big "lost tribes" person (for one thing, the "lost tribes" theory is sometimes used to try to legitimate chr*stianity as the "fulfillment" of Judaism), but I must admit to being jealous. All us rednecks here have been thumping the Bible for centuries and no one thinks of us as anythings but chr*stian anti-Semites.

But then again, if we ever were recognized as a "lost tribe" I'd be required to observe the entire Torah and I don't think I could handle that! If I could, I'd have converted a long time ago.

[Alexander Rubin]

Great news!