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I pointed out to Eleutheria5 that years ago I had read an article (can't find it now) that pointed out that these people do not have Israelite genes (as opposed to the Beni Israeli from the west coast of India) and were animists and in fact head-hunter before they were converted to pentecostalism and then one guy 'discovered' that they were Jewish.

I tried googling this and found arguments for and against, but I have my doubts -- other Jews separated from the mainstream of Judaism for centuries like the East AFrican (not ethiopian, but further south) or Bukharan Jews still retained many of their original beliefs and did not become animists -- I doubt any Israelite people would degenerate like that. The second is genetics -- to Bellflower's point, the Bukharan "jews" are technically descended from the Northern tribes and more to the point, the Northern tribespeople would still have semitic genes and the Cohen gene would be expected to be present -- that is lacking (iirc) amongst the Bnei Menashe

ChicagoHebrew is correct both about this and about the fact that many of today's Jews would have blood from the northern tribes and not all of the northern tribes were exiled (as he pointed out the Assyrians only exiled about 27,000 people)

That being said -- the people from the North-East of India are hard-working and honest folks and will be an asset to Israel even if they are not genetically Israelite

In fact, the Mizo people are Tibeto-Burman by race/ethnicity -- you can see that clearly in their features. Whereas in comparison look at the verified jews from Western India, the Bnei Israeli community that intermingled with Marathas and Konkanis yet retained some traces of their Semitic features and traditions (besides of course their religion)

These are supposed to have left Israel before the time of the Maccabees when the Judeans were under threat by the Hellenizers (read the books of Maccabees for reference). They look like Marathas and speak Marathi but maintained Jewish diets and circumcision and Sabbath