"Manmasseh" (Bnei Menashe) - "People of caves"

In the late 80s of the past century Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail and an American historian Hillel Halkin in search of the Lost Tribes in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram found a tribe, which had accepted Christianity. However, their folklore and rituals had distinct connection with Jewry. The tribe named itself Bnei Menashe. Their neighbors called them Shinlung or "Lu-Si", which meant "Ten Tribes". All this struck imagination, but left numerous questions.
Do the Shinlung tribes really come from Jews? Shinlung call themselves "the children of Manmasseh". "Manmasseh" sounds like "Menashe". ”The children of Manmasseh" means Bnei Menashe.
They believe in one G-d called "Y´wa” and call out his name when offering sacrifices. The name may be pronounced only at the time of the sacrifice and when making a serious oath. They are not allowed to write the name.
"There is a prayer that mentions among the places the name Ulam and also the name Geled. Both are mentioned in the Book of Chronicles in the area of the tribe of Menashe in Transjordan. Geled recalls the word Gilad, which is also across the Jordan”, - wrote Halkin.
One of the Bnei Menashe songs describes the Exodus from Egypt:
We must keep the Passover festival
Because we crossed the Red Sea on the dry land
At night we crossed with a fire
And by day with a cloud
Enemies pursued us with chariots
And the sea swallowed them up
And used them as food for the fish
And when we were thirsty
We received water from the rock

Village priests are considered to be descendants from the High Priest Aaron and are endowed with huge influence. Their cloth is handed down exclusively by right of succession, as that of Levites. They engaged in worship, care of the sick and illnesses, assisting in cases of hardship, and mainly in offering sacrifices. Priests blessed newborns and marriages, read burial services.
In case of illness the priest was called in to bless the sick person and to offer a sacrifice for his recovery. The priest would slaughter a goat or a chicken and smear its blood on the ear, back and legs of the sick person, while reciting verses from the Torah (Leviticus 8:24; 14:14).
Shinlung treated leprosy in the same way, as it had been practiced by ancient Jews. The priest sacrificed a bird in the field for him. Its wings were sacrificed and its feathers scattered in the wind. Shinlung also practiced levirate marriage. If there is no heir, a widow must marry her dead husband’s unmarried brother, and the firstborn son is named after the deceased brother.
Shinlung clothes looked similar to those of ancient Jews. Shinlung have a garment similar to the tallit which they consider holy and capable of vanquishing enemies. This garment, called ("Ponapam") has blue threads.
Like ancient Jews, Shinlung have a special place – refuge for unintentional killers. Here is a special pole in the chief’s yard. When someone has killed by accident, he flees to this pole, and cannot be harmed there. This is also announced by the chief.
As is the Jewish custom the mourning period lasts seven days. Mourners recount praises of the deceased and do not go out to work. Some fasts continue during the seven days.
They have also accepted the tradition of tithing. The priest receives a tenth of the fruit of the earth, and this is called tithe in their language.
What forced Bnei Menashe to search for refuge in the jungle of Indochina? Legends say that Bnei Menashe reached Tibet and after that moved to central China. They were taken prisoners by a "northern people" (Chinese?), had stayed in captivity for a long time, escaped, hided in caves (the explanation for a nickname "cave dwellers"), and then moved further to the jungle of Burma. It happened approximately in the 18th century C.E. In 1813 a Christian missionary Adoniram Judson came there with copies of the Bible and induced them to convert to Christianity.
Hillel Halkin believed that during millennia of nomadic life in Southeast Asia, the Jewish Tribes had mixed up with local natives and got their distinctive features.
Do Shinlung identify themselves as Jews? Apparently, yes, but not all of them. Elders of the tribes kept the knowledge and transferred it from generation to generation. They accepted Christianity from missionaries not as a new doctrine, but as an embodiment of their own concepts.
What is the number of Shinlung people? It is difficult to tell, approximately 350 thousand. About five thousand persons in Mizoram and Manipur follow Jewish traditions.

Key, onions and two heads...

The return to Judaism of the Shinlun people happened mysteriously and without any influence from the outside. By the end of the XIX century they were already Christian for about a hundred years. They did not keep any contacts with the Jewish world.
In 1954, a resident of a small village in Mizoram told the local priest that his wife had a vision of returning to the "House of Israel." In the dream were present, keys, onions and two heads. The simple peasant caused a stir in the community. The elders decided that the keys symbolize a return to the country of Israel, the onion has traditionally been associated with the Torah, and the two heads - with tribes Ephraim and Menashe.
Confused leaders of Shinlun sent their envoys to the Jewish community of Bombay, and it became clear that the descendants of Menashe did not observe Jewish holidays, or the Jewish day of rest, and believed in the "wrong God”. Ten years before Rabbi Avihaylya, a Jewish community was formed in Mizoram and Manipur. Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail and Hillel Halkin accelerated process of returning the Shinlung to Judaism. A Jewish center was created in Mizoram - with a synagogue and publishing house where Mizo-English-Hebrew dictionaries, prayer books and descriptions of the Jewish holidays were translated and published. More and more Shinlung people began to make an aliya to Israel.
But the road home was long. Bnei Menashe were not officially recognized as Jews and therefore were denied the right to emigrate to Israel. Avihaylyu had to not only awake the Shinlun interest in Judaism, but also to persuade them to go through the Conversion process, according to all the laws of orthodox Judaism. Rabbi Avichail turned to of rabbis in Israel and to the settlement council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and convinced them to create classes for conversion and studying a Hebrew for Bnei Menashe. the Settlement council reacted with enthusiasm to this idea, and the first groups of "hindus" started to arrive soon in the "territories" (in Kiryt-Arba and Shavei-Shomron near Netania and other settlements).
They amazed Israelis with their modesty, indiscriminateness and affability. Much was alien to them, None of them questioned their own Jewishness. "They have a lot of desire to be real Jews and to live in Israel ", -said the director of the department of absorption, local settlement council, Baruch Lior spoke. Rivka Bondi, the curator of the center of absorption in Shavei-Shomron, agreed with him. "They believe that this is their way, and any emerging problems are perceived obstacles in this way, something normal and inevitable ".

The meeting with Israel

Michael Menashe
(Author photo)                                                    There were about twenty people in the study centre in Shavei Shomron. There was elderly pair from the USA and Bnei Menashe. There were several men about forty, everyone else were youth. They are similar to the inhabitants of Indochina: short, dark skinned, low cheekbones, and narrow eyes.
"I know, how difficult it is for them, - Michael, who lived in the settlement from the beginning of 90s, said me about the newcomers. - Most surprising, that so many Israelis consider themselves Jews, though they are spiritually far from Judaism, and do not observe any Jewish Laws."
It is difficult to say, what is more pronounced in the people of Bnei Menashe: their convictions in their righteousness or their natural softness and restraint, typical of inhabitants of Hindustan.
"Some of the ones who passed the giyur with me said, that they didn’t understand, what was being asked of them. They cried. What helped me most was that the rabbi, with whom I studied, respected our way of thinking. He did not impose his opinion on us, but tried to convince us".
It was very important for Michael, as well as his companions, that they were settled in Judea and Samaria, in a rural, rather than urban setting. "For us, nature is a part of a life, and I would like for it to remain that way", - said Michael.
In ten years of living in Israel, Michael served in the army and passed a course in computer repair. He visited his homeland, and brought his parents back to Israel. Memories of his previous life, do not make him feel nostalgic.
According to him, relations between people in his village seen to him patriarchal, but at the same time sincere and good-natured.

"People of the mountains" and "people of the valley"

In Mizoram, an East Indian province on the border with Burma, Michael belonged to the "people of mountains". Below, in Manipur, lived the "people of the valley". The two groups did not maintain much communication.
Michael was born in to a family which by this time already considered itself Jewish. But it belonged to a minority. The majority of the "people of the mountains" in Mizoram were formally considered Christians, however, this fact did not prevent them from practicing pagan rituals in which many Jewish themes and ideas were intertwined.
Michael knew that the "people of the valley" in Manipur had a sacred day during which any regular mundane activity was strictly forbidden. In due course Sunday became that day. When they buried their relatives, they burnt out the ground and consecrated it similar to what is said in the Torah.
"People of mountains" in Mizoram didn’t have this custom, but they had a central holiday during which it was forbidden to eat usual rice - the main food in those places. Instead of this they used a special sort of rice which was not used in a daily life. It was crushed in a special way, and then baked into thin flat cakes. They called this holiday Zawankut, and it began in the spring. No neighboring tribes or even the "people of the valley" had such a holiday.
There was also one more custom. On the eighth day after birth a boy was subjected to a strange ritual - his ear was pierced. Michael understood origin of this ritual when he learned about a Jewish ceremony of circumcision. "The tribe did not have the necessary means to conduct a safe circumcision, so they found a symbolical replacement for it", - he said.
In Manipur, the "people of the valley" do not have priests. They are Christianized and are influenced more by the Indian traditions.
Michael didn’t have any doubts that he, as well as his tribe, belongs to the Jews. When he was born (in the beginning of 70s - we did not have documents, because nobody was interested in exact dates"), his ear was pierced an ear. There was neither a synagogue, nor a Jewish center there at that time. The first synagogue appeared when Michael was six or seven years old.
Michael remembers that his father adored history and told him many stories. The stories were mainly associated with the Jews, their ancestors, and the Torah. When he grew up, his father sent him to the synagogue to work as a hazan. Here for the first time the idea to make a trip to Israel and, possibly, repatriation came to Michael.
By this time, the process of transition into Judaism became more intensive. The break with their pseudo-Christian roots was not sharp or painful.
At first a family which began returning to Jewry, transferred the day of rest from Sunday to Saturday and started to observe the Jewish holidays. However, the family was not forced to abandon the Christian holidays, and all these traditions coexisted quite happily with each other. Moreover, considering themselves Jews, Bnei Menashe continued to believe in Christ and read the New Testament.
Many people remained at this intermediate stage, and this dualism was considered neither shameful, nor strange.
Others nevertheless on the way to Judaism went further and eventually, completely abandoned all Christian traditions.
Michael didn’t remember any animosities or discrimination."Both children and adults argued with each other, but there were never fights or violence. Though we were not very peaceful or tolerant when it came to other people, to each other we were very loving", - recollected Michael. If quarrels nevertheless happened, leaders of clans tried to reconcile them through a traditional Eastern meal.
In "theological disputes", continued Michael, neither sides showed much eagerness, and the disputes themselves were childish and naive.
"Our people’s understanding of theology was extraordinary simplistic. To us, God was a big bearded old man; we believed that once a week he rested somewhere "there", in the sky. The only difference was that some people believed that he rested on Saturday, and others - on Sunday", - Michael recollected with a smile.
It took a while to erase from the people’s minds the old concepts, and to give new meaning to the name of God. When twenty two years ago Michael arrived in Israel, his understanding of Judaism still remained vague and indistinct.
The one thing that Michael felt firmly and did not doubt, was that he arrived here not as a visitor and not as a tourist, but as a person who was once stripped of his inheritance, and now had all the rights to get it back.
He is glad that he lives in a small settlement, and that this settlement is on the territory which belonged once to Menashe tribe. "It is more sutting to name our settlement Shavei-Menashe ("Menashe Coming Back") than Shavei Shomron", - Michael Menashe said.
There is something here, in Shavei Shomron, which fills him with confidence and calmness. This place, a small settlement between hotbeds of terror - Kalkilya and Nablus, - is his home. It is the home to which he returned with his brethren from Mizoram after almost three thousand years of wandering, - the House of Menashe.