A day earlier, Palestinians had shot two Israelis in an ambush a few miles up the road from the settlement. At another settlement in the area, Kiryat Arba, Manipur native Odelia Khongsai explains why she chose to leave India two years ago, where she had family and a good job. But the 71 immigrants, who arrived in June with the firm conviction that they were descended from one of the biblical lost tribes of Israel, feel they have completed a spiritual homecoming. Palian, a year-old widower who left a lush rice farm and brought his three children with him from the Bnei Menashe community in northeastern India.
That could affect communities like the Bnei Menashe. The married women cover their hair with knitted caps and wear long skirts, as they did in India.
They live a spartan existence in mobile homes, with much of their day devoted to language lessons. Some stay in the nearby settlement of Enav and commute to their classes in an armored bus.
They receive a monthly stipend from Amishav, an Israeli group that seeks out "lost Jews" and has been bringing in immigrants from Bnei Menashe for more than a decade.
But the immigrants do not yet have jobs, and with no sizable Israeli towns close by, they meet few Israelis and leave the small settlements infrequently.
One young woman replied, "I want to become a doctor. Most of the immigrants have recently completed a religion course and are now recognized as Jewish by the state, permitting them to become citizens.
In the coming months, most are expected to leave Shavei Shomron, but they are likely to land in other settlements where they have relatives or friends. Michael Menashe, who was among the early arrivals from India in , now works with the new Indian immigrants and is a shining example of successful assimilation. His Hebrew is fluent. He has served in the military, worked as a computer technician and married an American immigrant to Israel. He is one of 11 siblings, 10 of whom have now immigrated.
Menashe, But we don't have a choice. This is where we want to be. Freund said he would gladly settle the immigrants wherever they could be accommodated. They gravitate to settlements because housing is cheaper, and the tightly knit settlement communities are prepared to absorb the newcomers. Freund acknowledges that his group wants immigrants for demographic reasons.
But he also insists that the commitment of the Bnei Menashe to Judaism is deep-rooted and predated plans to immigrate to Israel. Larue, King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg. Page Top. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of country or topic discussed in the article. This constitutes 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section of the US Copyright Law.
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If you are the copyright owner and would like this content removed from factsanddetails. Twelve Tribes mosaic in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. In B. They were "lost" to history.
The tribes of Benjamin and Judah remained, maintaining Jerusalem as their capital. Most Jews are believed to be descended from these tribes. Other writers assert they were never lost to begin with, that they returned to live with the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. Southern Africa : Genetic testing has determined that men of the Lemba, a black, Bantu-speaking people, have the Y chromosome of the Jewish priestly class, the Cohanim. It is rare among non-Jews. The Lemba observe kosher-like dietary laws and seem more Middle Eastern than African.
They may have come from Yemen. Doubtless the total number carried away was significant, for Samaria never recovered as a power from the expulsion and never again became the dominant force that the northern kingdom of Israel had been.
It may be that those taken captive by the Assyrians numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Today those areas are associated with eastern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and the Armenian region of eastern Turkey.
How this portion escaped, and when, are not known. Perhaps the fall of Assyria afforded the captives the opportunity to escape.
In the period from to B. This was the end of the Assyrian empire. Subsequently, some of the peoples held captive by Assyria migrated. This migration seems to have been under way by the early part of the sixth century B. Yea, the more part of all the tribes have been led away. In verses 40 through 47 of chapter 13 we read:. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a land further distant, where the human race had never dwelt, there at least to keep their statutes which they had not kept in their own land.
And they entered by the narrow passages of the river Euphrates. For the Most High then wrought wonders for them, and stayed the springs of the River until they were passed over.
And through that country there was a great way to go, a journey of a year and a half; and that region was called Arzareth. There they have dwelt until the last times. Meanwhile, some alien populations — Cutha, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim — were brought in to settle the northern kingdom, and those groups all ended up assimilating with each other and with the Israelites who remained in the north.
In BCE the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar attacked the southern kingdom, and exiled much of that population to Babylon. Though many lost their Israelite identity in Babylon, plenty of them retained their connection to their heritage, and eventually returned to Israel and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem.
By that point the northern kingdom was lost. According to Parfitt, the lost tribes all assimilated into the groups around them, and eventually disappeared.
At first, the people of Judah who returned to their land may have wondered about being united with the other tribes. The prophet Ezekiel even predicted that God would reunite the northern and southern kingdoms some time in the future. He argues that though these people may identify as Jews, and sometimes even approximate Jewish practices such as observing Shabbat, and only eating meat that has been slaughtered in a specific way, their claims are based on legends, not lineage.
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