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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 4:15 am Post subject: Israeli government to recognise the tribe of Manesseh.
It appears that a tribe of people on the Burma - Bangladesh border are going to be recognised by a group of Orthodox Jewish Rabbis as being descendents of the Tribe of Manessah which will allow them to be able to return to the modern nation of Israel.
- Arbi, and 6,000 fellow believers in India's north-east, have been bolstered by a recent declaration that their claim to be descended from one of the legendary Ten Lost Tribes of Israel - said to have been driven from the Middle East by invaders in the eighth century BC - is to be officially acknowledged. Last month, after a visit to the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, announced that a team of rabbinical judges would convert them to Orthodox Judaism. This would allow them to settle in Israel under the Law of Return, which grants the right of Israeli citizenship to Jews. "I was so glad," says Arbi, who wants to become a nurse in Israel. "It was like my dream became real."
Despite their ethnic Mongoloid appearance and Tibeto-Burman tongue, Arbi's family believe that their ancestors belonged to the tribe of Menasseh or Menashe, which travelled through Iran and Afghanistan to China.
According to tribal belief, all Mizos spring from a cave in China called Chhinlung. Their odyssey is said to have continued through Thailand and Burma before it came to these hills. Arbi and her co-believers call themselves Bnei Menashe - Children of Menashe.
Zai Zaithangchungi, a former teacher who has written a book about Israeli-Mizo links, said: "All Mizo people are children of Menashe but only a few have become Jews. It's no coincidence that before Christianity came here, the Mizos believed in a common ancestor called Manase or Manasia. They worshipped one God and, like the ancient Israelites, made animal sacrifices.
"Like the Jews, they held stars and the number seven in special reverence. Their marriage and burial practices were very similar." Circumcisions, for example, were performed using sharpened stones, as is ancient Hebrew custom.
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