Operation Menashe: Meet Azriel Hmar, making aliyah from Mizoram
Shavei Israel is now intensively preparing for “Operation Menashe” – the next wave of Bnei Menashe aliyah from India – which will bring 899 people to Israel over the next 15 months. The first batch of immigrants is from Mizoram – it’s the first such operation from the Indian state with the second largest Bnei Menashe population in nearly 7 years. We present for you here the second in our series of profiles of Bnei Menashe families who will be arriving shortly in the Jewish state. Meet Azriel Hmar.
——–
Azriel Hmar awaits aliyah with his family
“’Dad, when will we move to Israel?’ This is a question our children have asked us hundreds of times. We always answer them with the prayer sung at the conclusion of both the Passover Seder and the Yom Kippur service: Leshana Haba’ah b’Yerusalyim – next year in Jerusalem.”
Azriel Hmar, 43, has been giving his children this response since 2006, when, on Shavei Israel’s behalf, he began assisting other Bnei Menashe from Mizoram to fulfill their dream of immigrating to Israel. “Three times, I helped bring groups of Bnei Menashe to Mumbai to await their flight to Israel,” he explains. “It was a very difficult time for me – to see the last group of Bnei Menashe at the Mumbai International Airport where an El Al jet was waiting for them just beyond the building before me. But my time had not come yet. I went home and eagerly awaited the next aliyah.”
Now it is finally his turn. Hmar, his wife Maayan and their two children, ninth and twelfth-graders Annie and Engel, are scheduled to make aliyah as part of Operation Menashe in the coming year. It will be the conclusion of a long journey that began thousands of years ago for the Bnei Menashe (descendants of the tribe of Manasseh, one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who were exiled by the Assyrian empire more than 2,700 years ago). Hmar’s personal journey began more recently, in 2003, when he was circumcised and started leading an observant Jewish life in his hometown in Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital city.
Hmar has been a key player in Shavei Israel’s activities with the Bnei Menashe in Mizoram. He is a regular at the community’s synagogue, even though it is quite a long walk on the far side of the city from his home. “It is our burning desire to practice our ancient customs that keeps me going to the synagogue. Our children never complain and always come too. My wife teaches the children on Shabbat about the parshat hashavua (the Torah portion of the week) and general topics about keeping a Jewish lifestyle,” he adds.
Hmar had hoped to make aliyah before now. But politics would intervene as the Israeli government froze Bnei Menashe immigration from India in 2007. After years of intensive lobbying by Shavei Israel, the Bnei Menashe aliyah finally resumed in late 2012. Now the government has approved the biggest group since Hmar first began working with Shavei Israel 7 years ago, with Hmar and his family on the list.
“We have been so excited to learn anything about the Jewish way of life, and about customs in Israel,” Hmar says. “So we run after any possible information we can gather. When our community in India has guests visiting from Israel, for example, we always attend the welcome meeting and our children perform a special musical number to greet the guests.”
The Hmars live in a city where, as Azriel describes it, “more than 99 percent of the population is not Jewish.” The Hmar children have no choice but to attend a non-Jewish school. “We always face rejection, complaints and criticism from our neighbors,” he says. “But we have never been discouraged. Our children proudly say they are Jewish.”
Hmar and his wife are both graduates of North Eastern Hills University (in the town of Shilong). Maayan holds a diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education. Azriel works in Education as well and served for many years as the chairman of the Institute of People’s Education in the Indian government. His wife’s job is through the same organization.
They are hoping that, upon arrival, they will find similar employment in Israel. Their children have even bigger dreams: Annie wants to become a doctor; Engel sees himself as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. Both can read and speak Hebrew well – thanks to training provided over many years by Shavei Israel to the Bnei Menashe in Mizoram.
But right now, they are just thinking of the privilege it will be to live in Israel. “It will be our life achievement to be in Jerusalem, to join the joyful dance of a new generation.”
We say this to Azriel Hmar and his family: we are anxiously waiting to welcome you, as you welcomed visitors into your home in India, as part of the remarkable dance that is the revitalized Jewish people in the home of your ancestors, the Land of Israel!
If you’d like to help sponsor the Hmar family – to ensure that they truly “make it” in Israel – please consider making a donation by visiting the Support Us page on our website.