Itzkhak Colney trains to become the first Bnei Menashe social worker
As with immigrant communities everywhere, the 1,700 Bnei Menashe who have been privileged to make aliyah to Israel are invariably in need of social services. These include help with finding a job, choosing a school for their children, learning a new language, and navigating the unfamiliar Israeli bureaucracy. While there are Israeli social workers who work with the Bnei Menashe – Jews living in northeastern India who are descended from one of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel – none come from the community itself or speak its native languages of Mizo and Kuki.
That’s where Itzkhak Colney comes in. Colney is currently training to become the first Bnei Menashe social worker, thanks to a scholarship from Shavei Israel. Together with his sister Esther and a third Bnei Menashe named Sonia Manlun, Colney is studying at the Safed Academic College in Israel’s northern Galilee.
Colney, 29, sees his role as providing support to the Bnei Menashe, both materially – in terms of navigating the myriad of government services available – as well as spiritually – mixing Jewish content into his social work outreach.
This sensitivity to the role of Jewish tradition in the absorption process is not surprising: after his initial aliyah in 2005, Colney returned to the Indian state of Mizoram to serve as a Shavei Israel emissary for a year. It was during this time, in fact, that he met his wife Diana. The couple and their two children (ages 5 and 3) now live with Diana’s parents near Jerusalem.
During his studies, however, Colney is only home on the weekends. The rest of the time, he lives in a hostel in Safed along with a melting pot of Israelis, including Druze and immigrants from Ethiopia. From this unlikely mix, Colney has honed his cooking skills beyond the culinary mainstays of chipatis and samosas he learned back home. “I now make rice and couscous,” Colney says with a twinkle in his eye.
His studies, however, have proven slightly more difficult than the kitchen. While he says his Hebrew is “good,” reading in a new language has been a challenge. Shavei Israel has provided Colney with a Hebrew tutor this past year, which has been “a great help,” he says.
Language difficulties are also one of the biggest issues for the Bnei Menashe community in general, and it’s one where Colney intends to apply his expertise as a social worker. The older generation of Bnei Menashe finds it difficult to learn Hebrew, Colney explains, while their children no longer speak Mizo and Kuki fluently. “This creates a real generation gap. There can be real tension.”
Money is a problem as well. While Colney says the Bnei Menashe here are “not poor – they often work 8 hours a day,” if they don’t know how to manage their money properly, “there can be a danger.”
Colney’s own father, thankfully, has a job – guarding the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron – but other Bnei Menashe are still searching for work. “Everything is different in Israel compared with India,” Colney says. “There is different technology, even how you work.” Learning practical skills will be a key part of Colney’s work with the community.
Colney’s personal journey to Judaism began at the age of nine, when his parents had Colney circumcised. From that day forward, the family lived a Jewish life. “We began to keep kosher and observe the Sabbath and Jewish holidays,” he says. He put on a kippa (skullcap) and began to learn the Hebrew Bible.
It wasn’t easy. “At that time, there was no Shavei Israel in India,” Colney says, so the family had to teach themselves. “My mother read us the Bible, translated into Mizo. That’s where we learned the stories of our people, the Jews.” Colney and his family underwent a formal conversion after their arrival in Israel.
Colney has integrated well in the Jewish state. He spent two years studying at the Nahalat Zvi yeshiva in Jerusalem, then joined the Israel Defense Forces for three years, serving in an infantry unit in Hebron and the Golan Heights. A special army program enabled Colney to finish high school and receive his matriculation degree. Colney says he considered signing on for more time but “because I have only a sister and no brother, I didn’t want to worry my parents. If I had a brother, though, my dream would have been to become an officer,” like fellow Bnei Menashe Shalem Gin who achieved the rank in February, 2011.
Colney has another dream: he would like to build websites. But not just any sites; rather those that combine his social work expertise with the Internet. He’s already created his first – shipur.net (shipur means “improvement” in Hebrew) – which provides a wealth of material on dealing with government offices, along with Jewish content written by Shavei Israel staff member Tzvi Khaute – all in Mizo. There are phone numbers, addresses, hours of operation. It’s social work meets social media. Colney should know: he already has 383 friends on Facebook.
Colney just finished his first year at the college in Safed and has another two to go, at which point he will become an inseparable part of the Bnei Menashe immigrant absorption process. Once the remaining 7,232 Bnei Menashe still in India are able to move to Israel, Colney’s job will be that much more critical. With G-d’s help, Colney says, that day will soon be here.
Link to Colney’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/itzkhakcolney