After a 10-year delay, Yonatan Haokip gets married

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Shifra and Yonatan on their wedding day

Earlier this year, we shared with you the story of Yonatan Haokip, a young Bnei Menashe who has been single-handedly translating the entire book of Psalms into the Bnei Menashe language of Kuki. Now we have more news to share – and it reads well in every language: Yonatan has just gotten married. And this story is worthy of highlighting as more than just a joyous postscript to Yonatan’s already propitious output.

Yonatan met his wife-to-be, Shifra, in 2001 when the two studied together at the World ORT Jewish learning center in Mumbai, India. They fell in love and promised each other that they would wait until they were both able to make aliyah in order to marry in Israel.

Shifra was able to realize the first part of that dream in 2007 when she was among the last cohort of Bnei Menashe to be given permission to immigrate to Israel before the doors of aliyah were abruptly slammed shut. Those doors weren’t to re-open until late last year, when through Shavei Israel’s unceasing lobbying, immigration restarted and a new group of 274 Bnei Menashe arrived.

Yonatan followed Shifra in 2009, but not “officially.” With aliyah from India not possible at the time, he only received a tourist visa to visit Israel and was therefore not eligible for the assistance given to Bnei Menashe through government-sanctioned channels. Shifra and her family began learning Hebrew and went through a formal conversion process. Yonatan, meanwhile, studied at the Machon Meir yeshiva in Jerusalem. He also spent 2011 back in India as a Shavei Israel “Fellow” to the Bnei Menashe community.

But when the Bnei Menashe aliyah resumed at the end of 2012, Yonatan’s visa was finally upgraded to a full Temporary Resident permit. He moved with his fellow Bnei Menashe to the Shavei Israel-sponsored Givat Haviva absorption center and finished his own conversion to Judaism. He was now ready – at long last – to marry Shifra. Their love had remained strong for more than a decade.

“It’s rare but true,” Yonatan tells us. “We are in love for 10 years, which itself makes the wedding special to every Bnei Menashe who knows about our love and our relationship.”

The wedding took place in Migdal HaEmek, one of the two northern Israeli towns where the most recent group of Bnei Menashe immigrants has settled. As it was the first Bnei Menashe wedding to take place there, Yonatan reports that it was a star-studded affair, with guests including the mayor, vice mayor and city manager, as well as Shavei Israel’s coordinator for the Bnei Menashe in Israel, Tzvi Khaute. The wedding itself was conducted by the grandson of the late Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu.

Yonatan says that he and Shifra invited nearly every Kuki-speaking Bnei Menashe living in Israel to the wedding…and to judge by the photos, many made the effort to come. And why not? A love story like Yonatan’s and Shifra’s doesn’t happen every day. We congratulate Yonatan and Shfira and wish them a hearty mazel tov!

Here are a few pictures from the wedding: