IDF reaches out to Shavei Israel
Bnei Menashe soldiers in the IDF
For the first time, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces unit in charge of acclimatizing and integrating new immigrant soldiers into the army has reached out to Shavei Israel for help.
Danielle, the officer in charge of the Michve Alon army base in the north of Israel, contacted Shavei Israel’s Rabbi Hanoch Avitzedek, who heads up our outreach to the Bnei Menashe. Michve Alon provides assistance to new immigrants who need an extra boost – such as a preparatory language ulpan before joining an all-Hebrew speaking combat platoon – prior to starting their three-year mandatory military service.
“We are getting more and more Bnei Menashe soldiers,” Danielle told Rabbi Avitzedek. “Our job is to give them the best preparation and knowledge to improve themselves – not just to be better soldiers but to succeed in Israel in general.” Danielle explained that she felt it would be important for her and her staff “to receive some sort of training so that we can get to know the Bnei Menashe and to understand what their unique needs are.”
Danielle had planned an offsite training and teambuilding day for her 40-person crew. She wanted to dedicate the first four hours of the day to learning about the Bnei Menashe. Rabbi Avitzedek quickly agreed. He called up Esther Colney, a Bnei Menashe social worker and the first member of the community to graduate with a degree in the field. (Her brother Itzhak is also a licensed social worker now. We wrote about Esther here and Itzhak here.)
Together, Rabbi Avitzedek and Colney presented the Bnei Menashe’s history – how they arrived in India, what their status according to halacha (Jewish Law) is, how they maintained their Jewish identity over so many centuries in the Diaspora, and where the Bnei Menashe are in their aliyah process today. Rabbi Avitzedek and Colney also, crucially, explained how the mentality of the Bnei Menashe differs, often dramatically, from native-born Israelis, and what challenges and potential obstacles this presents.
“For example, the Bnei Menashe are very closed in expressing their feelings,” Rabbi Avitzedek says. This makes it hard for the Bnei Menashe’s IDF commanders to know how to fine-tune their initial army experience.
“If we ask a Bnei Menashe how things are going, they will always say, ‘OK, Thank G-d,’” Rabbi Avitzedek continues. “Expressing feelings directly or speaking badly about a parent or an elder in their culture is unacceptable. What this means for an officer is that the officer cannot rely on a Bnei Menashe’s facial expressions or his words to convey what his needs are.”
Rabbi Avitzedek gave an example where an extreme case of miscommunication led to a Bnei Menashe soldier falling into a dangerous state. “The soldier wasn’t sleeping, he’d stopped speaking, and he was psychologically in a bad place,” says Rabbi Avitzedek. “I knew him personally. He was a good kid. So I looked into it. It turned out his family lived in in the southern city of Sderot, but he was assigned to a base in the north, which was very far away for him. It was the right base for him in terms of what it offered, but because it was an ‘open base,’ that means you’re expected to sleep at home. He couldn’t get that far every night. So instead of telling his commander, he was sleeping in a public park nearby. But since in his culture you can’t criticize a parent or someone in charge, he couldn’t say ‘I’m not okay’ and ask for a change to his situation.”
The training which Danielle organized took place in the city of Acre in a space provided by the local Garin Torani, a group of young religious families that has “adopted” the Bnei Menashe who live in the city. The training was a success – enough so that a second and larger training with the entire staff of 300 on the Michve Alon base is planned for later this year. Danielle hopes to continue such trainings every few months. “For sure, we will be happy to do it!” Rabbi Avitzedek says.
Michve Alon is like “the tower of Babylon,” Rabbi Avitzedek points out. “There are soldiers from some 42 different countries who stay there for 4-5 months before heading off into their main army units.” There are currently about 30 Bnei Menashe in the army, but as the aliyah from India continues, those numbers will steadily increase, making this training and the connection between commanders like Danielle and Shavei Israel all the more important.
It’s not just the Bnei Menashe either. During one of the breaks between lectures, a soldier approached Rabbi Avitzedek. “It was very touching to hear about the Bnei Menashe,” one of them said. “But do you know anything about the Jews from Kaifeng?” It turned out that the soldier was in charge of one of the new recruits whom Shavei Israel helped make aliyah from China. Rabbi Avitzedek is also in charge of the Chinese Jewish department at Shavei Israel and was more than happy to share his insights on another expression of the IDF’s essential role in the ingathering of the exiles.
We don’t have any pictures from the training in Acre – IDF regulations forbid it – but the program is moving forward. The next training session is scheduled for November and will be on the Michve Alon base itself. Here are a few pictures of Bnei Menashe soldiers in uniform taken by Shavei’s Laura Ben David.
