Author:

At 27-years-old, Li Jing is the oldest of the five women. Li grew up in Kaifeng, but studied business English at university in Xi’an, a six-hour train ride away and home to the famous Terracotta Warriors....

The Bnei Anousim community in San Salvador held a festive Hanukah party last week with games and presents, plus a typical El Salvadoran food called "Pupuzas," made of cornmeal stuffed with mozzarella and black beans (kosher of course). We have pictures and video....

We’re back – with more incredible pictures of Hanukah celebrations around the Shavei Israel world. Last week we took you to India, Poland, Colombia, Chile and China. This week, we return to a few of those locations, plus add some new ones. The holiday may...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Pranab Mukherjee, President of India, during a session of Knesset on October 14, 2015. During his speech welcoming Mukherjee to Israel, Netanyahu’s emphasized the strong ties between the two countries by citing the Bnei Menashe immigrants who have moved from...

Each Rosh Chodesh (the first day of the new month on the Jewish calendar), Shavei Israel “Fellows” serving in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur lead special programs for the Bnei Menashe. The programs rotate among the 37 synagogues in different towns and villages across...

India has a rich Jewish history, with the main Jewish communities formerly residing primarily in Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta and Cochin. During the 1950s and 1960s, these communities nearly entirely immigrated to Israel. Shavei Israel works extensively with the Bnei Menashe who reside in...

The Lemba are an allegedly Jewish people in southern Africa, many living in modern day Zimbabwe, Malawi and South Africa. The community as a whole numbers close to 70,000. Although they speak the same Bantu languages as their African neighbors, some of the Lemba's religious...

[hana-flv-player video="https://shaveiisrael.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/poland1-eng.flv" width="383" height="288" description="" player="4" autoload="true" autoplay="false" loop="false" autorewind="true" /]...

When Yaakov Wang joined friends for dinner growing up in Kaifeng, China, he was the only one who did not order pork - a big deal in a country where that particular non-kosher dish is a cultural and culinary norm. But for Wang, a member of Kaifeng's small Jewish community, it was one of the only ways he knew to express his Jewish heritage. Jews have lived in Kaifeng, once one of the capitals of Imperial China, for over a thousand years, arriving originally as merchants from Persia or Iraq plying their trade along the fabled Silk Route. The community numbered as many as 5,000 at its peak in the Middle Ages, but has since dwindled to just several hundred descendants. The last synagogue closed 150 years ago. Today, the Jews of Kaifeng know relatively little about their heritage – but they continue to nourish the dream of returning to the land of their ancestors and immigrating to Israel. Wang was one of the lucky ones. With the help of Shavei Israel, he has been studying in Hebrew, along with six other young men from Kaifeng, at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in Israel's Jordan Valley.