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[caption id="attachment_2828" align="alignright" width="75"] Rabbi Elisha Salas[/caption] Rabbi Salas, 53, was born in Chile and made aliyah to Israel in 1999. Salas now lives in Jerusalem and is married with four children. After graduating from Santiago University in Chile with two degrees in accounting and religious...

As Shavei Israel's delegate, Rabbi Elisha Salas to teach Torah, Jewish culture and Jewish tradition to Bnei Anousim Beginning this week, Rabbi Elisha Salas will be Shavei Israel’s new emissary to the Bnei Anousim, or crypto-Jews of North Portugal. Rabbi Salas, 53, was born in Chile and made aliyah to Israel in 1999. Salas now lives in Jerusalem and is married with four children. After graduating from Santiago University in Chile with two degrees in accounting and religious studies, Salas spent five years at the Beit Midrash Sepharadi in the Old City of Jerusalem. In addition to being an ordained rabbi, Salas is certified to practice as a "shochet" (kosher slaughterer). As Shavei Israel's emissary in Portugal, Rabbi Salas will teach Torah, Jewish culture and Jewish tradition to Bnei Anousim (whom historians refer to by the derogatory term "Marranos"), conducting a wide range of social and educational activities in the process. The rabbi’s work will focus mainly in the Belmonte community, where a number of Bnei Anousim returned to Judaism in recent decades and now live as a traditional, thriving Jewish community. Salas will also work with Bnei Anousim in other areas and towns throughout Portugal, primarily in the north.
Catching Up With China’s Kaifeng Jewish Community A year ago they were living by the bank of China’s Yellow River. Now, the seven yarmulke-and-tzitzit-clad young men, sitting in central Jerusalem and chatting about their lives, are Israel’s keenest yeshiva students.

  After Holocaust destroyed Polish Jewry, many Jews in Poland still hide or unaware of identity. Some now rediscovering roots, make trip to Israel. A group of 22 young Poles, the descendents of Jewish families who lived in Poland during the Holocaust, came to Israel in August for...

Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham, a resident of Shiloh and father of 12, has been appointed a new emissary to the Bnei Anusim community. For the first time since the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492, a descendant of Marrano Jewry who immigrated to Israel and received...

When Dina Samte sings, it’s hard to believe she’s only 17. Her expressive voice and expertise at the keyboard suggest a professional with years of training and performance experience. Even more remarkable is that not only is Dina entirely self-taught, but she was also born blind. Dina Samte is a member of Bnei Menashe, a group living in northeastern India which is descended from a Lost Tribe of Israel. She made aliyah in 2007 along with 230 other members of the community. Now living near Jerusalem, Dina credits Shavei Israel, which facilitated the process for her and her family, with “taking us in her wings like an eagle.” Dina was born in Churachandpur, a rural village in Manipur with limited facilities for teaching the blind. “I received no formal education,” she says. But her aptitude for music became quickly apparent. Her father bought her a small keyboard when she was just 9 years old. “I learned by myself without any help,” she says proudly.
No longer hidden – Polish-born Daniela Malec reclaims her Jewish roots in Israel Daniela Malec didn’t find out she was a Jew until she was a teenager. Her experience is not atypical for the “Hidden” Jews of Poland, whose parents or grandparents survived the Holocaust – and then sought to pass themselves off as Catholics to escape further persecution. “I thought everyone in Poland was Catholic,” the now 32-year-old Daniela says. “When I first found out I was Jewish, it was a shock. But I also found the news very exciting. I felt like I had a very rich sea to swim in and I wanted to find out more.” That “more” has led to a remarkable journey for Daniela – from a pre-teen in Poland with no Jewish knowledge and little way to research it (“we didn’t have Google back then”), to a leadership role in the Jewish community of Krakow, to her eventual immigration to Israel, where she now lives in Tel Aviv working as a consultant for an international organization, as a Polish translator, and as a Jewish genealogical consultant.   Daniela’s family grew up in Belarus and were fortunate to escape the war in the far eastern part of Russia, safe from the Nazis. When they returned, they chose to settle in Warsaw. Daniela’s mother married a Catholic man and set up a home that was essentially “not religious,” Daniela explains. “I knew we were different but I didn’t know how.”
More than 20 years ago, as an undergraduate at Princeton University, I found myself rooming with a bright, young religious Lutheran from Iowa. It was, to be sure, a somewhat unusual mix, and he never could quite comprehend why I was rushing off to prayer services every day or checking the ingredients on various food packages. But he was a cosmopolitan and studious sort, one whose desk was constantly piled high with books, and his curiosity about the world and impressive intelligence often made for some intriguing conversations.So when I asked him once how many Jews he thought lived in America, I was more than a little stunned when he insisted, in all seriousness, that "there must be at least 50 million Jews in this country." Asked to explain the basis for his calculation, my friend shrugged and told me, "Well, I grew up in a town in middle America, and our family doctor was Jewish, my dad's lawyer was Jewish and so was his accountant. And," he added," there are so many prominent Jews in various fields, that there simply must be 50 million or more of you guys out there." Only after I showed him a reference book which listed the world Jewish population at approximately 13 million, was he satisfied that his estimate had been wide of the mark. Hace más de 20 años, cuando era estudiante de la Universidad de Princeton, me encontré viviendo con un inteligente joven religioso luterano de Iowa. Esta, fue de seguro una mezcla un tanto inusual, y él nunca pudo comprender por qué corría todos los días a la plegaria o chequeaba los ingredientes de cada uno de los paquetes de comida. Pero era un hombre estudioso y cosmopolita, de esos que sus escritorios siempre se encuentran llenos de libros, y su curiosidad sobre el mundo y su inteligencia siempre llevaban a interesantes conversaciones.
When Tzvi Khaute landed at Tel Aviv for the first time, he wanted to kiss the earth. Alas, the modern airport was all tarmac and stone, so he kissed the first soil he came across, in a flowerpot. Thousands of diaspora Jews from around the world make aliyah — the migration to Israel — every year, but for Tzvi and his fellow Tibeto-Burmese immigrants from the far northeast of India, the journey was particular freighted with symbolism. They believe they are descendants of one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, sent into exile by the Assyrians almost 800 years before the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.
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