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As Israelis mark both Memorial and Independence Days, descendents of a lost tribe of Israel in northern India will gather to commemorate the IDF's fallen soldiers and celebrate Israel's rebirth.  The B'nei Menashe will have special reason to rejoice this year, as a member of their community will be honored as one of Israel's outstanding soldiers at an official ceremony in Jerusalem, presided over by Israeli President Moshe Katzav.
Nearly two dozen Bnai Anousim from Spain, Portugal and Italy arrived in Israel Wednesday for a week-long solidarity visit organized on their behalf by the Shavei Israel organization. Bnai Anousim is the Hebrew term for people whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the time of the Inquisition. Historians have often referred to them as "crypto-Jews" or by the derogatory term "Marranos." Many continued to practice Judaism in secret over the centuries.
During a clash with Hizbullah gunmen in Lebanon, St.-Sgt. Avi Hangshing heard a large explosion and hit the dirt for cover. As the two sides traded heavy fire, he gradually lost his hearing and his balance. Released from the army for medical treatment last week, Hangshing said he still walked "like a drunk person." The Lebanon skirmish might have been the most debilitating battle Hangshing has fought, but it was hardly his first. Before Hangshing could even join the IDF, he had to battle to be allowed into the country.
The Jerusalem Post For the past nine months, Ruti Joram and her four young children have been anxiously waiting to make aliya. It is not family matters which are holding them back, nor does the situation in the Middle East deter them from seeking to fulfill their dream. Since last year, their bags have been packed, and all their other possessions were either sold or given away. They have said the requisite good-byes to family and friends, neighbors and co-workers, and prepared themselves to build new lives in the Jewish state.
Arutz 7 Israel National News The Ministry of Absorption is holding back the immigration of 218 Jews from India whose bags have been packed and ready to go for more than nine months, according to Shavei Israel. More than nine months after they sold their homes and all their belongings in order to immigrate to Israel, over 200 Jews from India are still stuck in the country of their birth in the wake of Absorption Minister Ze’ev Boim’s refusal to allow their arrival.
Europpean Jewish Press A new exhibition documenting the lives and struggles of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews has opened in Tiberias.  The exhibition will shed a light on the little-known narrative of the Bnei Anusim from the Iberian Peninsula who were forced to embrace Christianity.
The Jerusalem Post The Bnei Menashe want to come home to Israel. Their community of about 7,000 Indians residing primarily in the states of Mizoram and Manipur, believe they are descendents of one of the lost tribes of Israel. A total of 218 community members completed the conversion process, sold their belongings and began to wait. That was more than nine months ago.
Hundreds of miles south of Moscow, in the heart of the Russian hinterland, lies one of the most compelling testimonies to the power and the appeal of Jewish identity.
It is here, in the small snow-drenched town of Vysoki, that some of the last remaining members of a group known as the Subbotniks cling tenaciously, though somewhat tenuously, to the religion of Moses and Israel. Though their origins are clouded in mystery, the Subbotniks, and all that they represent, demand our attention and our help. Over two centuries ago, a large group of Russian peasants in the Voronezh region decided to convert to Judaism, part of what historians describe as an inexplicable wave of "Judaizing sects" that appeared on the country's theological scene. They came to be known as "Subbotniks," thanks to their observance of the Subbot, or Sabbath, of the Jews. While it is unclear precisely why they chose to become Jews, one thing is certain: It took a whole lot of guts to defy the anti-Semitism and oppressive discrimination of Czarist Russia, which was hardly known as a bastion of philo-Semitism. The Jerusalem Post  
For the first time, three young Bnai Anousim from Brazil are visiting Israel this week in a joint undertaking between the Taglit/Birthright program and the Shavei Israel organization.  Sara Rachel Kadosh da Fonseca, Oziane Pinheiro Braga and Jefferson Higino are here together with dozens of young Brazilian Jews for a ten-day visit in which they will travel around the country, see the Land and its sites and spend a Shabbat in Jerusalem.
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