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Dozens of Majorca´s "lost Jews", or Chuetas, whose ancestors were forcibly converted during the Spanish Inquisition, will gather this Friday for a seminar in Palma de Majorca exploring their Jewish roots.
Hadassah Magazine  One growing group seeking to come home to Israel is bringing with them an unexpected bonus: Anousim have a devotion to Judaism that many have lost. Maria Villaralla knew that her mother’s family had Jewish origins in Spain. “We practiced Jewish tradition as much as we knew,” she says. a Ayelet Corona has Jewish roots on both sides and says her mother’s family came from a village in the Mexican state of Michoacan where most of the inhabitants “don’t mix milk and meat, didn’t work on Saturday and leave pebbles on tombstones.”
The Jerusalem Post  Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) announced that he has decided to stop members of the Bnei Menashe group from coming to Israel. Over the last decade, some 800 members of the group from the Mizo tribe in northeastern India, which claims descent from a lost tribe of Israel, have immigrated, converted, and settled here.

Last year I spent Sabbath, as well as the week previous to it, in the precinct of Manipur in southeast India, not far from Bangladesh. I was on a mission, together with my distinguished colleagues Rabbi Eliyahu Bierenboim, a revered Rabbi in Israel; Rav Eliyahu Avichail;...

From The Jerusalem Report, 1993   Could Israel be inundated with millions of Africans and Asians claiming Jewish descent? As the first members of the Shinlung tribe, from the remote Indian-Burmese border, undergo conversion in Israel, the notion is becoming ever less absurd. And Israel´s minister of...

Bnei Menashe boy at Ben-Gurion Airport. It was a bright summer morning recently at Ben-Gurion International Airport outside of Tel Aviv when I found myself standing in the arrivals hall, waiting impatiently to witness a miracle.

50 members of the Bnei Menashe, a group claiming descent from a lost tribe of Israel, have arrived in Israel, Israel Radio reports. They arrived as tourists and will undergo conversion before being accepted as immigrants. "The Bnei Menashe have a remarkable thirst for Jewish...

I was born and raised in Imphal, the capital city of Manipur, India´s easternmost state and home to many Bnei Menashe. In the mid-1990s, Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail of Jerusalem opened the Amishav house in Imphal. It consists of a synagogue, two guest rooms, a mikvah...

I was born and raised in Imphal, the capital city of Manipur, India´s easternmost state and home to many Bnei Menashe. In the mid-1990s, Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail of Jerusalem opened the Amishav house in Imphal. It consists of a synagogue, two guest rooms, a mikvah (ritual...

This coming December when many people are thinking of skiing holidays or warm Florida vacations a small adventurous group of people will be setting out to visit one of the ten lost tribes. Tucked away in the Indian provinces of Manipur and Mizoram between Burma & Bangladesh are a group of people that have returned to Judaism after thousands of years. The Bnei Menashe believe that they are descended from the ancient tribe of Menashe. Evidence shows that after the exile of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 BCE, many Israelites made their way across the silk route ending up in China. The Shinlung tribe, as they were also called in China, eventually migrated to Burma and north east India, losing many of their Jewish customs along the way.
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