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Shavei profile: Two Bnei Menashe find their place in the IDF as “lone soldiers”

[caption id="attachment_4504" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="Tamir Baite, the first Bnei Menashe lone soldier in 2006"][/caption] Immigrating to Israel is challenging at any time. Now, try doing it without your parents and then jumping straight into the Israel Defense Forces. Such brave new citizens are known as “lone soldiers.” And now the army has two more – from the Bnei Menashe community of India. Binyamin Vaiphei and Sagi Haokip are following in the footsteps of Tamir Baite, the first Bnei Menashe lone soldier who served in 2006 (see picture). The two newcomers arrived in Israel in 2007 along with 232 other Bnei Menashe who were brought on aliyah by Shavei Israel. Due to limits imposed on the number of Bnei Menashe immigrants allowed in at the time, their families were forced to stay behind. After an initial period of acclimatization, during which they studied Hebrew and Judaism, the two young men were set up in apartments by Shavei Israel – Vaiphei in a Jerusalem suburb and Haokip in the Galilee town of Ma’alot. They subsequently joined the IDF and were drafted into the elite Golani unit.