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Nissan Ben Avraham is the name of a Rabbi who was born in Palma, where he was baptized as is the custom in every good “Apostolic and Roman Catholic” home, and given the name Nicolas Aguilo. He came on Aliya 26 years ago because “if after 600 years I could not overcome the stigma of my being a Jew, why shouldn’t I be a Jew?” Yesterday, after an absence of 12 years , Nissan Ben Avraham came face to face with his city of birth to relate his personal story:  From Palma to Israel, at a one-day seminar organized by Shavei Israel on the components of the Chueta’s identity and their historical link with the Jewish people. “I was about ten years old when the children at school cursed me for being a Xueta. I then discovered that to be a Xueta was something awful even though I did not succeed in understanding why. I did not know if the meaning of that word was being a Jew or not. I did not understand the meaning of the Anous nor did I absorb the reaction of others to this phenomenon,” he explained.
15 December, 2010
Rabbi Shlomo Zelig Avrasin has been appointed as the new emissary of the Shavei Israel organization to the Subbotnik Jews of Russia. His mission, which will begin during Hanukkah, will focus primarily on the community of Vysoky in southern Russia and will include teaching Hebrew and Judaism, organizing prayer services and conducting a range of diverse educational activities for the Subbotnik Jewish youth.  
09 December, 2010
Was it tragedy or fate that brought Dr. Aaron Abraham and his family from India to Israel? Abraham was the family doctor for Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivki, the young couple who ran the Chabad House in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay). On November 26, 2008, Islamic terrorists attacked several sites in the city, including Chabad. When Abraham learned that they had murdered five people inside the Jewish center, including the Holtzbergs, he was devastated. Abraham's initial encounter with the Holtzbergs took place several years ago while he was working in a Mumbai hospital. Rabbi Holtzberg came in on a Friday with one of his boys who needed to be admitted. Abraham could see the rabbi was worried about leaving his son over Shabbat, “so I offered to stay with the child,” Abraham recalls. From that point forward, the Holtzbergs turned to Abraham for all of their family medical needs. Abraham then became a regular at the Holtzberg’s Shabbat table. For over five years, he walked up to an hour each way through the crowded Mumbai streets to celebrate the Sabbath with them each week. He participated in their Passover Seders, celebrated all the Jewish holidays, and learned Hebrew and Jewish law from the Holtzbergs. “We were very close,” Abraham says in fluent English. “We were never separated.” Indeed, after the attack, it was Abraham who had to take the couple to the morgue.
07 December, 2010
As a child growing up in the small Indian village of Churachandpur near the Burmese border, Tzvi Khaute didn't pay all that much attention to Jewish tradition. Like most kids, Tzvi was more interested in playing soccer with his friends and doing well at school. Nonetheless, even from a very young age, Tzvi always knew that by being Jewish he was different. "My grandfather, who was the chief priest of the village, told us that our living in India was only a sojourn and temporary, and that we Bnei Menashe are separate from the rest of the country - politically, socially and ethnically," Tzvi recalls. His family instilled within Tzvi a deep pride in their roots as Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for "the Children of Manasseh"), who trace their descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes which were exiled from the Land of Israel some 27 centuries ago by the Assyrian empire. As he grew up, Tzvi began to take more interest in his heritage. He took note of the rituals of the Bnei Menashe that he would later learn were in many ways parallel to modern Jewish observance. "Shabbat was always observed as a rest day from work," he says. "We never mixed milk and meat, and chicken and cattle were slaughtered by the community priest."(Spanish test) As a child growing up in the small Indian village of Churachandpur near the Burmese border, Tzvi Khaute didn't pay all that much attention to Jewish tradition. Like most kids, Tzvi was more interested in playing soccer with his friends and doing well at school.
06 December, 2010
Earlier  this  year,  a  momentous  event  took  place  in  the history of Iberian Jewry.  For the first time since the Spanish Inquisition, a descendant of forcibly  converted  Jews  returned  to  Spain  to  conduct  outreach work among his  fellow  B’nai  Anousim (Crypto-Jews*). Rabbi  Nissan  Ben-Avraham,  who  grew  up  on  the  island of Palma de Majorca, was dispatched to the  area by Shavei Israel, the organization that I chair, with the express  aim  of  strengthening  the  bonds  between  the Jewish  people  and  our  brethren  the  B’nai  Anousim. Since  his  arrival  in  the  region,  Rabbi  Ben-Avraham has been paying regular  visits to Barcelona,  Alicante, Seville  and  Palma, where  he  has  organized  a  variety of  Jewish  educational,  social  and  cultural  activities, which have drawn many B’nai Anousim closer to their  roots. It  might  sound  fanciful,  or  even  far-fetched,  but  it  is a  fact  that  more  than  five hundred years after  Spain's King  Ferdinand  and  Queen  Isabella  sought  to  erase all  vestiges  of  Jewish  life  on  the  Iberian  Peninsula,  a growing number of their victims’ descendants are now emerging  from  the  shadows,  seeking  to  reclaim  their eritage. The  B’nai  Anousim, Hebrew  for  those who were coerced, do not merely inhabit the pages of dusty old history books. They are a living, breathing phenom-enon…men and women from all  economic,  social  and cultural walks of life who are eager to forge anew their links with the Jewish people. And I believe we owe it to them as well as to their ancestors to extend a hand and to welcome them home.
24 November, 2010
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