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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.
10 June, 2010
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.”
23 May, 2010
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.
21 May, 2010
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.
27 April, 2010
Hundreds of Bnei Menashe in northeastern India gathered together earlier this week for communal celebrations of Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) to mark Israel's 62nd birthday. The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for "sons of Manasseh") claim to be descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who were sent into exile by the Assyrian Empire more than 27 centuries ago.
23 April, 2010
When Yaakov Wang joined friends for dinner growing up in Kaifeng, China, he was the only one who did not order pork - a big deal in a country where that particular non-kosher dish is a cultural and culinary norm. But for Wang, a member of Kaifeng's small Jewish community, it was one of the only ways he knew to express his Jewish heritage. Jews have lived in Kaifeng, once one of the capitals of Imperial China, for over a thousand years, arriving originally as merchants from Persia or Iraq plying their trade along the fabled Silk Route. The community numbered as many as 5,000 at its peak in the Middle Ages, but has since dwindled to just several hundred descendants. The last synagogue closed 150 years ago. Today, the Jews of Kaifeng know relatively little about their heritage – but they continue to nourish the dream of returning to the land of their ancestors and immigrating to Israel. Wang was one of the lucky ones. With the help of Shavei Israel, he has been studying in Hebrew, along with six other young men from Kaifeng, at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in Israel's Jordan Valley.
08 April, 2010
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