Paomang Issachar Haokip loves to sing. The 43-year-old Bnei Menashe from the tiny village of Mateyang in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur served as the chazan (cantor) for the community’s synagogue for ten years. Now he is singing a new song - of aliyah....
We continue our series of profiles of Bnei Menashe who have made aliyah in the past two years with Shavei Israel’s help. Elitzur Haokip made aliyah in November 2012 after two long careers, first in the Indian National Army and then at the "All India...
The Bnei Menashe aliyah is back! With G-d’s help, Shavei Israel will be bringing 247 new immigrants from northeastern India during the month of November. This will bring the total number of Bnei Menashe who have returned to Zion in 2014 to 660, the most...
During the month of July, thirty Bnei Menashe couples were married at the Kfar Hasidim absorption center in Israel. For most of the happy brides and grooms, it was not their first wedding. But, having recently rejoined the Jewish people, it was the first ceremony...
Yaakov Misao’s grandfather may have been the first Bnei Menashe to set foot in the Holy Land in nearly 2,700 years when he visited Israel as part of the British Navy during World War Two. 70 years later, Yaakov is now living not far from...
There are few views sweeter than the sight of the Israeli coastline appearing on the horizon after miles of blue ocean, as glimpsed from high above on an airplane winging its way towards the Holy Land. How much more satisfying, then, for someone making aliyah...
The first in a new series of profiles of Bnei Menashe who have made aliyah recently and are living in the Kfar Hasidim absorption center. Meet Aviel Hangshing - at 93, the oldest Bnei Menashe to immigrate with Shavei Israel....
If you ask a Bnei Menashe immigrant to Israel what the happiest day of his or her life was, you’ll often receive the response, “When I made aliyah.” But for Esther Colney, who came to Israel from India with her family at age 15, it...
One of the fastest growing and increasingly popular professions for the Bnei Menashe is working as a bus driver. There are already 10 members of the community working for Egged (Israel’s national bus network) along with several smaller, local transportation companies. Tuvia Kipgen has...
Elyashiv Khupchawng recalls only too well the day he chose to publicly embrace his Bnei Menashe Jewish heritage. He was a teenager and “all of my friends simply walked away from me,” he says, matter-of-factly, but with the pain clearly still burning just slightly under...
