Hanukah may be over, but we have a special bonus album of pictures from Shavei Israel communities around the world celebrating the Festival of Lights. New pictures transport us to Poland, Italy, Israel and India....
Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund has become a Limmud groupie. Well, not quite. But he is participating in a double header of eclectic Jewish learning retreats. The first was last week in the U.K. The second will be at the end of this month in...
"After 2,700 years we have the opportunity to bring the Bnei Menashe back to our people and to our land. So why do so many of you sit on the sidelines and not get involved?" Those were the words of Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund...
When Avital Hnamte began to publicly identify as a Jew in India some twenty years ago, the teenage Bnei Menashe woman encountered a hostile environment. “The kids in my school didn’t hide their hate,” she recalls. “They called me names." But through the strength of...
For our final visit to the magical world of Hanukah, Shavei Israel visits two communities that began in Eastern Europe: the "Hidden Jews" of Poland and the Subbotnik Jews of Russia and Ukraine (and more recently Beit Shemesh). Have you lit your Hanukah candles yet?...
We continue our Hanukah tour of Shavei Israel communities celebrating the Festival of Lights with visits to the Bnei Anousim of Portugal, El Salvador, Colombia, Palermo and San Nicandro, Italy. Happy Hanukah from Shavei Israel!...
Shavei Israel communities around the world are celebrating Hanukah this week. Here’s a selection of photos from India. We take a trip to Manipur, Mizoram and Erode to see how local communities light the Menorah and spin the local version of the dreidel....
The history of the Bnei Anousim in the southern Indian region of Goa is usually overshadowed by the larger Bene Israel, Cochin and Baghdadi Jewish communities in India (not to mention the Bnei Menashe with which Shavei Israel works). A conference in Jerusalem last week...
Every day, the Israel Defense Force's Facebook page presents a new snippet on a soldier or an IDF program that will make you proud. This week, the IDF highlighted "Private Daniel," a member of the Bnei Menashe community who made aliyah to Israel in 2006...
Ever hear the one about the singing carpenter? His name is Itzkhak Fanai and along with his wife and two children, he is one of the one hundred Bnei Menashe who are planning their aliyah next month. Itzkhak gets his nickname through a combination of...
