Communities Around the World

There have been rumors for years that one of the 10 Lost Tribes migrated the land of the rising sun. While this claim is often dismissed as being fanciful, there are nevertheless a number of interesting articles worth reading....

There is a community of self-proclaimed Jews centered in the village of Rusape, about two hours from Harare, Zimbabwe. The Rusape Jews claim to be spiritually, though not genetically, descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel, exiled from the Jewish homeland by the...

[caption id="attachment_6051" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A hypothetical picture of Pathans at the Western Wall from Dr. Navras Aafreedi's website"][/caption] In the village of Malihabad, 25 kilometers from the Indian city of Lucknow, 650 Pathans claim to be descendents of the lost tribe of Ephraim, expelled...

[caption id="attachment_6046" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tzadok Yacobi at the Western Wall in Jerusalem"][/caption] The Bnei Ephraim is a small community in rural India that claims to be the descendants of the biblical tribe of Ephraim, exiled from the land of Israel nearly 3,000 years ago....

The Donmeh is a Jewish community in Turkey numbering several thousand people who are descendants of the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi. One of the group's members recently returned to Judaism in a ceremony in New York....

India has a rich Jewish history, with the main Jewish communities formerly residing primarily in Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta and Cochin. During the 1950s and 1960s, these communities nearly entirely immigrated to Israel. Shavei Israel works extensively with the Bnei Menashe who reside in...

The Lemba are an allegedly Jewish people in southern Africa, many living in modern day Zimbabwe, Malawi and South Africa. The community as a whole numbers close to 70,000. Although they speak the same Bantu languages as their African neighbors, some of the Lemba's religious...

Associated Press    SHAVEI SHOMRON, West Bank (AP) - Some 2,700 years ago, 10 of the 12 biblical tribes of Israel were driven from the Holy Land into exile and the mists of history. Now, a group claiming descent from one of the lost tribes can be found sitting in a bomb shelter in a West Bank Jewish settlement, learning Hebrew.
The New York Times SHAVEI SHOMRON, West Bank, Dec. 16 — Sharon Palian and his fellow immigrants from India are still struggling with the Hebrew language and remain partial to homemade kosher curry rather than Israeli cuisine. But the 71 immigrants, who arrived in June with the firm conviction that they were descended from one of the biblical lost tribes of Israel, feel they have completed a spiritual homecoming.