Bnei Menashe men in India reciting traditional Jewish prayer (photo: Shavei Israel)

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
1st time: Entire 'Lost tribe of Israel' allowed 'home'
Indian group believes its lineage includes biblical patriarch Joseph

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Posted: August 22, 2008
12:05 am Eastern

By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – After years of diplomatic wrangling, the Israeli government has given permission to a community of Indian citizens who believe they are one of the "lost tribes" of Israel to move legally to the Jewish state.

This decision, first reported in Israel's Maariv newspaper, clears the way for the arrival here of 7,232 members of the Bnei Menashe. They believe they are the descendants of Manasseh, one of the biblical patriarch Joseph's two sons and a grandson of Jacob.

Yesterday the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz newspapers quoted an official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office denying the government approved the immigration of the Bnei Menashe, stating Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, whose office oversees the process of immigration and absorption, refused to sign off on the deal.

But a source close to the immigration negotiations affirmed to WND the Bnei Menashe indeed have been cleared to move to Israel. The source said government officials were upset the story was leaked to Maariv before the approval decision was formally announced. The source added Olmert's office even had a press release written and ready to go announcing the decision.

Over the last decade, several organizations, most notably Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based immigrant organization working with the "lost" Jews, brought more than 1,000 members of the Indian group to the Jewish state, where they were successfully integrated into religious Israeli society, holding professional jobs, attending universities, becoming rabbinic leaders and serving in the Israel Defense Forces

The original batches of Bnei Menashe to arrive here came as tourists in an agreement with Israel's Interior Ministry. Once in Israel, the Bnei Menashe converted officially to Judaism and became citizens.

But diplomatic wrangling halted the immigration process in 2003, with officials from some Israeli ministries refusing to grant the rest of the group still in India permission to travel here.

To smooth the process, Shavei Israel's chairman, Michael Freund, enlisted the help of Israel's chief rabbinate, who flew to India in 2005 to convert members of the Bnei Menashe, a process stopped last year by India.

Freund then coordinated with the Israeli government the arrival of batches of a few hundred Bnei Menashe as tourists who would later convert, but that process was halted after Sheetrit took office in July 2007. Apparently Sheetrit now has had a change of heart and has agreed to allow in the remaining Bnei Menashe.

Tribe members live in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they say they were exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire.

According to Bnei Menashe oral tradition, the tribe was exiled from Israel and pushed to the east, eventually settling in the border regions of China and India where most remain today. Most kept customs similar to Jewish tradition, including observing Shabbat, keeping the laws of Kosher, practicing circumcision on the eighth day of a baby boy's life and observing laws of family purity.

In the 1950s, several thousand Bnei Menashe say they set out on foot to Israel but were quickly halted by Indian authorities. Undeterred, many began practicing Orthodox Judaism and pledged to make it to Israel. They now attend community centers in India established by Shavei Israel to teach the Bnei Menashe Jewish tradition and modern Hebrew.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=...mp;pageId=73064

Praise God! That is a pretty cool story.

Thanks for sharing that Bat Yah.

God bless you.

Shalom Daughter of the Most High

You are welcome.

I think it's really cool! I LOVE watching the word of Yahweh coming to pass right before my eyes.

The shalom of Yahweh rest upon your house, amen.

Both my maternal grandparents claimed direct descent from Joseph. Not sure if it's true, but my grandmother definately had jewish blood up her mother's line, and my mom has the guilt nailed down lol!

Todah Bat Yah.

I've always found the migration of ancient people to be an interesting topic. But especiallly I find it so interesting that the Jewish tribes have kept these practices alive throughout this time.

I'm curious about some of the other groups that I have read about which might potentially be one of the lost tribes.
One in particular is the Hmong people. Some of their practices and history are curious to say the least.



Anyway.....I think G-d is bringing them home as He promised He would.

Shalom to you my sister.

May God be with you and protect you always.

Praise God indeed and may they get to know their Messiah Yashua!

That is very interesting.

One of my Jewish Professors told me that only the Cohen can trace their blood lineage. They must be from the Cohen tribe. I believe that is the Priestly line.

Shalom to you ces.

God bless you. I'm glad your here on this forum.

More are coming to know Him all the time Marc.

The Gospel is to the Jew first.

Pray for the Messianics. They are on the front lines in this.

And keep in mind that the only reason you and I know Yeshua at all is because of the first Jewish believers.

A stern warning to Gentiles....Romans 11: 11-32 (keep this in mind when you think of the Jews who, at the moment, do not know Yeshua...see bolded text)

Ingrafted Branches

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in."
Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.
And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

All Israel Will Be Saved

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

"The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is[f] my covenant with them
when I take away their sins."

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.
Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now[h] receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you.
For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

I apoligize if my words sounded arrogant, it wasn't meant to be, I was simply rejoicing with you all.

You didn't brother.

That post was just for those who do think they hold a special place above the Jews. And some do think that.

They tend to forget or either ignore that little section of our Scriptures.

The 10 tribes of Israel are not lost and never have been. The Lord knows who and where they are and He has preserved a remnant of this portion of the nation of Israel for His purposes. This truth is something that the student of the Bible needs to understand. Much of unfulfilled prophecy recorded in scripture is focused upon national Israel, not the Gentile component of the Church, and the reader needs to understand this fact if they want to get it right.

I agree with you. God knows where every one of them are.

And your so right about reading our scriptures and understanding "who" they were ment for when they were written.

Since understanding this better.....it's like a light has come on when I re-read the Bible.

I'm so thankful to some Jewish friends who have illuminated this for me. They did far better than any Preacher did.

Isaiah
11:11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

11:12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

11:13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

11:14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.

11:15 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.

11:16 And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.