Photo c/o aljazeera.com
Thousands of families in an overwhelmingly Christian region of Manipur, India have converted to a version of Orthodox Judaism over the past thirty years. But for the Bnei Menashe , the pressures of living in a state ravaged by decades of inter-ethnic conflict and little economic development, has forced the sect to leave their homeland.
As Al Jazeera America reports,
“This year, 899 of the Bnei Menashe will be granted Israeli citizenship, thanks to an Israeli nonprofit organization called Shavei Israel, which has helped hundreds of Indian Jews immigrate to Israel in the past few years. One hundred sixty Jews from Mizoram, a state that borders Manipur, have landed in Jerusalem in the past month alone. The Manipuris are expected to travel there in the next few months. Their journey is complicated by skepticism over their claims among religious leaders and academics. They also face difficulty in adjusting from insular, inward-looking hamlets like Manipur to the larger world.” Read more at Jazeera America.
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