22 November 2006
A group of 54 Jews from India's northeast have arrived in Israel, marking the beginning of the largest-ever exodus of Jews from India. After landing at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, the group was taken to the northern Carmiel region. "The area has several similarities with their place back in India and it will be easier for them to adjust", Shalem Rei, a Jewish Agency for Israel employee who was accompanying the new immigrants, told the "Press Trust of India" (PTI). Another three groups of Bnai Menashe are expected to arrive in Israel soon. The Bnai Menashe claim descent from the tribe of Manaseh, one of the ten tribes exiled from the land of Israel by the Assyrians over 2,700 years ago. Several veterans from the community were waiting for their arrival at the airport. The spokesman for the Israel Jewish Agency, Michael Jankelowitz, told PTI that "the new immigrants will be coming in four batches with the last one arriving on 29 November. They will be settled in Upper Nazareth and Carmiel region." Israel's former Interior minister Avraham Poraz had put a freeze on the immigration of Bnai Menashe in 2003 on questions regarding their Jewishness. Last year, the country's Sephardic chief rabbi Shlomo Amar declared them descendants of Israel, thus removing obstacles for their immigration. Following the decision, 218 members of the community underwent a ritual, which is normally done with those who had a break from Judaism, in northeast India formally bringing them back to their religion. Some 800 people from the community are already living in Israel, mostly in the West Bank settlements.