Indian "Bnei Mensahe" to make aliyah after being recognized as Jews

Thousands of people in India's northeast are set to migrate to Israel after being recognized as descendants of one the Biblical lost Jewish tribes. The 6,000-strong "Bnei Menashe" (Children of Manasseh) tribe spread have been officially recognized by the Sephardic chief rabbi Shlomo Amar in Jerusalem. Rabbinical judges are due to arrive in the two remote Indian states where the Bnei Menashe live to formally convert the group to Orthodox Judaism and launch procedures for resettlement to Israel. "After a thorough review of their findings, it was decided that the Bnei Menashe are in fact descendants of Israel and should be drawn closer to the Jewish people," says a statement received here from Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, a rabbinical court judge and spokesman for Rabbi Amar. The decision concludes years of wrangling as the Menashe pushed their right to return under Jewish law. Some 800 people from Mizoram and Manipur have managed to migrate to Israel since 1994 when a private body, called the Amishav Association took up their case, despite fears among the Israeli authorities that the Indians were simply seeking a better life. The last group of 71 left northeast India for Jerusalem in May 2003. Israel's interior ministry had since then effectively frozen the granting of immigration visas for the Jews of Mizoram and Manipur.