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India’s Bnei Menashe community in crisis as ethnic violence burns synagogues and displaces hundreds

BY JORDYN HAIME • JUNE 16, 2023

Over 1,000 members of India’s Bnei Menashe Jewish community have been displaced in the wake of violence in their region. (Shavei Israel)

(JTA) — For the past several years, life was good for Lalam Hangshing as president of the Bnei Menashe Council, the governing body for Jewish communities in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram. 

While living at his parents’ house, he and his wife enjoyed the clean air and beautiful scenery of Manipur, a state in northeast India home to close to 3 million people. Miles away, Hangshing rented out a newly-built four-story home to a film production company. 

Everything changed on May 3, when rioting broke out between the ethnic majority Meiteis and the tribal minority Kukis, a violent conflagration that had been building up for years. Local groups say Meiteis began targeting Kuki institutions and razing homes to the ground, and Hangshing — also the general secretary of a Kuki-led political party — feared his house was next. 

“When the problems started on the third of May, with military precision, the mobs went straight to [Kuki] houses,” Hangshing said. “They ransacked them and vandalized them and they burned each and every house in Imphal city within one and a half days.”

According to Shavei Israel, an NGO that helps “lost tribe” Jewish communities immigrate to Israel, over 1,000 members of the community, or 20% of their total, have been displaced. One community member was killed, and another was shot in the chest and is hospitalized. Two synagogues and mikvahs, or ritual baths, were burned down. 

(Degel Menashe, an Israeli NGO that is dedicated to supporting the Bnei Menashe and has a longstanding feud with Shavei Israel, said one synagogue was burned.)

Hangshing is Kuki, as are the thousands of other Bnei Menashe Jews in Manipur. On May 4, Hangshing left his home and over a month later, has yet to return. 

He spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Delhi, more than 1,000 miles from his home. His four-story house has been completely destroyed, but his parents’ home is somehow still standing. He worries about family possessions, such as religious books belonging to his father — who had helped found Manipur’s Jewish community — and a favorite set of golf clubs left behind, all in danger of being looted or destroyed any day now. 

Another estimated 292 Bnei Menashe families have fled to Kuki-majority hill areas within Manipur or to the nearby state of Mizoram, according to Shavei Israel.

In Mizoram, over 100 Jews initially took refuge in the Shalom Tzion synagogue in Aizawl, in the houses of other Jewish families or at hotels, but most have moved to a paramilitary camp nearby. Community leaders say the refugees are not facing any immediate danger and have enough food and supplies thanks to the tens of thousands of dollars in aid rolling in from Shavei Israel and Degel Menashe.

“They basically just fled with their documents, and they have prayer books, their tefillin and ritual items, and the clothes on their back,” said Asaf Renthlei, a Mizoram Jewish community member and Degel Menashe volunteer. At relief camps, he said, community members have observed Shabbat every week since they fled.

“This is one of the gravest crises the Bnei Menashe in India have ever experienced,” said Michael Freund, who has been chairman of Shavei Israel since he founded the organization in 2002.

Over 100 Bnei Menashe have taken shelter in a synagogue in Mizoram. (Shavei Israel)

“A state gone rogue”

Violence broke out in Manipur state in early May when tribal groups launched a protest against the Meitei’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status, which is traditionally reserved for minority tribes such as the Kukis and ensures certain rights to education, government jobs and other privileges. The Kukis (which make up about 16% of the population and are majority Christian) say that the Meiteis (who make up 53% and are majority Hindu) already have outsized privilege and political representation.

The May 3 protest was only the spark that has ignited a conflict based on long-standing grievances against the Kuki minority, said Sushant Singh, a senior research fellow at India’s Centre for Policy Research.

“At the core of it, it is about Meiteis claiming that they are the original inhabitants of the state, Kukis are illegal immigrants, and… [the Meiteis] have been forced to occupy only 10% of the land,” Singh said. “And because of the special privileges that tribes have in India, they cannot go and occupy the land occupied by Kukis.”

As the conflict enters its second month, over 100 deaths have been recorded and an estimated 40,000 people have been displaced; some entire villages are destroyed and over 200 churches have been burned, as well as the two synagogues in the Imphal area. A statewide internet blackout has been in place since the beginning of May.

While both Kukis and Meiteis have participated in the violence, Kukis have “suffered the most,” and state police and security forces have joined Meitei groups in targeting Kukis, Singh said. Human Rights Watch has called on India to investigate police violence in Manipur, which local groups have disputed.

“It has essentially been a state gone rogue acting against a minority community,” Singh said.

Though the government has called for a ceasefire and established a peace committee, those efforts to quell the violence have been unsuccessful. The military has implemented security measures and evacuated Kukis further into the hills and Meiteis into the plains, but Singh said this has only reinforced geographical divides, instead of facilitating a solution that could allow the two groups to live alongside one another in the future.

“The army has been called in but they are very ineffective because it’s a civil war. They can’t take sides. They just stand around and when the firing gets too heavy, they stand aside so it’s left to us to fend for ourselves,” Hangshing said.

Citing the government’s failure to protect them, Kukis have called for separation from the state of Manipur. As the conflict stretches into its second month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to comment on the crisis in his country’s northeast.

According to one organization, two of the community’s synagogues have burned down and another Torah scroll was torched. (Shavei Israel)

An appeal to Israel

The Bnei Menashe identify as descendants of a “lost tribe” group, tracing their origins to the Israelite tribe of Menasseh. In 2005, a chief rabbi of Israel affirmed their identity as a “lost tribe” group with historic Jewish ties, but researchers have not found sufficient evidence to back the claim. Bnei Menashe Jews began immigrating to Israel in the 1990s, and because of their “lost tribe” status, they all undergo formal Orthodox conversions upon arrival. Around 5,000 remain in the states of Manipur and Mizoram today, and about 5,000 have already immigrated to Israel.

Many have struggled to gain entry into Israel over the past two decades, and they are now asking the Jewish state to expedite the immigration process to help them escape the violence. But despite recent celebrations surrounding the opening of a new Indian-Jewish cultural center in central Israel, to which Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog sent recorded blessings, Jerusalem has yet to publicly respond to the situation.

Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, visited India last month on a planned trip aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries. He did not comment on the matter, and his visit was cut short due to a military operation in Israel.

“I think under [Benjamin] Netanyahu, particularly in this stint as prime minister, there are very few expectations. He is very close to Mr. Modi’s government, so I don’t think anybody expects anything from Netanyahu,” Singh said.

The Bnei Menashe’s “grey zone” religious status, in the words of Renthlei, makes their immigration to Israel more complicated for them than most. Before the Bnei Menashe can even apply to immigrate, they must face a panel of rabbis — who usually come all the way to India — for interviews.

“It’s not like Ukraine. The Ukrainians are Jewish without any doubt. But the Bnei Menashe, we are in some gray zone of not exactly not Jews, but not exactly Jews also,” Renthlei said. “It’s unlikely that the Bnei Menashe would just be able to make aliyah, even in this situation, unlike the Ukrainians.” Thousands of Ukrainian Jews have immigrated to Israel since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022.

The Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps facilitate immigration, and the UJA-Federation of New York have provided funding to Shavei Israel to help displaced persons, representatives from Shavei said. The Jewish Agency, the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, and the Israeli consulate in India did not respond to JTA’s requests for comment.

“We’re too small to matter, I suppose,” said Isaac Thangjom, director of Degel Menashe. Thangjom, who lives in Israel, has been in contact with officials in the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration.

“They are very concerned, but they haven’t given me any explicit answer despite my proddings,” he said. “Their responses have been very tepid.”

This article was originally published by the JTA. Click here to view it on their website.

News

Writer and Researcher Genie Milgrom Visits Pope Francis to Discuss Inquisition Judgements Being Digitized

June 13, 2023 — Writer and researcher Genie Milgrom met with Pope Francis in his private Library at Vatican City this week. The private audience was planned by Rabbi Avi and Nehama Tawil, leaders of the European Jewish Community Centre (EJCC) in Brussels. She was accompanied by her husband Michael Milgrom and several members of the EJCC.

Writer and Researcher Genie Milgrom Visits Pope Francis to Discuss Inquisition Judgements Being Digitized

For over 8 years, Milgrom has been working tirelessly to have the Inquisition Judgements, known as Procesos, digitized so as to be able to follow the Pre-Inquisition genealogies of the Bnei Anousim or descendants of the Crypto Jews as well as the Sefardim who left Spain at the Expulsion in 1492. Inside each Proceso, there are clear genealogies given by those arrested for practicing Judaism underground. The reason being that the Inquisitors could follow the genealogies and arrest the extended families.

There are many historians who concur that the approximate number of Jews present in Spain before 1492 was approximately 300,000 but there is no exact and accurate number that historians can offer us. Of those, the consensus seems to be that 100,000 left in 1492 for the Ottoman Empire and other lands, 100,000 stayed behind and went underground to practice their religion while pretending to be Catholic, and 100,000 assimilated and were lost to the Jewish people.

Writer and Researcher Genie Milgrom Visits Pope Francis to Discuss Inquisition Judgements Being Digitized

Genie Milgrom belongs to the group whose family stayed and went underground in 1391 and for centuries, pretended to be Catholic. Milgrom returned to the Jewish people and was able to follow her own lineage via the Inquisition Procesos, finally finding an unbroken maternal line going back 22 grandmothers in a row. This took her over 12 years and it was no easy task yet, she clearly understood that unless these Inquisition records were digitized and up on the internet, the work and cost would be prohibitive for most people and she began her mission for the mass global digitalization of these Procesos.

During her audience, she was able to clearly explain to the Pope, the historical significance of the digitization as well as the present struggles in each country. The Pope was enthusiastic to help and assigned a Papal emissary to work hand in hand with her to obtain positive results. A truly significant and historical moment to regain the identities of those whose lineage was lost during the Spanish-Portuguese Inquisition.

Writer and Researcher Genie Milgrom Visits Pope Francis to Discuss Inquisition Judgements Being Digitized
Articles, News, Resources

The Jewish Community of Jamaica

The Shaare Shalom Synagogue in downtown Kingston, Jamaica. (Dana Evan Kaplan)
The Shaare Shalom Synagogue in downtown Kingston, Jamaica. (Dana Evan Kaplan)

The Jews of Jamaica make up a small but vibrant religious community centered today in the capital of Kingston. While the core of the community traces its ancestry to the Iberian peninsula, and the Jewish exodus that began in the late 15th century, Jamaican Jews today come from Poland, France, Italy, Africa, Israel, Turkey, and many other places. They have their own unique recipes for the most beloved traditional Jamaican dishes — including ackee and saltfish, fried bammy (a cassava flatbread), breadfruit, patties, potato pudding, dukono pastry and, of course, jerk chicken — and its main synagogue is one of only a handful in the world with a sand floor. While some 22,000 Jews once lived on the island, the Jewish population today numbers just about 450 people.

Many Jamaican Jews trace their origins to Portugal, where their ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism by King Manuel I in 1497. Although legally prohibited from emigrating, many still found ways to leave, moving to Spanish-Portuguese Jewish communities in Hamburg, London, Livorno (Italy), Amsterdam — and especially Bayonne, an the area of southwest France near the Iberian peninsula. Over the next 100 years, some of these former conversos (forced converts) came from Amsterdam to the Caribbean — including Jamaica, settling in Port Royal, Spanish Town, Montego Bay, and Kingston, as well numerous smaller towns throughout the island. Although Jamaica was then a Spanish colony, it was controlled by Christopher Columbus’ family, who refused to allow the Inquisition to establish a base on the island. Practicing Judaism was technically illegal, but there was no governmental mechanism for prosecuting suspected heretics.

After the British colonized Jamaica in 1655, another wave of Jewish immigrants arrived. Under the British, it became legal to practice Judaism, which in turn led to the establishment of the island’s first synagogue in Port Royal, a bustling commercial center known as a home base for pirates. Little is known about this synagogue, which was destroyed along with much of the city in an earthquake and tsunami in 1692.

A skull and crossbones on the grave of David de Leon at the Hunt’s Bay Cemetery in Jamaica. (Laura Leibman, courtesy Jewish Atlantic World Database.)

Just across the bay from Port Royal is the Hunt’s Bay Cemetery, the oldest Jewish burial ground in Jamaica. Seven graves in the cemetery bear the skull and crossbones, leading some to suggest that there were Jewish pirates looting Spanish ships. According to this theory, the Jewish pirates of Jamaica were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who fled the Inquisition and attacked Spanish shipping out of a desire for revenge. The Jewish pirate mentioned most frequently was Moses Cohen Henriques, who was able to steal shipments of gold and silver from Spanish boats off of the coast of what is today Cuba in 1628. Henriques also set up his own pirate Island off the coast of Brazil and worked with Captain Henry Morgan in Jamaica after 1654. But much of this history is undocumented and popular writers have exaggerated or invented much of the story.

The Jamaican Jewish community thrived during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Under British rule, Jews flourished by selling sugar, vanilla, tobacco, gold, rum, and other products. But by the early 20th century, the economy began a slow decline, and many Jamaican Jews emigrated to the United States, England and Australia. At the community’s peak in 1881, approximately 22,000 Jews lived among Jamaica’s 580,000 residents.

Today, there are an estimated 200-450 Jews in a total population of over 3 million, most of them concentrated in Kingston. For roughly a century since its establishment following a merger of two other communities in 1921, the Shaare Shalom Synagogue in downtown Kingston was the only functioning synagogue in the country. (Chabad opened a center in the tourist destination Montego Bay in 2014.) The synagogue property includes a Jewish heritage center and a memorial garden, whose relocated tombstones date back to the 18th century. The ark contains 13 Torah scrolls, many of them from other synagogues in Jamaica that closed or merged.

Shaare Shalom is one of only a handful of functioning synagogues in the world with sand floors, many of them in the Caribbean. Sand floor synagogues typically have a wood base covered in sand. Since a good deal of sand is lost through attrition, the supply requires replenishing every number of years.

Audrey Massias tries to uncover Jewish graves at a cemetery in Spanish Town, Jamaica. (Dana Evan Kaplan)

The origin of this practice is shrouded in mystery, with the explanations offered ranging from practical to historic to midrashic. The custom may have originated in Amsterdam, where sand was used to dry mud on people’s shoes. Others have suggested that sand symbolizes the terrain of the Sinai Desert through which the Israelites wandered for 40 years after the Exodus. Some also believe that sand symbolizes God’s promise to Abraham to make the Jews as populous as the sands of the sea. But the most common explanation is that the practice originated in the early 1600s in Brazil, where conversos who had returned to Judaism were trying to retain their ancestors’ traditions while subject to the hostile eyes of ecclesiastical authorities.

Many observers have commented on the similarities between Judaism and Rastafarianism, a religion that developed in Jamaica in the 1930s and was popularized by Bob Marley and reggae music. Some branches of Rastafarianism focus on the Hebrew Bible and emphasize themes of freedom and justice. The Rastafarians also believe that the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was the messiah, based on his being a descendant of King Solomon. This explains the use of shared symbols common to both Judaism and Rastafarianism, including the Star of David and the Lion of Judah.

In 1969, the Jewish community established an international school called Hillel Academy as a way to stop fighting among local Jewish leaders. The academy is considered among the best in the country and is Jamaica’s largest international school, with 700 students from over 40 countries.

Students at Kingston’s Hillel Academy, a school established by the Jamaican Jewish community in 1969. (Dana Evan Kaplan)

Several Jamaican Jews rose to political prominence in the mid-20th century. Neville Ashenheim served as the first ambassador to the United States after Jamaica won its independence from Britain in 1962, serving in the post until 1967. (Ashenheim’s great-grandfather, Lewis Ashenheim, was the editor of the first Jewish newspaper in the West Indies.) Mayer Matalon was one of the most important advisors to the Jamaican government in the 1970s and owned many businesses, especially in construction. Matalon’s brother, Eli Matalon, served in several government posts, including mayor of Kingston, minister of education, and minister of national security and justice.

But the 1970s saw a particularly drastic exodus of Jamaican Jews after then Prime Minister Michael Manley — seen by some as a leader in the style of Fidel Castro — moved the country toward socialism and flirted with revolution. Under Manley’s rule, much of the Jamaican elite left the country. When the 1980 election brought Edward Seaga to power, significant numbers of those elites returned. But many others did not, including many of the leaders of the Jewish community. Though the community today is but a fraction of its former size, its impact on Jamaica endures.

News

Sad fate of a 140-year-old Jewish property in Bangladesh

By Joseph Jude Edward

APRIL 20, 2023

This building is located in 3 Strand Road, Chittagong (Chattogram) 4000, Bangladesh. The building is at the entrance of Sadarghat Road approximately 100 meters away from the General Post Office (GPO).

Looking back into the history, in 1881, the Ezekiel family established their business as sugar manufacturers and distillers. Then, on April 18, 1929, David Ezekiel had executed a power of attorney in favor of his nephew, Solomon Ezekiel. At that time David was the proprietor of two businesses, one known as Davidson & Co. that continued on in Calcutta, and the other known as S. Ezekiel & Co. that continued on in Chittagong. Both the businesses traded in general stores and wines and spirits.

The Ezekiel family built the building in Chittagong during the time of the Bengal Presidency, which was officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, a subdivision of the British Empire in India. After the India/Pakistan partition in 1947, their business continued to stay in operation in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). However, shortly after the India/Pakistan partition in 1947, all the members of this family migrated to other countries. At that time there were only 5 to 6 Jewish families left in the whole of then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Within the Ezekiel & Co. building in Chittagong, there was a store and other family businesses. Their main occupation was sugarcane cultivation and making alcoholic beverages in Jessore, Kushtia and Nadia areas. Davidson & Co (later incorporated as Davidsons Ltd), became the forerunner of Carew & Co under the Pakistan government. After the Independence of Bangladesh, the government of Bangladesh later nationalized the distillery at Darsana in 1973 which is currently known as Carew & Co. (Bangladesh) Ltd.

The Ezekiel & Co, building is over 140 years old. It carries the identity and heritage of a Jewish people who once lived in Chittagong.

The building was reported to be recently demolished, but several individuals from Chittagong have claimed the building is still standing.

Meanwhile, this message from Mrs. Jo Cohen provides more history:

“I found the article on the family very interesting. I had not heard about them before, but this seems to explain Shalva Weil’s assumption that my husband’s family, the Cohens of Rajshahi, sold liquor. She must have confused the two. The Cohens sold bicycles and also repaired bicycles and motorcycles, and sold spare parts and household goods like paraffin lamps and Primus stoves.

My father, Philippe E. Orian, was employed by Carew & Company after WWII to run the sugar factory at Darsana, just over the border of what was then East Pakistan. He set up the distillery and pharmaceutical works. I lived in Darsana as a very small child, and one of my earliest memories is being rushed out of the house by my parents late one night when there was quite a severe earthquake.

We had a big white two storied house with a wide verandah, and a big garden. I remember gul mohur trees, hibiscus, jasmine and plumeria, golden Orioles building their nests in the palm trees beside the lawn, jackfruit, guavas, and huge papayas. Papa was fond of hunting, and I had a small coat made from the skin of hares that he had shot.

We had to come to Calcutta for any shopping, travelling by train. I still remember the green imitation leather that covered the seats, the smell of the smoke from the coal-fired engine and the grit that would get into my eyes, the dip and swoop of the electric wires on poles beside the tracks, and the way we would rush to have a bath when we arrived! I must have been six or seven years old when we left Darsana, and though I visited Bangladesh with my husband, I have never been back. Childhood memories and a good deal of nostalgia are all that remain”.

This video was received that seems to show the building is still standing, but its future fate is unknown: