The government has decided to draft a resolution to bring India's Bnei Menashe populace home to Israel, after years of lobbying by the Shavei Israel organization.
The 2,700-year-old group, which claims its ancestry from the Lost Tribe of Menashe, has maintained many of the laws and traditions written in the Torah.
The resolution, backed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Absorption Minister Sofa Landver, is expected to go to the Cabinet by the end of this month.
“There is so much that needs to be done to prepare the Bnei Menashe in India for their new lives in the Jewish state,” Shavei Israel chairman and founder Michael Freund commented. All of the 7,232 Bnei Menashe remaining in India are expected to make the move, he said.
Menashe was one of the Biblical Joseph's two sons born in Egypt. “The Bnei Menashe (literally the 'sons of Menashe') are now about to cross their own Red Sea, reuniting with the land and the People of Israel,” Freund added.