A special ceremony will be held tomorrow morning, Tuesday, June 3, 2003, at 8:15 am at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to welcome home some 50 members of the Bnei Menashe (children of Manasseh), a group claiming descent from a lost tribe of Israel.
After arriving on EL AL flight 072 from Bombay, they will be brought from the airport straight to Jerusalem to say a prayer of thanksgiving at the Wall.
Members of the group, all of whom hail from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, are making aliyah under the auspices of the Amishav organization, which is dedicated to assisting “lost Jews” who wish to return to the Jewish people.
On hand to greet them will be: Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, the Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs; Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, the chairman and founder of Amishav; and Michael Freund, Amishav’s Director and a former Deputy Communications Director in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Tomorrow’s arrivals represent the first batch of graduates of the Amishav Hebrew Center, which was opened in Aizawl, India, in November 2002 to better acquaint the Bnei Menashe with their heritage. There are currently about 5,000 Bnei Menashe living a fully Jewish life in northeastern India.
The new immigrants join an additional 700 Bnei Menashe already residing in Israel, and will be housed in the town of Shavei Shomron, where they will continue to study Hebrew and Judaism prior to undergoing formal conversion by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.
After arriving on EL AL flight 072 from Bombay, they will be brought from the airport straight to Jerusalem to say a prayer of thanksgiving at the Wall.
Members of the group, all of whom hail from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, are making aliyah under the auspices of the Amishav organization, which is dedicated to assisting “lost Jews” who wish to return to the Jewish people.
On hand to greet them will be: Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, the Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs; Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, the chairman and founder of Amishav; and Michael Freund, Amishav’s Director and a former Deputy Communications Director in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Tomorrow’s arrivals represent the first batch of graduates of the Amishav Hebrew Center, which was opened in Aizawl, India, in November 2002 to better acquaint the Bnei Menashe with their heritage. There are currently about 5,000 Bnei Menashe living a fully Jewish life in northeastern India.
The new immigrants join an additional 700 Bnei Menashe already residing in Israel, and will be housed in the town of Shavei Shomron, where they will continue to study Hebrew and Judaism prior to undergoing formal conversion by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.