Biblical background In the
time of the First Temple, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. The southern one, known as the
Kingdom of Judah, was made up mostly of the tribes of
Judah,
Benjamin,
Simon and
Levi. Most
Jews today are descended from the southern kingdom. The northern
Kingdom of Israel was made up of the other
ten tribes (which include half of
Levi). In approximately 721 BCE, the
Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom, exiled the leading ~20% of the ten tribes living there, and took them to
Assyria (present-day Iraq).
Adoption of modern Judaism According to
Lal Dena, the Bnei Menashe have come to believe that the legendary
Hmar ancestor Manmasi In contrast to Challa, who did not fully embrace Judaism, Siama adopted it in its entirety, becoming one of the earliest known adherents in Mizoram. Challa died in 1959, prior to the formal introduction of
Judaism to the Mizo community. While they believed that
Jesus is the promised
messiah for all Israelites, these pioneers also adopted the observance of the Jewish
Sabbath, the celebration of
holidays, the observance of
dietary laws and other Jewish customs and traditions which they learned from books in the early 1960s. They had no connections with other Jewish groups in either the
diaspora or Israel. Significant pioneering research into the Judaic identity of the
Manmasi people was undertaken by
Thangkholun Daniel Lhungdim—a poet, educator, and headmaster based in
Churachandpur. Demonstrating deep commitment to this cause, he embraced Judaism and authored the seminal work
Israel Ihiuve (“We Are Israel”) in 1974. Lhungdim collaborated closely with Samuel Sumkhothang Haokip and Yosef Jangkhothang Lhanghal, both of whom were early advocates of the
Judaic revival in
Northeast India. Avichail proposed sending a young representative to Israel for formal religious training. In 1979, Gideon Rei (also known as Vankhuma Chongthu) and Simon Gin Vaiphei were selected for this mission. They departed India in January 1981 and enrolled at
Machon Meir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where they received instruction in
Hebrew and foundational
Jewish law. In 2005, the
Chief Rabbinate of Israel ruled that the Bnei Menashe would be accepted as Jews, based oo the devotion displayed by their practice through the decades, but still required individuals to undergo formal ritual conversion. They are indigenous peoples who had migrated in waves from
East Asia and settled in what is now northeastern India. They have no written history, but their legends refer to a beloved homeland that they had to leave, called Sinlung/Chinlung. The tribes speak languages that are branches of indigenous
Tibeto-Burman.
Influence of revivalism During the first
Welsh missionary-led
Christian Revivalism movement, which swept through the Mizo hills in 1906, the missionaries prohibited indigenous festivals, feasts, and traditional songs and chants. After missionaries abandoned this policy during the 1919–24 Revival, the Mizo began writing their own hymns, incorporating indigenous elements. They created a unique form of syncretic Christian worship. Christianity has generally been characterized by such absorption of elements of local cultures wherever it has been introduced.
Shalva Weil, a senior researcher and noted anthropologist at
Hebrew University, wrote in her paper,
Dual Conversion Among the Shinlung of North-East (1965): Revivalism (among the Mizo) is a recurrent phenomenon distinctive of the Welsh form of
Presbyterianism. Certain members of the congregation who easily fall into ecstasy are believed to be visited by the
Holy Ghost and the utterings are received as prophecies." (Steven Fuchs 1965: 16). Anthony Gilchrist McCall, in 1949, recorded several incidents of revivalism, including the "Kelkang incident", in which three men "spoke in tongues", claiming to be the medium through which
God spoke to men. Their following was large and widespread until they clashed with the colonial superintendent. He put down the movement and removed the "sorcery". In a 2004 study, Weil says, "although there is no documentary evidence linking the tribal peoples in northeast India with the myth of the lost Israelites, it appears likely that, as with revivalism, the concept was introduced by the missionaries as part of their general
millenarian leanings." In the 19th and 20th centuries, Christian missionaries "discovered" lost tribes in far-flung places; their enthusiasm for identifying such peoples as part of the Israelite tribes was related to the desire to speed up the messianic era and bring on the Redemption. Based on his experience in China, for example,
Scottish missionary Rev.
T.F. Torrance wrote
China’s Ancient Israelites (1937), expounding a theory that the
Qiang people were lost Israelites. This theory has not been supported by any more rigorous studies. Some of the Mizo-Kuki-Chin say they have an oral tradition that the tribe traveled through Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet, China and on to India, where it eventually settled in the northeastern states of Manipur and Mizoram. After making contact with Israelis, they began to study normative Judaism and established several synagogues. Hundreds of Mizo-Kuki-Chin emigrated to Israel. They were required to formally convert to be accepted as Jews, because their history was not documented. Also, given their long migration and intermarriage, they had lost the required maternal ancestry of Jews, by which they might be considered as born Jews. ==Work of aliyah groups, Amishav and Shavei Israel==