Lost Bible tribe? Mizo Jews devastated after migration bid halted

Last year, over 200 people from Manipur and Mizoram migrated to Israel, after converting from Christianity to Judaism, claiming they were descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel, mentioned in the Bible.

The modus operandi however seems to work no more. The Indian government has refused the members of Menashe tribe permission to travel after Christian groups lodged complaints with officials.

“We are all shattered with the Indian government rejecting our applications for migrating to Israel,” Jeremia Hnamte, administrator of the Mizoram chapter of the Shavei Israel Organisation (SIO), told IANS.

SIO, a group headquartered in Jerusalem, is dedicated to searching for the lost tribes of Israel and helps them return to their Promised Land.

According to Israeli law, every Jew enjoys right of return or the right of abode in the country, and for this very reason, they are ready to accept the score of applications received, and even help the government search for the remaining tribes.

“We understand that a group of Christians lodged a formal protest with the Indian external affairs ministry and home ministry saying they should not allow Mizo Jews to migrate to Israel and stop conversions,” Hnamte said.

“We are fighting for our right to migrate and hope to get a positive response from the Indian government soon.”

Christian Today was informed that the Church along with the Mizoram government urged New Delhi to force Israel ban the conversions.

Rabbis from Israel had visited Mizoram, last year, converting a batch of over 200 Mizo tribals to Judaism, after they took a holy dip at mikvah or a ritual bath.

Close to 1,000 Jewish ‘converts’ have already migrated from India to Israel in the last 12 years.

“The new converts are practicing the religion perfectly. Once they are allowed to migrate to Israel, they will undergo a year–long course there to learn other aspects of Judaism at government expense,” Itzkhak Colney (mizo convert who migrated to Israel in 1997), a Jewish clergy, told IANS.

Mizos who are linguistically Tibeto–Burmans belong to the Mizo, Kuki and Chin peoples. Christians form the majority in the state.