(October 23, 2023) It’s no longer called Suongpi, which means “big rock” in Kuki. In honor of the first five B’nei Menashe families to take up occupancy in their newly constructed home at the site last week, it has been renamed Ma’oz Tsur, Hebrew for “fortress of the rock” – or, as the Hanukkah candle-lighting song of that name is traditionally known in English, “Rock of Ages.”
The five are among over one hundred B’nei Menashe families that lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods in the civil strife between Meiteis and Kukis (to which latter group the B’nei Menashe belong) that broke out in Manipur last May, resulting in widespread ethnic cleansing, particularly of Kukis from the low-lying hills bordering on Manipur’s Meitei-dominated Central Valley. Many of the displaced B’nei Menashe families have found temporary shelter with relatives in Manipur; others have fled to neighboring Mizoram, where most are staying at a large government refugee camp near the town of Thingdawl.
Some members of the five families who have taken up residence at Ma'oz Tsur.
Sitting on 200 acres put at the disposal of the B’nei Menashe by Lalam Hangshing, chairman of Manipur’s B’nei Menashe Council, Ma’oz Tsur is situated some seven kilometers south of the center of Lamka, formerly Churachandpur, Manipur’s second largest city and its main stronghold of Kuki life. Already two years ago, when he offered the land to the community, Hangshing dreamed of building on it what he called “a B’nei Menashe kibbutz.” Now, in becoming a reality, this dream has taken on a new meaning. Ma’oz Tsur, Hangshing hopes, will provide housing for a large number of displaced B’nei Menashe in an environment in which they can live cooperatively while supporting themselves from the land, growing food for sale and their own consumption, and raising poultry and livestock.
A view of a field at Ma'oz Tsur.
Ma'oz Tsur’s first residence, whose construction began a little over two months ago, was completed right after Sukkot. The 120 x 25 foot building, its main materials bamboo, plywood, and corrugated tin, is divided into five units, each housing a family, plus a communal kitchen. Two auxiliary sheds will in the meantime accommodate additional residents. “Our hope,” says Jesse Gangte, B’nei Menashe Council treasurer and the Ma’oz Tsur project’s director, “is that this first building will serve as a pilot that grows into a fully functioning community with its own synagogue, school, and community center. The demand is great. We already have more than a dozen applications from other displaced families, and all that is keeping us from erecting houses for them is a lack of funds. The building that has now been occupied cost about $8,000, that is, $1,600 per family, and we should be able to put up future structures even more cheaply.”
Pioneers, from the left, Shem Haokip, Shimon Thomsong and Reuven Haokip.
"Ma’oz Tzur has given us new hope,” says Shem Haokip, who supervised construction of the building and heads one of the families that have moved into it. “Our goal is to stand on our own feet and contribute all we can to creating and sustaining a community. We’re still in the process of settling in. We have electricity and water tanks to which the water is trucked, although we hope that’s only a temporary solution. There’s a stream running through the property from which water can be piped, and if we dam it at some point, we can also have a commercial fish pond. We have the will and the know-how to do many things. It’s only a matter of money.”.
Reuven Haokip, whose family is also among Ma’oz Tsur’s first residents, is equally optimistic. “I’m honored to be living here and proud to have helped build our first home,” he says. “With God's help we’ll turn this into the first all-Bnei Menashe village. I know that’s a long way off. At the moment, we don't even have a minyan for prayers, but we’re planning to invite friends for each Shabbat so that we can at least have a full service then. One of our families is headed by Shimon Thomsong, who taught Judaism at the Eliyahu Avichail School and will be our religious leader. We have plenty of land and can turn this into a cooperative farm that will fulfill all our needs and even more. The potential is endless.”
(October 19) As hundreds of young B’nei Menashe reservists headed for their army units this week after receiving their mobilization orders, a first casualty among the community’s combat soldiers was reported. The wounded soldier was Natanel Touthang of Beit Shean, who was hit by shrapnel from a Hizbullah shell on Israel's border with Lebanon. He was evacuated to Rambam Hospital in Haifa and treated for hand and eye injuries that were reported to be light.
Although exact numbers are unavailable, some 300 B’nei Menashe reservists, most in combat units, are estimated to have been called up in the past two weeks. Well over a hundred more were already serving in the army when the Gaza crisis broke out. “Nothing could better demonstrate how much of a part of Israeli life we B’nei Menashe now are,” says Degel Menashe’s managing director Yitzhak Thangjom. “Considering that the total B’nei Menashe population of Israel is barely five thousand, we probably have a higher percentage of youngsters now in uniform than most other sectors of the population.”
For nearly all of them, being called up in a military emergency was a new experience. A typical case was that of D., an infantry soldier in the Golani Brigade who spoke to us from his cell phone shortly after reaching the army base he had been told to report to. “I had just finished my regular military service earlier this year and was married a few months ago,” he told our Newsletter. “Last Shabbat the army sent a courier to tell me to report for reserve duty immediately. I explained to him that my wife would be left alone and asked for a day to make arrangements for someone to be with her. When Shabbat was over that evening I called my mother, and as soon as she arrived early the next morning. I said a hurried goodbye and took the first bus for my base. I have no idea yet where I’ll be sent. I have a brother in the Tank Corps who’s been called up to. I’m proud to be defending our country.”
Bnei Menashe rookie soldiers post basic-training. File photo.
So are the hundreds of others. “I think that when this is over,” Thangjom says, “we B’nei Menashe will feel Israeli in a different and more profound way than we have felt until now. We’ll have put our lives on the line for this country as so many Israelis are doing and have done. In the fighting ahead, there will inevitably be more casualties among us. Some of us may be killed. If Israel will be, as many people are saying, a different country when this is ended, we B’nei Menashe will certainly be a different community.”
This holds true, Thangjom says, for the parents of B’nei Menashe soldiers no less than for the soldiers themselves. “My oldest son began his regular army service a few months ago,” we were told by Enosh Lhouvum, the head of one of the 120 B’nei Menashe families of Sderot that have been evacuated, along with all the town’s other residents, to hotels in various parts of Israel. “He was very enthusiastic about it, so excited that he couldn’t sleep in the nights beforehand. His hands, he said, were 'itching' to hold a gun that he could fight for Israel with. To tell the truth, I would have preferred that he stay in in his yeshivah, where his studies exempted him from the draft. I wanted him to go on studying Torah. But you know how it is in Israel. Children make their own choices.”
Bnei Menashe soldiers, called up and ready to serve.
Lhouvum, who is also chairman of Sderot’s B’nei Menashe community council, spoke to us from the hotel on the Dead Sea where he and other community members he is in charge of are now being put up. “It’s nice to relax here after all we went through in Sderot,” he told us. “The government is paying for our entire hotel bill, although not for private expenditures. Apart from that we’re in the dark, though. We don’t know how long we’ll be here, or whether we’ll continue to get our pay from our workplaces. These are uncertain times. So many of our sons are in the army and we have no idea of where they are or how they will be deployed. My own son was almost finished with his basic training when the fighting broke out. Today, the ceremony celebrating the end of it was supposed to have been held. I don’t know what unit he’s been assigned to, although the last time I spoke with him, he told me it was a combat one. Part of me is very worried and part is very proud that he’s doing his duty. We’ll pray for his safe return and victory for Israel.”
Yaacov Tuboi, a witness to Hamas's attack on Shabbat.
(October 12, 2023)“It was the scariest experience of my life,” says 71-year-old Yaacov Tuboi of Sderot, which, like over twenty other Israeli settlements near the Gaza Strip, was overrun by Hamas assailants this week. “I woke up around five that morning, excitedly looking forward to the Shabbat and Simchat Torah prayers in our new B’nei Menashe synagogue that was inaugurated just a month ago. The service was supposed to begin at 7:30, and a little after six I heard gunshots, followed by the boom of a rocket in the distance.
“I’ve lived in Sderot long enough to know that one doesn’t worry about such things,” Tuboi went on. “I assumed that Hamas in Gaza was acting up again and that an Iron Dome had intercepted a rocket. But the shooting not only didn’t stop, it kept getting closer, which was reason for concern. Just then I peered outside through a window blind and saw a pickup truck full of men dressed in police uniforms. It was packed with 10 or 15 of them and they were firing automatic rifles, I couldn’t tell at what. Then they jumped from the pickup and spread out. Some headed for the police station, which is less than 200 feet from our house and visible from it, while others made straight for us.
Hamas operatives on the streets of Sderot.
“It was frightening. I shut the blinds and fell to my knees to pray. I could hear the shuffle of feet outside my front door and banging on the doors of my neighbors. Fortunately, nobody opened. Our own door was passed over.
“After a while the group left building and went to join the others. As soon as they left, I went back to a slit in the blinds to try to see what was going on. By now it was about 6:30 and the rest of my family had been wakened by the gunfire and the commotion. I signaled them not to make a sound. The gunmen were firing into the police station. Though I still didn’t know what was happening, it was clear that Sderot was under attack and that I could forget about going to synagogue. I was afraid that if we panicked and made noise, we might die. Through the blinds I could see a gunman leading two little children of no more than three or four down the street. The worse part of it was knowing I couldn’t do anything to save them.
Israeli troops engaging Hamas at a residence, Sderot.
“About 7:45, soldiers arrived and a gunbattle broke out between them and the Hamas fighters holed up in a wing of the police station. There was a lot of shooting and some loud explosions. Then a bulldozer was brought in to knock down that wing. I watched until I saw our soldiers carry away the dead bodies of the last two terrorists. Afterwards I heard that a lot of policemen were killed, too.”
Tuboi could see the battle for the police station from his apartment. Unlike him, however, many of Sderot’s 120 B’nei Menashe families, who comprise one of the largest B’nei Menashe communities in Israel, had no idea what was happening because, afraid to leave their homes, they were kept by religious scruples from using their cell phones until the Sabbath and holiday ended that night. (In point of fact, the laws of Sabbath observance state that the Sabbath may be violated when human life is in danger, as it was in this case.)
A view of the Police station from Yaacov Tuboi's apartment.
“Although we heard shooting, there was no way of knowing what was going on without access to a phone,” we were told by Ezra Mate, 40. “We live in a new neighborhood with several identical-looking building, each with a front door opened by punching a code. I only found out later that some of them had been attacked. The terrorists broke in by smashing the glass walls of the entrance. Our own building was spared. Not until I finally switched on my phone and saw all the messages on it -- from the municipality, from the home front defense force, from friends and family wanting to know how we were – that I realized the extent of what took place. On the whole, our own neighborhood got off lightly. The older ones were hit worse.”
Although none of Sderot’s B’nei Menashe were killed or injured in the Hamas attack, one couple did lose its home. This was Rivka Chong Guite, and her husband Zevulun, whose house took a direct hit from a rocket. “We only found out about it Sunday morning,” Rivka, told our Newsletter. “We live in an old part of Sderot, near the former Bnei Menashe synagogue. Ours is a simple single family house, with two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen-and-dining room, small by any standard. Providentially, we decided to spend the Shabbat of Simchat Torah at my mother's, a fifteen-minute walk away.
Rocket strike: damage on the Guite family home.
I slept soundly Friday night after our holiday meal and wasn't aware of anything until I heard gunfire the next morning. I tried to tell myself that it must be our soldiers shooting at Hamas infiltrators, but the shots were too near and kept getting closer. Before we could understand what was happening, the attackers were inside the city. We shut all the windows and hunkered down. You never know when a stray bullet may come your way. We didn’t find out about all the killing and devastation until after Shabbat, when we switched on our mobile phones.
Zvulun and Rivka Guite whose home was hit by Hamas rocket.
“That night someone phoned my husband to tell him that a rocket had hit our home. It was the first we heard of it. The next morning he went and saw that we had been bombed out. The house was a total loss. Everything was burned or shredded to pieces. There was nothing that could be salvaged.
“Looking back, I see this as a miracle. We could easily have been killed if God hadn’t had other plans. Honestly, I don’t grieve for our home. I’m happy we escaped a terrible fate. When things settle down, we'll look for a place to rent, and meanwhile, we’ll stay with my mother. We haven't thought about leaving Sderot the way many families have. What for? The army has control of the border again and Hamas is being destroyed. I don't think it will ever again have the capability to attack Sderot. I’ll save the worrying for other things.”
Enosh Satsei Lhouvum, chairman of Bnei Menashe community council atv Sderot.
Enosh Satsei Lhouvum, 43, chairman of Sderot’s Bnei Menashe community council, confirms that some B’nei Menashe families have left the town, at least temporarily, to stay with relatives in the north, and that he has arranged for others who have requested it to be put up in hotels elsewhere that have offered free accommodation. Most B’nei Menashe, he told us, have decided to stay put, even though the town is still under rocket fire from Gaza. “My job,” he says, “is to take care of them. The local school, shops, and workplaces have been shut down. There are designated times when some stores and supermarkets are open, but the rockets keep people from going out and buying what they need. The municipality is doing its best to distribute such items as food, baby formula, diapers, and the like, and we’re managing for now, but it’s difficult to say how long we can go on this way.”
Sderot’s B’nei Menashe community, some about 20 or 30 families of which are estimated by Lhouvum to have left for the time being, have shown greater determination to stay put than their non-B’nei Menashe neighbors. Ezra Mate has lived in the town for 10 years, the last five of them in a new neighborhood. “We live in one of several identically constructed buildings,” he says, “each with a code to get in. Hamas broke into some of them by smashing the entrances’ glass walls. Although our building was spared, only six or seven families have remained out of the 49 that lived in it.”
Yaacov Tuboi puts this determination well. “The rockets haven’t stopped for the last four days,” he said to us when we spoke with him over the telephone on Tuesday. “The last one was just an hour ago. We’ve been advised to stay indoors, lock our doors, and not open them if anyone knocks. There are still terrorists at large looking to kill who they can. The roads, streets, and parks are all empty. The supermarkets, malls,and shops are closed. We still don't have our normal lives back. But we’re willing to pay the price to finish Hamas once and for all. I hope and pray the army does it job without fearing anyone but God.”
On Friday, October 13 it was announced by the Israeli government that, due to the
constant rocket attacks from Gaza, the entire population of Sderot will be evacuated.
Some of the photos were obtained from freely shared social medias.
