Updated: Dec 15, 2023
(September 14, 2023) The initial structure of a joint Degel Menashe-B’nei Menashe Council project for housing homeless B’nei Menashe displaced by the recent ethnic violence is Manipur is nearing completion, our Newsletter has learned. The building, the first of several planned for the site, stands on 250 acres of land outside the city of Lamka (formerly Churachandpur) that have been donated by BMC chairman Lalam Hangshing.
“The interior and exterior wall frames are in place, the tin roof is up. and the concrete floor has been poured,” we were told by Jesse Gangte, the BMC’s Manipur treasurer and director of the project. “All that remains to be done structurally is finishing the walls and installing doors and windows. We already have the agreement of the nearby village of Vangphai to connect us to its electric grid, which will call for 600 meters of cable on wooden poles, while water will be supplied by tanker trucks. Our plan is to acquire a large plastic storage tank with a capacity of several thousand liters and to pipe water to it from a nearby stream, but this will be costly, and for the moment, we’ll have to rely on water deliveries by tanker trucks.”
The building will be divided into five small dwelling units, each housing one family and measuring 25 x 20 feet. (Since its total cost, it is estimated, will be about $7,000, this will come to $1.400 per unit, a small sum for resettling an entire family.) A separately standing shed that has already gone up will serve as a communal kitchen, while additional sheds will be erected for a communal bath and latrines. The complex should be ready for occupancy, Gangte told us, by Sukkot. “Two of the five families,” he says, “have already chosen adjacent plots of land and begun to farm them: one is growing beans and the other has a large vegetable garden. Once all the families have moved in, each will be given its own plot. The idea is for them to grow complementary crops that will make them relatively self-sufficient in terms of food while leaving enough over for sale at local markets in order to provide them with some cash as well.”
The head of the construction crew at Suongpi is Shem Haokip, a builder by profession and a B’nei Menashe from the village of Sajal, which was attacked by Meitei assailants last May. “The Meiteis burned everything to the ground, including our synagogue,” he told us. “My family spent many days in an army camp, and then moved to Lamka, where we were put up by the BMC at the Eliyahu Avichail School. Suongpi is a godsend for us. We all hope that the settlement will grow. There’s plenty of land and plenty of still homeless B’nei Menashe households in need of permanent quarters.”
According to Yitzhak Thangjom, Degel Menashe’s managing director, there are some 35-40 such households in Lamka and Kangpokpi. “”We’ll try to house them at Suongpi as quickly as we can raise the money to build more units,” he says. “The idea is to create more than just a refuge. It’s to build a small, self-sustaining community that will lead a semi-collective life, democratically making its own rules and decisions. One might think of it as a little B’nei Menashe kibbutz.”
Asked what the logic of such an investment was when all the B’nei Menashe of Manipur are looking forward to their Aliyah to Israel, Thangjom said: “No one knows when and how quickly the Aliyah of the remaining 5,000 B’nei Menashe in Manipur and Mizoram will take place. To judge by the pace of Aliyah in the past, it could easily be a matter of another five or ten years. Meanwhile, the displaced families need a place to live. Suongpi is not only the best and cheapest place for this, it has exciting possibilities that do not exist elsewhere. It’s not an opportunity to pass up.”
Right now, Thangjom told us, Suongpi is missing, not only the funds needed to build additional units, but missing the Hebrew name that Lalam Hangshing wants to give it in time for its occupancy late this or early next month. Our readers are invited to write in their suggestions.
Updated: Dec 15, 2023
(August 27, 2023) Last week’s article about Sderot, the town in Israel’s northwestern Negev to which B’nei Menashe have been flocking of their own accord, ended midway through an account by B’nei Menashe immigrant Yaacov Tuboi. In it he told how, soon after his arrival in Israel from Manipur at the age of 62 in late 2014, he grew dissatisfied with life in the Galilee city of Tzfat [Safed] to which his family had been sent by the government. “And so,” his account continues, “right before the Passover holiday of 2015, I decided to have a look at some other B’nei Menashe communities. I thought Kiryat Arba, which was the oldest such community in Israel, would be a good place to start, and my wife and I went to visit a relative there.
“Kiryat Arba had something unusual, its own B’nei Menashe rabbi, Rabbi Shimon Gangte, who gave lessons in Judaism in my native language of Kuki. I found this exciting. But to my disappointment, the town’s B’nei Menashe, despite all their years of living there, still did not have a synagogue of their own. When someone told us that such a synagogue had been founded in Sderot, which was just an hour’s drive away, I asked my relative to take me there.
“Although I didn’t meet the synagogue’s founder David Lhungdim that day,” Tuboi went on, “I took an immediate liking to Sderot. There were only seven or eight B’nei Menashe families there, but the synagogue, Congregation Alfei Menashe, met regularly, and there were plenty of good job opportunities and a friendly municipality, neither of which Tzfat had.
Once my wife and I were back in Tzfat, Sderot was never far from our minds. We talked about it with friends who were unhappy with life in Tzfat just as we were. We tried to keep these discussions secret, because we were afraid how Shavei Israel, which ran the B’nei Menashe community high-handedly, might react. Word somehowleaked out, though, and Shavei’s supporters in Tzfat began accusing us of spreading dissension. That was the last straw. I told my family we were leaving for Sderot and we started planning for it.”
The first to make the move, in January 2016, were Tuboi’s eldest daughter and her husband, Ezra Mate. “My wife and I followed them the next month,” Tuboi told us. “We were happy in Sderot from the start. I had what I had always wanted: a B’nei Menashe synagogue and a rabbi with whom I could study Judaism in my own language. I felt that my spiritual quest was fulfilled.” Tuboi quickly found a job working in a greenhouse. “Rabbi Lhungdim helped my whole family to get settled. He found us work, schools for the children, and a house that was a walking distance from the synagogue. Our friends from Tzfat heard how well we were doing under his guidance and gradually joined us. By that summer 15 more families from Tzfat had joined us.”
The Tubois and Ezra Mate were the trailblazers. First to follow them from Tzfat was Khetzron Paolam Haokip, 63, and his family..
“We have a Kuki saying,” Haokip told us, “that the welfare of a village depends entirely on its chief. That was our problem in Tzfat: the administration of our community was not good. Though we were all newcomers with no knowledge of Hebrew, the help it gave us was inadequate, and when we complained, the answer was always: ‘That’s the way it is.” There were no solutions for any of our problems. As soon as we heard that Yaacov Tuboi and his family had moved to Sderot, we decided to join them. Whereas in Tzfat there was little work available, in Sderot there were many openings, and right-off I found a job that paid well in an electronics factory. Both my daughters now work there too (I myself now work at the municipality), my oldest son is studying at the local kollel [religious study cooperative], and the 17-year-old who comes after him will either go to the army or enroll in Sderot’s yeshiva. We came to Israel for one reason– Judaism -- and Sderot in a good place for B’nei Menashe to practice and pursue it.”
Within a short space of time, four more families had left Tzfat for Sderot. One of them was headed by Tzion Lienpu Haopkip, 47, a father of three boys and two girls. “As with others in Tzfat at the time,” he told our Newsletter. “I was unhappy with the way things were being run. No one in charge of our affairs was near doing their job; no one responded to requests for help. Whenever we demanded better service from Shavei Israel, we were accused of being subversives and threatened with punishment. I could see that Tzfat would not be a good place in which to bring up my children. There were many other families that wanted out like mine.
“I was well-informed about Sderot. I also knew Rabbi David Lhungdim from Manipur, and had confidence in him and his devotion to Judaism. One cold winter morning after Ezra Mate and Yaacov Tuboi moved there my family and three others hired a truck, loaded all out worldly possessions on to it, and headed for Sderot. We never looked back.” B’nei Menashe began arriving in Sderot from other places, too. “By the end of 2017, we already had 40 families,” Rabbi Lhungdim told us. . More followed suit, trickling in one by one. Today, we have 120 to 130 families. Already in 2017 our synagogue developed a Bet-Midrash, a school for Torah study, and earlier this year we converted it into a proper Yeshiva with a daytime and nighttime Kollel.
We also have our own NGO, Shivtei Menashe, which functions to promote our community’s interests. All our children study Torah and follow the Jewish way: that’s our commitment. But though some consider us Haredim, we’re not trying to impose a Haredi style of life. Some of our young people will remain Torah students all their lives while the rest will go to the army and find employment when they finish their service. They’ll serve the nation.”
Because Sderot’s B’nei Menashe have learned to rely on themselves to solve their problems rather than on Shavei Israel or government agencies, they have developed a tightly knit community in which mutual help prevails. One of the latest new B’nei Menashe arrivals in Sderot, 44-year-old Dina Singson, attests to this. “I came to Israel a year ago,” she told our Newsletter, “after my mother, who was living in Nof ha-Galil, fell seriously ill and was not given proper medical care. Accommodations were found for her in Sderot and I came from Manipur to attend to her.
The town’s B’nei Menashe have been solidly behind us, and Rabbi Lhungdim and his family have been helping us with everything, from getting us doctors’ appointments to obtaining social benefits. The entire community has stepped in to help, too, and given me work taking care of small children. and bringing them to school and back, so that I can pay for my and my mother’s expenses. We couldn’t have chosen a better place to live.”
Today, Sderot has one of the largest B’nei Menashe communities in Israel and one that is growing all the time. If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, it’s that B’nei Menashe immigrants to Israel are like most people. Let them make their own choices and run their own lives rather than live in a state of dependency, and they’ll be happier and better-off.
