Aliyah Cabinet Cancels Meeting on Lhanghal Case As Police Investigation Continues Under Wraps

(October 27, 2022) A hastily called meeting of Israel’s Aliyah Cabinet, summoned this week by Minister of Immigration and Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata to discuss the October 6 murder of Yoel Lhanghal, has been just as hastily canceled at the last moment. No reason for this was given by the ministry.

The Aliyah Cabinet, a rarely convened forum of ten ministers appointed to deal with special situations involving immigrants to Israel, was scheduled to meet on the morning of Thursday, October 27. Among those invited to participate in the session was Degel Menashe’s managing director Yitzhak Thangjom. “Naturally, I’m disappointed that the meeting was called off,” he told our Newsletter. “It would have been an occasion to discuss the problems of the B’nei Menashe at the highest level.”

Thangjom had intended to present the Aliyah Cabinet with a proposal to conduct surveys that would determine how serious anti-B’nei Menashe prejudice in Israel is. “We don’t know as much about the subject as we need to know,” he said. “Many B’nei Menashe feel that Yoel Lhanghal’s murder was motivated by racism. Perhaps it was. To be honest, though, this isn’t clear. We’re still in the dark about many things. Even Yoel’s own family doesn’t know the whole story.”

This was confirmed this week by visitors to the Lhanghals’ home in Nof Hagalil, which has continued to be besieged by condolence callers many days after the formal shiv’a for Yoel came to an end.

Condolence callers at the Lhangals’s. Yoel’s parents, Gideon and Batsheva, are on the sofa.

“The police have told us very little,” they quoted Gideon Lhanghal, Yoel’s father, as telling them. “We don’t even know if Yoel was stabbed by a knife or killed by some other weapon or blow. The autopsy findings haven’t been revealed to us.”

These remarks were at variance with earlier reports of the police’s confirming that Yoel was the victim of multiple stab wounds. The tight-lipped behavior of the police even toward Yoel’s family, our Newsletter was told by a criminal lawyer it consulted, is not unusual in such a case. “An investigation can be harmed by a premature disclosure of the facts known to the police,” it was explained to us. “This can give the accused or their lawyers an opportunity to concoct explanations, or to coordinate testimony, in advance of an indictment, which can be very damaging to the prosecution.”

The fears that have circulated of a police whitewash to exonerate Yoel’s murderers were, our source thought, unfounded. Even, he said, if the police in Kiryat Shmona, where the murder took place, had wanted to shield the local teenagers who killed Yoel, this would not be possible. The sacking last week of Kiryat Shmona police chief Nir Sasson for his mishandling of the incident has focused the public spotlight on it, thus precluding any suppression of evidence, and in any case, the investigation has been passed on to a central unit and is not in the hands of the Kiryat Shmona police station. “If it has been slow,” our source said, “this has probably been for good reasons. Yoel was killed by five or six boys attacking him at once, and the police must try to determine whether the lethal blow or blows was delivered by one of them, some of them, or all of them. From the videos of the incident that I’ve seen, this isn’t easy.”

It would be less complicated, the lawyer explained, if most of the attackers hadn’t been teenagers. He cited Paragraph 29 of the Israeli criminal code, which states that, whereas all the participants in a crime are guilty of it to the same degree, minors can be an exception when “they have served as the tool of someone else.” Since reportedly only two of the accused, the only ones said still to be in police custody, are of legal age, defense lawyers for the others might claim that their clients were their “tools” and cannot be held guilty of murder.

The Fund-Raiser for Yoel’s Family.

Meanwhile, “Helping Yoel’s Family,” a public fund-raising campaign for the Lhanghals conducted under the auspices of Giveback, an Israeli Website for charitable giving, has managed to raise nearly 400,000 shekels, 80 percent of its stated goal.

"We wish to show Yoel’s parents,” the campaign’s organizers declared, “that they are not alone, to help them economically to raise their children and meet their own needs, to perpetuate Yoel’s memory, and to pay for what legal help they will need.”

Sukkot Celebrated by B’nei Menashe In Shadow of Death of Yoel Lhanghal

(October 20, 2022) While the October 6 murder of Yoel Lhanghal continued to cast a pall over the B’nei Menashe community, its dark mood was lightened by the week-long holiday of Sukkot. Apart from building and celebrating the holiday in the traditional family sukkah, the B’nei Menashe of Israel and India took part in two major festivities. One, a National Convention of Indian Jews, was sponsored jointly by the Indian embassy in Israel and the Israeli municipality of Petach Tikva. The other was held in Churachandpur, where the B’nei Menashe Council sponsored a festive communal meal to which all B’nei Menashe were invited.

The event in Petach Tikva, which was attended by some 2,000 guests, reinstituted an annual event, lapsed since the outbreak of the Covid epidemic, that had sought to bring together all Indian Jews and their descendants in Israel.

Invitation to the National Convention of Indian Jews.

First held in 2013, the event has always been participated in by their four communities: the Cochin Jews of southern India, the Bene Israel of India’s west coast, the Baghdadi Jews of Mumbai (Bombay) and Kolkata (Calcutta) and the B'nei Menashe from Mizoram and Manipur.

A large number of B’nei Menashe, estimated at one to two hundred, turned out for the event, their participation in which took place, at the request of the Indian Embassy, under the auspices of Degel Menashe. They came from near and far, some by chartered bus and others in private vehicles, to take part in an evening that included welcoming remarks by Petach Tivka mayor Rami Greenberg and the Indian deputy ambassador Rajeev Bhodwade; classical Indian music and dance, including a performance by a B’nei Menashe troupe; Indian food, and exhibits representing the four participating communities.

The B’nei Menashe stall.

A small B’nei Menashe stall featuring traditional handicraft, clothing, and photographs, was a particular attraction, and many of those visiting it expressed their disappointment that the items on display were not for sale.

Meanwhile, in Manipur, another old holiday tradition, in abeyance for nearly 20 years, was also revived – namely, an annual B’nei Menashe get-together for a festive meal to which the entire community was invited. Sponsored by the B’nei Menashe Council, this event, too, featured singing, music, and formal remarks, plus 200 kilograms of beef donated by BMC chairman Lalam Hangshing and the B'nei Menashe Council's Israel Chapter and cooked with rice in ten large pots.

Meat and rice for close to a thousand guests.

In addressing the crowd, Lalam Hangshing recalled how his father, the late T. Aviel Hangshing, had taken part in hosting the first Israeli ambassador to India, Ephraim Dowek, thus commencing official contact between the B’nei Menashe and the government of Israel.

T. Aviel Hangshing (second from left) with Ambassador Dowek (third from left), Mrs. Dowek (second from right), and L.S. Thangjom (far left) and his wife Jolly (third from the right).

B’nei Menashe came from all over Manipur for the feast, some even sitting on the roof of a standing-room only bus chartered by the far-off communities of Kangpokpi and Phalbung. “It’s been a long time since we had anything like this,” said one of the Phalbung contingent, Ardon Kipgen. “The atmosphere was wonderful, as was the food. We absolutely must do this again next year.” None of the B’nei Menashe who flocked to Vengnuom Hall would have disagreed with him.

Yoel Lhanghal.

Yet despite the holiday celebrations, the murder of Yoel Lhanghal in the northern township of Kiryat Shmona continued to hang heavily over Israel’s B'nei Menashe. As the details of what actually happened remained unclear and subject to conflicting accounts, and the police, while releasing no official report, held back from pressing charges against the perpetrators, fears rose that no legal action would be taken and calls were made for justice to be carried out. A Facebook post, Chanchinbawm Thar suggested that: “In order to bring Yoel’s innocence to light, and his brutal murder at the hands of a gang of Israeli youths, who after killing him gave false reports to the police investigating the case that were then widely disseminated in the media, let the entire B’nei Menashe community come together to retain the best and most skillful lawyer to represent us.”

Since the only lawyers authorized to act against the killers would be state prosecutors at a trial, it is uncertain whether such an advocate could be of much help. Still, the feeling that something needed to be done, because the police and prosecutor’s office were not doing enough, was widespread as the week after Sukkot drew to a close.

Questions Continue to Surround Yoel Lhanghal’s Death

(October 13, 2022) A week after the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Yoel Lhanghal old in the far northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmonah, many of the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear.

Yoel Lhanghal.

Lhanghal was laid to rest on Sunday, October 9, on the eve of Sukkot, in the cemetery of Nof Hagalil, the city in the Lower Galilee to which he came to live with his parents and five brothers and sisters after their Aliyah to Israel from Manipur less than a year ago.(A focus of B’nei Menashe immigration in recent years, Nof Hagalil now has, along with Kiryat Arba in the south, Israel’s largest B’nei Menashe population.) Hundreds of B’nei Menashe attended his funeral, at which he was eulogized by Rabbi Noam Krispil of Nof Hagalil and Rabbi Yehuda Koch, the headmaster of the yeshiva in Ma’alot at which he was studying while eagerly awaiting his army call-up. “You were,” said Krispil, addressing him, “a model of love of Torah, love of the Land of Israel, and love of your fellow man.”

Yoel’s friends with placards.

Several of Lhanghal’s B’nei Menashe friends came to the funeral with placards bearing photographs of him, some saying “I wanted to be an Israeli soldier,” and others with statements like “No More Hoodlumism!” and “Jewish Blood Must Not Be Freely Shed!” Although the issue of anti-B’nei Menashe prejudice, and the possibility that it might have played a role in Lhanghal’s murder, were not publicly raised at the funeral, they were the subject of discussion in the B’nei Menashe community, as well as of accusations made by Lhanghal’s parents. “Yoel was a victim of racism,” Yoel’s father Gideon Lhanghal was quoted by the news agency Ynet at saying, while his mother Batsheva was reported to have declared: “It was because we don’t look like others. There was great hatred [behind Yoel’s killing] because he looked different.”

Yoel’s parents, sisters, and brothers.

Yet although racist shouts were apparently heard in the course of the violence that ended with Yoel’s death, it is not clear that anti-B’nei Menashe sentiment was the cause of the outbreak itself. The police investigating the case, who arrested 11 suspects, most minors, and later released nine on bail, were skeptical. The argument between Yoel and his assailants that turned violent, the same Ynet article quoted them as saying, began as “a dialogue of the deaf, between a speaker of an Indian language [who did not know much Hebrew] and Hebrew speakers [who were not understood by him].” There was no original racist intent behind it, police said.

The basic chain of events that led up to the stabbing is not in question. Sometime between 11 o’clock and midnight on Thursday, October 6, Yoel and a B’nei Menashe girlfriend, who were visiting friends in Kiryat Shmonah along with several other companions from Nof Hagalil, had a verbal altercation in a park with a group of local youngsters emerging from a birthday party at a nearby club. The police were called and dispersed the disputants without making any arrests. Yoel and his friends, however, remained in the park while the Kiryat Shmonah group left, only soon to return armed with knives. A second confrontation now occurred, and in it, Yoel was set upon by a dozen or more youngsters and stabbed by several of them, as evidenced by the multiple wounds he received from different knives.

Yet many of the details of what happened remain murky. What led to the argument that resulted in the police first being called? (Different accounts have been given.) Were some or all of the youths involved, as has been claimed by both sides, under the influence of alcohol? Why did Yoel and his friends remain in the park after the police told everyone to leave? Did the group of Kiryat Shmonah youngsters who returned do so with the express intention of stabbing him? Had some of them been carrying knives all along, or did they go to get them before coming back?

Yoel Lhanghal is attacked at the top of the stairs.

The CCTV video of the fatal brawl (see our October 8 article “B’nei Menashe Youth Stabbed to Death”) contains many puzzling features, too. It shows a park with stairs descending from a higher level to a lower one, and the fight starting on the higher level, with Yoel being attacked by a large group of boys while many others run down the stairs and flee, apparently fearing the police’s return. Yet Yoel does not appear to have been injured in this scuffle, because in the next frame, all the boys who had remained on the top level are seen running down the stairs, too, Yoel among them.

Yoel is stabbed at bottom of stairs.

It is only at the bottom that one views him fighting with someone, after which he is grabbed by two boys and held while others pile on and stab him. Yet why did he run down the stairs with his assailants rather than remain by himself at the top? And why, in the background, are some of the Kiryat Shmonah boys fighting among themselves? Were some trying to protect Yoel and exchanging blows with his attackers?

Presumably, there will eventually be answers to all these questions, if not soon, then at the trial of the accused stabbers when it is held. Whatever these are, they will not bring Yoel back to life or make his death any less tragic or less a blow to his family and a shocked B’nei Menashe community. But they may help to clarify some things – among them, the question of whether or not anti-B’nei Menashe prejudice played a significant role in what took place. If it did, some hard thinking will have to be done about how it can and should be fought.