In Nof Hagalil: Part III Of Demsat Haokip’s Story

(August 17, 2022) In two previous installments, Demsat Haokip told of his Aliyah from Manipur and his family’s stay in an Absorption Center in Israel. This week his story continues with his family’s first months in Nof Hagalil, the former city of Upper Nazareth, to which his group of 250 immigrants was sent.

We were still at the Absorption Center when the day for our giyyur [conversion] arrived. A few days previously, all the males in our group were required to perform a tipat dam [symbolic circumcision], even though we had all been circumcised before joining the B’nei Menashe community in Manipur. On the day of the conversion, we were taken to a mikveh [ritual bath]. We were three families, some 20 or so people, men and women apart. The three adult males were brought to the bath one by one. As usual, I was last. Several rabbis were present. I was told to take off my clothes while one of them examined my circumcision. After a good look, he seemed satisfied, because I was signaled to descend the steps into the water. Then I was signaled again to immerse myself completely. I dunked for a second or two, surfaced, and was told to recite the Shema Yisra’el [the “Hear O Israel” prayer]. Then I stepped out of the water and dried myself with a towel. It was little more than a formality for me, since I had already felt fully Jewish before this.

There was one other notable event before leaving the Absorption Center. Now that we were converted, all the married couples in our group of 250 immigrants were remarried according to Jewish law. This was done ten couples at a time. Before the ceremony, I was asked to sign a ketubah [halakhic marriage contract] along with two witnesses. The ten couples were lined up, a rabbi standing at one end gave a short speech that none of us understood, and the seven traditional blessings were said, several of them by Shavei Israel representatives. Then all the husbands recited “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither” and in unison broke a glass placed under each one’s foot. This was followed by dancing and music, and some food.

The couples at the wedding.

Meanwhile, Shavei Israel was making preparations for our move to Nof Hagalil. Its representatives were given the job of finding rental housing for us there. I suppose they tried matching the size of available apartments to the size of our families, but we ourselves weren’t consulted about any of it. Nobody asked us whether we wished to live in Nof Hagalil, and nobody asked where we wanted to live in it. We were simply told, “This is where you’ll be.”

Most of us were given furnished apartments with three bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen with a refrigerator and stove. The only thing we had to buy was a living-room table, and we bought a cheap plastic one. The younger families with fewer children were given two bedrooms. Our monthly rent was 2,500 shekels and we had to sign a lease that runs until the end of this year.

There was only one other B’nei Menashe family in the building. Our Israeli neighbors are nice, but since we know no Hebrew, we have no way of talking to them. . It would have been very helpful if we could have been absorbed into an existing B’nei Menashe community, one with people who had been living in Israel for at least a few years and whom we could have communicated with and been helped by.

Hebrew was and is a big problem. When we first arrived in Nof Hagalil, we were offered a daytime Hebrew course given in a large room provided by the municipality. Yet since none of the teachers could speak our language, and we couldn’t speak theirs, it was impossible to understand them. I learned nothing and eventually dropped out. We have to get along in sign language as best we can. When we go shopping, everything in the supermarket has a price displayed on it, so we pick things out, take them to the cashier, and pay for them, all without a word. If only we had been taught some conversational Hebrew in the Absorption Center, or back in Manipur, in all the years that we were waiting for our Aliyah!

Valid until 10.10.22

A few days after arriving in Nof Hagalil, we were given our permanent Israeli ID cards, which meant we were now full Israeli citizens and entitled to a sal klita, an immigrant’s allowance of 8,000 shekels a year for the next half-year. When a Shavei representative handed them to us, however, we noticed that our daughter Rachel’s ID card was different; it was a temporary one that had to be renewed within a year. Since we couldn’t go to the Ministry of Interior office without Hebrew, we asked Shlomo Telngoh Haokip, the Shavei official in charge of assistance to the Nof Hagalil immigrants, to help us. He said he would but did nothing about it. When we asked him a second time, the result was the same. When Rachel gave birth in May, he didn’t answer our appeal for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. And after her son Yair was born and she wasn’t given the ma’anak ledah [birth allowance] that every new mother gets. Shlomo said to us when we went to him agian, “Look, I can’t do anything about it. Ask Tsvi Khaute [Shavei Israel’s chief administrator].” I sent Tsvi a WhatsApp message and he texted back, “Don’t worry. You’ve been taken care of until now and you’ll be taken care of from now on.” Given the way we’ve been taken care of until now, I have every reason to be worried!

That’s what we come to expect from Shavei. We have the telephone numbers of their counselors whom we’re supposed to call when we need assistance, but when we call them, they generally ignore us. It’s the same when you send them WhatApp messages. And if you do get to talk to them, they’re always telling you that they’re busy with someone else and have no time. Our problems are clearly not a priority for them. We need people who have some kindness and a genuine desire to help, not like them.

One thing Shavei did do was open bank accounts for us all, in which the immigrants’ allowance was deposited. Of the 8’000 shekels we receive every month, 2,500, as I said, goes for rent, another 2,500 for water, gas, electricity, and municipal taxes, and the remaining 3,000 is spent mainly on food. We can manage on that if we stick to eating meat once a week, on Shabbat. Our children’s education costs us nothing. The younger ones go to government schools in Nof Hagalil, while the three older girls were sent by Shavei Israel to religious boarding schools in Ma’alot and Acre. It’s all paid for by someone.

The Shavei announcement calling for the return of the 6,000 shekels.

We were also given an initial loan of 6,000 shekels by Shavei to start us off with while waiting to get our allowance.. At one point, Shavei posted a WhatApp announcement that this loan was being converted into a grant and wouldn’t have to be repaid. Our happiness didn’t last long, though, because a week or so later a second announcement was posted that we would have to return the money after all, since it was needed for a new wave of Aliyah. That was in mid-May, three months ago. Since then, there’s no new wave of Aliyah wave in sight. I don’t know what others have done, but I’ll think about repayment after I get a better explanation.

Our allowance runs out at the end of August, after which we’ll be on our own. That leaves even older men like myself – I’m in my mid-fifties – with no choice but to find work. None of us actually went and looked for a job; with no way of talking to a prospective employer, how could we? The choices were limited in any case: we could either go to work in a factory or take a cleaning job. Shavei counselors came and told us what employment they had found for us, just as they had told us earlier what apartments we had been given. I was informed that I would be working at a factory that made robotic swimming pools cleaners, and the next day I was taken there.

“Demsat’s wife: She’ll have to work, too.

The work assigned me was to pack the assembled robots for shipment. It wouldn’t have been hard if I had been able to sit down, but I wasn’t given a seat and had to stand on my feet all day long. It was too much for me and I quit after three days. Although I hadn’t been told what my pay would be, I was given 400 shekels for my three days of work, minus the cost of the work boots I was made to buy, which was deducted from my salary. Now I’m waiting for Shavei to find me another job. If we’re to make ends meet, my wife will have to work, too.

When we first arrived in Nof ha-Galil, we were like a bunch of blind people. Even today, after having been here for months, it’s still like that. No doubt the place is beautiful, with lovely views all around, but we’re too involved in groping our way from one thing to the next to notice them. If we at least had been concentrated in a single neighborhood, we could have taken comfort in each other’s company. Those of us who are lucky live close to one another, but most of us live far away. And now that most people have a job, we don’t even go to the same synagogue any more. We used to meet for prayers every day in a hall provided by the municipality, but there’s no time for it now that we have regular jobs. Some of us see each other at night in religion classes given by Shavei. Although we’re not forced to attend them, it’s made clear to us that we’re expected to.

There’s a joke going around that we’re still waiting for Aliyah – back to India. That’s more of an expression of frustration than anything else. I doubt that anyone in his right mind would actually return to Manipur. We waited for so many years to come to Israel and we’re not about to give up now that we’re here. We B’nei Menashe aren’t complainers. We do what’s asked of us and don’t grumble.

A Lot of Questions To Be Asked: A Degel Menashe Editorial

(August 11, 2023) Part I of the story of Yosef Demsat Haokip and his family’s Aliyah to Israel, which appeared in last week’s Newsletter, told of a brave man’s refusal to be cowed or intimidated by Shavei Israel’s discriminatory Aliyah policies and its cynical manipulation of them to enhance its power. Demsat’s victorious insistence on maintaining his dignity and self-respect despite Shavei’s bullying tactics should serve as a model for all B’nei Menashe. He has proven that it is possible for his people to reach Israel while continuing to stand tall in the face of Shavei’s threats and intimidation.

Part II of Demsat’s story tells of his and his family’s five months in a Shavei Israel-run absorption center, along with the 250 B’nei Menashe immigrants who arrived with him in Israel last October. Here, Shavei's harassment of him continued. Part ll's revelations are even more disturbing than Part I’s because they cover new ground. Until now we have heard a great deal, in large measure due to this Newsletter, about Shavei’s abuse of its monopoly over the B’nei Menashe’s Aliyah. This week we hear from Demsat about Shavei’s abuse of its monopoly over the B’nei Menashe’ absorption in Israel – that is, over what happens to them in the first stage following their arrival. He paints a scandalous picture.

What is scandalous is not so much the physical conditions in the absorption center in the Galilee village of Goren that Demsat and his family were sent to – the two rooms with one toilet that their eight-member family had to live in for nearly half a year, or the daily food prepared without the slightest consideration for the diet they were accustomed to. No one promised the B’nei Menashe a life of luxury upon their arrival, and if crowded quarters and a thoughtless disrespect for their eating habits are part of it -- well, immigrants to Israel (and other countries) have had to face worse things.

No, what is truly scandalous is the educational and cultural aspect – or should we say the educational and cultural vacuum? -- of those five months. For day after day, as Demsat describes it, he and his fellow olim were made to sit from morning till night through one poorly prepared and incompetently taught class after another, broken only by lengthy prayer sessions and quickly eaten meals. The teachers were Shavei Israel staff members with no professional background or qualifications whose only subjects were Judaism and Jewish law. There were no rabbis among them (although the B’nei Menashe community has several of its own) and no experienced educators (although the community has these, too). Shavei Israel preferred to hire its own operatives, however unsuited for the job they were.

Worse yet is the fact that, during their first five months in Israel, all Demsat and his fellow olim were exposed to was, as he puts it, “religion and prayer, prayer and religion, all the time.” Outside the windows of their classroom was a new country, the country of their dreams. Were they taught anything about it? No. Were they instructed in its language? No. Were they once taken to see something of it? Again no. Were they introduced to any Israelis or offered a chance to talk to them? No once more. Were they given the slightest preparation for the life that awaited them once they left the absorption center and had to strike out on their own? Not if Demsat is to be believed. They were too busy – read Demsat’s description of his giyyur interview – learning the laws of de-boning a fish on Shabbat to have time for such frivolous pursuits.

Granted: a successful giyyur is a necessity for new B’nei Menashe immigrants and they need to be taught all that is required for it. Shavei Israel is not responsible for the questions asked a giyyur candidate by a rabbinical court, and if one of these is how to extract a bone halakhically from a fish, so be it. But Shavei is partially responsible for the adjustment to Israeli life of the B’nei Menashe it brings to Israel – and in its total neglect of this in its absorption center in Goren (and presumably, in other absorption centers run by it in the past) it is guilty of shocking negligence, Knowing the minutest laws of Judaism is not going to help newcomers in Israel to find a job, communicate in Hebrew with their neighbors, navigate Israeli bureaucracy, or understand the culture and mentality of their new homeland. In this respect, the five long months that Demsat Haokip and his family spent in the Goren absorption center were wasted ones.

And where, pray, was the Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption in all this? The ministry not only paid the costs of the Goren absorption center, it bore full responsibility for what went on there. Did it know what this was? Did it care? Did it send anyone to talk to the B’nei Menashe immigrants, sit in on their classes, listen to their complaints and suggestions for improvements? Not to the best of Demsat Haokip’s knowledge, and not to the best of ours. As is the case with the B’nei Menashe’s Aliyah from India, the ministry’s attitude seems to have been to dump their absorption into the hands of Shavei Israel while saying, “Here, it’s all yours. You take care of it. Just send us the bills. We’ll pay them and ask no questions.” But there are a lot of questions to be asked.

At The Absorption Center: Part II of Demsat Haokip's Story

In the end, we made it to Israel despite my refusal to sign the loyalty oath that Shavei demanded of me. Perhaps Shavei was worried about the negative publicity it was getting in cases of Aliyah discrimination like mine. Even then, though, it squeezed the last drop of satisfaction from putting me through the wringer by keeping me and my family in the dark until practically the last moment. Two weeks before the departure for Israel of the last group of B’nei Menashe who had passed the 2014-15 interviews, long after all the others had been informed of it, we received word that we would be joining them.

It was a victory of sorts, though not a complete one, because my son Menashe was not allowed to come with us. The reason was that in 2015, a year after his Aliyah interview, he married a B’nei Menashe girl who had not been interviewed and Shavei struck him from the Aliyah list instead of including her, too. It was terribly unfair, but that was Shavei’s policy.

The homes in which the B’nei Menashe olim were housed.

Our group of 250 immigrants arrived in Israel in October, 2021 and was taken straight to an absorption center in Goren, a moshav in the Upper Galilee near Ma’alot, where we were housed in homes for vacationers. There were 12 to 15 of these houses, located on a gentle slope overlooking a forest. My family of eight was allotted two rooms in one of these houses, each room with four beds. One of them, which came with a bathroom, was shared by me, my wife, and our two younger children, while the other was occupied by the four older children, who had to use our facilities. It was a tight fit, but I didn’t complain.

We settled quickly into the routine that was to be ours for the next five months. Our days were mostly spent in shi’urim {religious lessons]. These were supervised by a Shavei administrator, Aharon Singson, who was assisted by four teachers. A typical day began with a wake-up at 6 am. Shacharit [the morning prayer] began at 6:45 and typically lasted until 8. We were then served breakfast, consisting of bread, eggs, butter , cheese, milk, and tea or coffee. The shiurim, for which we were divided into four or five groups of several dozen pupils, began at 9. At around 12:30 there was a break for mincha {the afternoon prayer], lunch, and some free time, after which there were more classes from 3 pm to 6:30, when we broke again for arvit [the evening prayer] and supper. After supper, Aharon Singson gave all of us together another shiur, which usually lasted from 8 to 10 or even 11. By then, it was time for bed.

The forest around Goren.

The shiurim dealt with the weekly Torah portion, and with Jewish law and custom, and were meant to prepare us for our giyyur [conversion] interviews with a bet-din [rabbinic court}. There was, as far as I could make out, no rhyme or reason to any of it – not why we studied one subject at one time and another at another time, nor why some of the classes lasted an hour, some half-an-hour. It was all random, according to whatever mood the teacher was in on a given day. There wasn’t a single class in Jewish or Israeli history. We learned nothing about Israel itself or Israeli life. We were taught no Hebrew beyond the alphabet. We never met or talked with even one Israeli, including the residents of Goren. We were never taken on a single trip. All we saw of the country we had come to live in was a children’s park in the village that our children had almost no time to play in, and the forest on the village’s edge. You could sometimes see wild animals there, such as deer, foxes, and a lot of wild boar, and I liked watching them. Otherwise, it was religion and prayer, prayer and religion, all the time.

I suppose we had to know all that for the rabbis. But there was no excuse for the food, which was simply terrible. To begin with, although the mainstay of a B’nei Menashe diet is rice, the staff at Goren did not know how to make rice the way we ate it. The rice was always half-cooked and made with oil and salt, whereas we traditionally used only water; this led to constant stomach problems that made us dyspeptic much of the time, although we were never sick enough to be allowed to skip our classes, despite all the gas that was passed in them. The fried schnitzel, cold cuts, and other meat that we were served were foreign to our taste, and the salads, not all the ingredients of which I could identify, were far too bland. Some chilies would have vastly improved their taste! No one seemed to realize that we like our food to spicy. And why did there have to be so much sugar in everything? I can understand sugar in cakes, tea and the like, but why put it in a chicken dish, which is something no B’nei Menashe would dream of doing? Given all the money that was spent on our upkeep, I would have thought that one of our brothers or sisters might have been asked to cook for us. Everybody would have gained from it.

After four or five months of this, we were deemed ready to face the dayanim [rabbinical judges.]. For this we were divided into groups of six or seven families, numbering 30 to 40 in a group, and bused to Haifa. It took several days to complete the process, and given my standing with Shavei, it came as no surprise to me that our family was in the last group and was the last family in that group to be called. We were used to that from Manipur.

“Demsat and his family dressed for the Bet-Din. From left to right: Ahava, Rakhel, Leah, Demsat Yosef and his wife, Osnat, Leora and Rivka. Sara is in the front.

As we were ushered into the Bet-Din by Tzvi Khaute [Shavei Israel’s chief administrator], I saw Michael Freund [Shavei’s founder and chairman] seated at the back of the room. The interview began. I was asked about Joseph in the Bible. I told the whole story – how he was the favorite of Jacob, and how his jealous brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt, and how he was falsely accused and imprisoned, and how he was taken from his prison cell to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams, and all the rest. When I finished, the next question was about how to remove a bone from a cooked fish on Shabbat. I answered that since there is a prohibition on forcibly separating objects on the Sabbath, one should use one's teeth rather than one’s fingers to detach the bone from the flesh. Each of my family was then asked in turn a Torah question followed by a halakhic question. The interview must have lasted over an hour, and I assumed we did well, because there were a lot of tov me’ods [“very good”s] after each answer.

When the interview was over, we were told to wait outside. I was expecting us to be called back in to recite the Shema Yisra’el [the “Hear O Israel” prayer, the Jewish proclamation of faith] but it didn’t turn out that way. After a few minutes, Tzvi Khaute came out from the rabbis’ chamber and informed us that we had failed the interview.

I didn’t know what to think. I felt helpless, numb. And yet I wasn’t entirely surprised. It was typical of the way Shavei had tormented me from the beginning. Tsvi wielded a lot of power. He controlled things. If he wanted us to fail the interview and be sent back to India, or simply to be worried sick, he could easily have asked the dayanim for that favor. There was nothing I could do about it.

That evening, Tzvi sent one of his men, Chanan Singsit, to summon me to a meeting with him. I knew what he would want: for me to beg for forgiveness and plead that my family be allowed to complete its giyyur so that it could live in Israel. I told Chanan that I wasn’t going to any meeting. I was not, I said, going to be bullied, and I would sooner be sent back to Manipur than have to knuckle under.

Chanan reported back and Tsvi sent another person to talk to me. This time, after much argument, my family insisted that I see Tsvi. I went to meet him the next day at his Goren office. When I got there he asked, “What do you have against me?” and told me that my family would have to appear before the dayyanim again “What good would that do?” I asked. “We’ll be failed this time, too. Do I have to remind you that it was I who, as vice-chairman of Congregation Bet-Shalom in Churachandpur, taught Judaism to many of those who passed the interview? They still still know less than I do, but they got through it and I didn’t.”

We ended the meeting with my reluctantly agreeing to appear with my family again before the Bet-Din. This time the interview was short. I was the only one asked a question, and all I was asked was to recite the Shabbat evening Kiddush [blessing over wine]. I hadn’t needed five months of shiurim for that! We were informed we had passed and we were all told to say the Shema.

(Next week: Demsat is settled in Nof Hagalil.)