Degel Menashe Leadership Training Project is Launched

(April 28) The Degel Menashe leadership training project, a program designed to develop a new generation of leaders for the B’nei Menashe community of Israel, held its first workshop in Tel Aviv this week. The eleven young candidates selected to participate met with the program’s director Dr. Reuven Gal, a Degel Menashe board member, noted psychologist and author, and co-founder of Israel’s highly successful Institute for Quality Leadership, which he headed in its first years.

The purpose of the workshop, the first of a planned series, was, as Dr. Gal told our Newsletter, “to explore the concept of leadership and the potential for it in each of the participants.” Not everyone who thinks he or she has leadership abilities, he said, turns out to have them – and conversely, there may be those who discover abilities they never knew they had. “Once we identify the potential leaders in a group,” he explains, “it is possible to foster in them the skills and awareness that will enable them to assume leadership roles.”

Although he has conducted many such training programs in the past, the Degel Menashe project is a new experience for Dr. Gal. “Until now,” he told us, “I’ve worked with older populations that already had proven themselves, mostly junior executives and lower-echelon managers in organizations and businesses who were sent by their workplaces to improve their performance and prepare for higher levels of responsibility. This time, we’re starting from scratch. The young people in this program have not occupied positions of leadership before. Working together will be a challenge for both them and me.”

Responses to the workshop were enthusiastic. “I felt that it stirred up sleeping powers in me,” said Yitzhak Lhungdim, a social work student from Kiryat Arba. “It helped me to understand better what I want from my life and what creative forces I can bring to it.”

Alon Haokip from Nitzan, who is studying architecture, said that the workshop “made me think whether I have it in me to be a leader or not. I came without really knowing what I was coming to. I came away understanding myself better and with a clearer sense of what I can and can’t to influence and change.” Yosef Ngaihte of Kiryat Arba, a carpenter by trade, also thought that the workshop “taught me a great deal about myself, about what my strengths are, and about where I need to improve.” And Bat El Rently, a resident of Bet-El currently getting an M.A. in early education, was struck by “the interaction between Dr. Gal and the participants. The workshop was a moving experience,” she added. “It made me curious to get to know better what I’m capable of.”

Dr. Gal felt as positively about the group as it felt about him. “I, too, didn’t know what to expect,” he told us. “I was very impressed by those who took part. They were a highly responsive and articulate group.”

Hillel Halkin speaking to the workshop group

Before the workshop began, Degel Menashe chairman Hillel Halkin spoke briefly. Observing that the B’nei Menashe community in Israel lacked leadership, he said there were two reasons for his. One was common to all immigrant communities, in which the generation of parents and grandparents, in a new country whose language it does not speak and where it finds it difficult to function, quickly loses its authority. The second reason was the way the B’nei Menashe have been settled in Israel, in which everything has been decided for them by governmental and private organizations without consulting them. “This has led,” Halkin said, “to a community that has lost its sense of initiative and faith in itself. You,” he told the workshop, “can become the leaders who change this.”

At the four-hour workshop’s end, a buffet dinner was served. Asked whether they wished to continue in the program, the participants unanimously said that they did. “I think we all feel that we want to go on as a cohesive group that can make changes and break the cycle of unfulfilled potential that our community is trapped in,” said Bracha Haokip of Kiryat Arba, who is about to begin her studies for a degree in interior design. Ruby Gin, also from Kiryat Arba, agreed. “This meeting was gripping for us all,” she said. “It’s precisely what the young people of our community are in need of – a supportive environment that will help us to grow and develop. I hope there will be more workshops.”

Dinner at the workshop’s end

Reuven Gal promises that there will be. “We have to think of how to proceed from here,” he told us. “But we’ve started something that isn’t going to stop.”

A Private Declaration of Independence

Exactly a year ago, on Israel’s Independence Day, we posted a song in its honor written and sung in his native language of Kuki by Gershom Mate, who arrived in Israel from Manipur in 2014. Readers who would like to hear it again this year will find it as this link.

Gershom Mate’s photo studio in Acre

But besides celebrating Israel’s independence in song, Gershom has declared his own independence by being the first B’nei Menashe immigrant in Israel to open a successful business, a photography studio in Acre, the seaside city in northern Israel in which he lives with his wife and child. And now, going a step further but in the same entrepreneurial spirit, Gershom has added a recording studio as well.

“I’ve been interested in both the visual arts and technology since I was a child,” Mate told our Newsletter this week. “I’ve always loved photography and singing, and joining the two together has been a dream of mine. When I at first came to Israel, I drifted from one low-paying job to another. None gave me any satisfaction, and so I decided to take a course in photography. Already back in India, I had had the idea of setting up a photography-and-sound studio. But when I discussed doing this with my B’nei Menashe friends in Israel, some of whom had been here longer than me, only a few were encouraging. Most were skeptical that I could manage to start such a business, much less make it succeed. Some even talked potential investors out of backing me when I asked them for recommendations!

“I realized,” Mate continues, “that whatever I did, I would have to do on my own. I couldn't depend on anyone but myself. So, I saved up money while working in an electronics plant and opened a photo studio in Acre, which I called Akhim Menashe, [Menashe Brothers] in 2016. I knew very well that it was a risk, but I was determined to go ahead. Some people in the B’nei Menashe community laughed at me. They said, ‘Let's see how long he lasts.’ There was envy. Until then, no one in our community had had the courage to open their own business, and some people wanted me to fail in order to justify their fear of doing so.

The AMS Studio’s interior

“In the end, I was lucky. I rented a small shop and soon I had many customers, both locals and B’nei Menashe. Everything thrived until Covid19 came along. At that point, business dropped drastically. The shop was shut most of the time. I even thought of shutting it down permanently. But I refused to give up, and instead I moved to another location, a cheaper and even smaller one, renamed it Studio AMS for Akhim Menashe Studio, and somehow managed to stay afloat. Now, with the whole country getting vaccinated and life slowly returning to normal, things are picking up again.

“I had always wanted to have a sound studio, if for no other reason than my love of music. But the shop I was renting had no room for such a thing. And so in late December of last year, when the lease on our apartment was almost up, I went house-hunting. After looking at a few apartments, I came across one that had four bedrooms. The rent wasn’t cheap but I bargained it down until it wasn’t much higher than our old apartment’s, and then I rushed to sign a contract before the owner could change his mind.

Gershom’s sound studio

“By the first week of January we had settled into our new place. Next, to realize my dream of many years, I chose one of the bedrooms, which was about 9 or 10 square meters, for my sound studio. It wasn’t a big space, to put it mildly, but it was enough. I asked several small contractors to give me estimates for making the necessary renovations, and since their proposals were high, I decided to do everything myself. I bought all the materials I needed -- glass, plaster, acoustic paneling, etc. – and every day, after finishing work in my photo shop, I put in two hours working on my dream.

The studio’s recording chamber

“It took me almost two-and-a- half months to complete everything. A week before Passover, it was finally ready. I didn’t have to worry about the equipment because I'd bought it over the years, knowing the day for it would come. I already had a synthesizer, a sound mixer, microphones, and other things. The only new item I bought was an electric guitar. I now had an adequately equipped studio that I could upgrade from time to time when I had the money for it. My first customer walked through the door on the second day of Passover. It was a B’nei Menashe who had written some songs and wanted to record them.

“We’re a community that loves songs and singing. I hope to promote up-and-coming B’nei Menashe artists and contribute my bit to our culture. Besides the pop songs that will account for the bulk of the recordings in my studio, I’d like to explore traditional song and music, perhaps using old Kuki instruments like the gosem [a Kuki bagpipe] while fusing them with modern ones. I’ll see how it develops. The possibilities are endless.”

How does Gershom find time to run two different shops all by himself?

“By working long hours,” he answers. “I’m in my photography shop all day until 5 or 6 in the evening, and then in my sound studio until midnight.”

When, then, does he see his wife and child?

Gershom laughs. “When I can.”

It’s not easy to be independent or to try to live a dream, but it’s deeply gratifying. The people of Israel know this.

So does Gershom Mate..

B’nei Menashe Count Their Blessings At Passover

(March 25) Emerging relatively unscathed from what they hope is the fading of the year- long Corona pandemic, the B’nei Menashe of Israel and India will be celebrating Passover this year in a cautiously optimistic mood.

“With Covid19 behind us, the Pesach celebration will be much livelier this time,” says Ohaliav Haokip, General Secretary of Manipur’s B’nei Menache Council and a resident of Churachandpur, home to northeast India’s largest B’nei Menashe community. “Just a year ago, the Indian government had imposed a lockdown and we seemed to be facing an imminent disaster. In the end, due partly to the food relief we received from Degel Menashe, we averted a serious crisis. In fact, there has not been a single case of Corona in our community since the pandemic started, let alone any deaths.”

Aviva Kipgen

Aviva Kipgen of the northern Manipur town of Kangpokpi relates that there, too, “We’ve been lucky to have been untouched by the pandemic. Unlike last year, when fear of Corona put a total halt to all our gatherings, our synagogue has been holding regular services for months and will be active during Pesach. During the days following the Seder night, we’ll get together there every night after evening prayers to hold a study session and perhaps even a communal meal.”

The figures bear Haokip and Kipgen out. In Manipur, and even more so in Mizoram, the two northeast Indian states with sizable B’nei Menashe populations, Corona morbidity rates have been extremely low. In Israel, too, where they have been significantly higher, there have been no deaths from the disease in the B’nei Menashe community. All who fell ill have recovered, like 31-year-old Rivka Chong Guite of Sderot, who told our Newsletter, “This last year has been a very difficult one. I myself caught the virus and had to spend time in isolation. But I feel blessed that we were all able to get through these trying times and survived them. It’s such a relief to spend festivals together with friends and family again.”

Nadav Lhouvum

Most B’nei Menashe will be celebrating the Seder at home. “There are some communities in Manipur,” says Ohaliav Haokip, “which plan to hold communal Seders this year, but most of us will alone with our immediate families.” This is the case in Israel as well. “We will be having the Seder at home, as we have always done in the seven years that we have been in Israel,” says 37-year-old Nadav Lhouvum of Safed. “That’s also what we’ll do for the rest of the holiday. We’ll attend synagogue services each day and go home for all our meals.”

One difference between Passover in Israel and India is that the B’nei Menashe of India, lacking access to store-bought Passover products, make their own matza. Although, not yet being formally converted to Judaism, they are under no halakhic obligation to obey all the rules, and bakery ovens are unavailable, they do their best. Like others, the Kipgens bake their matsa in pans placed on clay charcoal burners. “The regulations of matsa-baking state that, to make sure that no leavening takes place, no more than 18 minutes may elapse from the moment the flour is moistened until it is put on the fire,” Kipgen says, “and I use a timer on my mobile phone to make sure that we stick to that. Anything that takes longer is thrown away.”

A traditional mepoh

In Israel, white the B’nei Menashe buy their matsa in packaged boxes like other Israelis, they continue to cook many of their traditional foods for the Seder, mixing them with the Israeli dishes they have learned to make. Rivka Chong Guite is planning a meal that will, she says, “feature a B’nei Menashe mepoh – that’s a meat and rice stew spiced with ginger and garlic – alongside a lamb curry and a crushed hot chilli dish. Without the chilli, no B’nei Menashe meal would be complete.”

If a shadow looms over this year’s Passover, it has been cast, as in pre- Corona times, by the distance between India and Israel that leaves many B’nei Menashe separated from and longing for their loved ones. “My closest family members,” says Nadav Lhouvum, “my mother, brother, two sisters, and nephew, are still in Churachandpur, waiting for the day they can come to Israel. I know the wait may be a long one. But we’ll never give up our hopes of celebrating Passover together, all of us in one place, once again a single, complete family.”