(April 28) At a meeting at The Jewish Agency in Jerusalem on April 25, representatives of Degel Menashe and the B’nei Menashe Council discussed the future of B’nei Menashe Aliyah with acting Agency chairman Yaakov Hagoel and Aliyah director Shai Felber. Representing the BMC was its chairman Lalam Hangshing, who has been on a visit to Israel from Manipur. The Degel Menashe participants were the organization’s managing director Yitzhak Thangjom, board member Yosi Dahan, and board chairman Hillel Halkin. The meeting was also attended by Knesset member and former cabinet minister Miri Regev. Substantive issues were touched on and it was agreed to continue the talks after the return of the fact-finding mission that the Agency and the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption will soon be sending to India. [See separate article on this mission in today’s Newsletter.]
Updated: May 1, 2022
(April 28) Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption confirmed this week that a fact-finding mission will travel to northeast India in the coming months to review B’nei Menashe Aliyah procedures and make recommendations for changing them.
In an April 25 letter to Yitzhak Thangjom, Degel Menashe’s managing director, senior Ministry of Immigration advisor Almog Moscowitz wrote:
“In pursuance of our conversations, I wish to inform you that, in the coming months, a joint Ministry of Immigration and Absorption/ Jewish Agency mission will come to India. (I hope there will be no need to postpone it again.)"
The expressed hope that such a mission will not need to be “postponed again” refers to its having originally been scheduled for the week before Passover, only to be canceled due to the Ministry of Immigration’s preoccupation with refugees from the war in Ukraine. Although Degel Menashe was included in the planning for this trip, it was asked to keep the matter confidential until the mission’s members departed for India, since their ability to do so was in doubt up to the last moment.
THE DEGEL MENASHE TEAM ITS SENDS WARMEST PESACH WISHES, MO'ADIM L'SIMCHA AND SHABBAT SHALOM TO ALL OUR READERS. WE WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK AFTER THE HOLIDAYS.
