Shavei Invaders, Avichail School Students, Brawl at Beit Shalom

(April 7) A pitched battle broke out on Sunday, April 3 at Churachandpur’s Beit Shalom synagogue. The brawl, which resulted in injuries on both sides, took place when a group of Shavei Israel supporters, led by Shavei militant Ronel Letkholien Haokip, broke into a classroom of the Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail Memorial School and put an end to the lesson.

The school, an initiative of Manipur’s B’nei Menashe Council, has held regular Hebrew and Bible classes for the past several months. The classes, attended by youths and adults, have been conducted on the premises of Beit Shalom, the oldest and largest B’nei Menashe synagogue in Northeast India, with the permission of the synagogue’s officials. Yet Shavei Israel, the Jerusalem-based organization whose control of B’nei Menashe Aliyah to Israel for the past two decades has enabled it to dominate the community, considers the independent school an unacceptable challenge to its authority and has campaigned against it.

The April 3 incident was the second of its kind in two weeks. On March 24, Shavei intruders also barged into an Avichail School class and sought to disperse it, and the ensuing shouting match ended only when the police were called in. (See our March 24 Website article, “Shavei Hooligans Storm Churachandpur Classroom.”)

Classes held peacefully before the incitement.

The Sunday, April 3 incident started similarly. It quickly turned violent, however, when a Shavei supporter, Moshe Mangoulien Haokip, attacked one of the students, David Lhouvum. Several of Lhouvum’s classmates came to his aid, and the classroom soon became an arena of blows, punches, clubbings, and karate kicks. This time, too, the police were forced to intervene.

Emboldened by the lack of opposition to Shavei Israel’s holding of an illegal by-election for Beit Shalom’s chairmanship in which Shavei supporter Seithang Haokip was chosen for the post by a 99-to-0 vote (see our March 31 article, “Shavei Strong Arm Tactics Continue With Synagogue Putsch”), the invaders were clearly surprised by the resistance they met. At a meeting between them and a B’nei Menashe Council official convened after the brawl, they reportedly offered to agree to the Avichail School’s continuing at Beit Shalom in return for the BMC’s recognition the validity of the March 24 vote.. This report could not be confirmed by our Newsletter.

Ronel Letkholien Haokip.

News of the Beit Shalom brawl traveled quickly beyond the Beit Shalom community and was widely talked about. Interviewed on the Manipur TV station TCN, Shlomo Sehjalal Kipgen Shave Israel’s Manipur Administrator, denied that Shavei had anything to do with the affair and said that it was an internal Beit Shalom matter. Yet writing on a Shavei WhatsApp site, Ronel Letkholien Haokip referred to Tsvi Khaute, Shavei Israel’s International Co-ordinator and second-in-command, as “our Master.” Ronell called the BMC and its followers “idol worshipers” and told them to “build yourselves a new synagogue.”

Scenes from the brawl at Beit Shalom.

Late But Not Too Late: A Degel Menashe Editorial

Shavei Israel in Manipur is being run by hoodlums.

It‘s no secret that, ever since its founding, Degel Menashe has been critical of Shavei Israel. We have objected to the monopoly given Shavei by the Israeli government over the Aliyah of the B’nei Menashe. We have denounced the ways in which Shavei has used this monopoly to control and intimidate the B’nei Menashe community. We have argued that a fair and transparent Aliyah process, such as does not exist under Shavei, would benefit all B’nei Menashe. We have appealed to Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption to transfer the administration of the B’nei Menashe’s Aliyah to The Jewish Agency. Yet for all our criticism, we have never before called Shavei an organization of gangsters.

This is what we now must do.

Consider these recent developments, all reported by this Website – the latest of them in today’s Newsletter:

• Two months, ago, after Knesset Member Miri Regev referred on the Knesset floor to B’nei Menashe congregant Sarah Baite and her daughter, who was raped in 2016 by a Shavei crony now in Israel, Shavei’s Manipur Administrator Shlomo Sehjalal Kipgen threatened Baite with violence if she dared to re-open the case with the Manipur police. Kipgen did not shrink from conveying this warning to Baite through the leader of a banned brutal underground militia.

• Last week, drunken Shavei Israel hooligans, led by Shavei’s Manipur Coordinator Benjamin Nehmang Haokip, broke into a classroom of Torah students in Churachandpur’s Beth Shalom synagogue, cursed and spat at them, and warned them that they and all other B’nei Menashe would be at physical risk if they did not carry out Shavei’s orders.

• Two days later, as related by our Newsletter today, Shavei forcibly took over Beit Shalom and held an illegal, Soviet-style election for the synagogue’s Executive in what can only be called a criminal putsch.

To this needs to be added that Shavei Israel and its officials are now under investigation by the Manipur police for suspected acts of fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement. This, too, is a story that first broke in our Newsletter over a year ago.

And to this mafia-like organization Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption continues to entrust the B’nei Menashe’s future!

It is late, but not too late, for the ministry to step in and put an end to this. The government of Israel needs to be aware that it is not the only government with responsibilities toward the B’nei Menashe, and that there are courts and officials in India who will no longer turn a blind eye to Shavei Israel’s behavior. It will be unfortunate if the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption decides to leave the dismantling of Shavei’s power to them.

Shavei Strong Arm Tactics Continue In Manipur With Synagogue Putsch

(March 31) Shavei Israel’s open flouting of both the law and elementary rules of democracy continued last week with an attempted putsch at Churachandpur’s Beth Shalom synagogue, the largest B’nei Menashe religious center in North East India.

The illegal election notification.

The putsch took place on March 24, when Shavei operatives, having illegally announced a snap by-election for Beth Shalom’s Executive two days earlier seized the synagogue’s premises, packing the building with Shavei’s supporters while denying access to its opponents, and “voted” into office an unopposed list of Shavei candidates.

Shavei’s motives were clear. In recent years, the Beth Shalom Executive has angered Shavei by asserting its independence and refusing to submit to the Jerusalem-based organization’s dictates as it had done in the past. Evenly split between pro-and anti-Shavei members, the Executive sought to follow a policy of neutrality. It made the synagogue available as a center for the emergency distribution of food to Covid-stricken B’nei Menashe families in the autumn of 2020, and again in the spring and summer of 2021, in defiance of Shavei’s opposition to the aid campaign. It hosted 2020 elections for a new B’nei Menashe Council – the first democratically chosen BMC in years, whose emergence Shavei sought to prevent. It refused to take sides in the ensuing battle between Shavei and the BMC, which saw Shavei fraudulently attempt to create a rump council of its own. And most recently, it has offered its premises to the newly opened Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail School, a BMC-sponsored educational initiative.

Last December, Beth Shalom Chairman L. Zevulin Haokip, passed away. As mandated by the synagogue’s by-laws, its Vice-Chairman, Rafael Hangshing, who belongs to the anti-Shavei faction, assumed the post of Acting Chairman and the Executive scheduled an election for November of this year in which a new Chairman and Executive would be chosen. This would provide sufficient time, it was argued, for prospective candidates to declare themselves and campaign for support.

Tarfon Baite.

Yet Shavei Israel was not interested in democratic elections. It feared they might not go its way and it did not want to wait for its opponents to organize. On Monday, March 22, Tarfon Baite, the pro-Shavei chairman of Beth Shalom’s BSY youth group, posted a social media notice that the vote for a new Executive would take place two days later, on March 24. And on the evening of Tuesday, March 23, after the Executive’s General Secretary, Avichiel Manchong, had proclaimed the call for a snap election illegal, Shavei Israel activists, led by Shavei’s Manipur Co-ordinator Benjamin Nehmang Haokip, invaded and violently broke up a class at the Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail School [see last week’s Website article “Shavei Hooligans Storm Churachandpur Classroom”] in a pointed demonstration of what they would do to anyone seeking to thwart the illegal vote.

Benjamin Haokip.

At 11 a.m. the next morning, the same activists forcibly took over Beth Shalom, drove opponents of Shavei Israel from the building, set up a ballot box in one of its rooms, and posted guards at the synagogue’s entrance to monitor those coming to participate in the vote. All identified as Shavei backers were admitted, while all who were not were turned away.

The results of the vote were announced by Shavei days two later, on Saturday, March 26, in the course of Shabbat services in the synagogue. Shavei’s list of candidates, headed by Seithang Haokip, chairman of the pre-2020 B’nei Menashe Council in its days as a Shavei puppet body, was declared victorious by a vote of 99 to 0. Since Beth Shalom’s membership numbers approximately 500, this meant that the turnout was only twenty percent and that many pro-Shavei B’nei Menashe stayed away, too, despite Tarfon Baite’s call for “every household to turn up at the election.”

Seithang Haokip.

What will happen next at Beth Shalom is unclear. The synagogue now has two Executives, two Chairmen, and two sets of officials, one in the pro- and one in the anti-Shavei camp. The latter, our Manipur source told us, is now contemplating legal action to obtain a court order nullifying Shavei’s putsch. “This all could have been avoided,” our source said, “if Shavei had been willing to wait until November and hold an honest election then. Perhaps it might even have won. But trusting in the democratic process has never been Shavei’s way. It would rather split the B’nei Menashe community in two than let it settle matters peacefully by a fair vote.”