No One Comes or Goes in Nordiya

(January 14) A month after their arrival in Israel on December 17, the 252 B’nei Menashe immigrants in the Nordiya absorption center near Netanya have seen no more of the country than they did from the windows of the El Al plane that brought them. Nor, for that matter, has the country, or even their close relatives, seen anything of them.

In part, this can be put down to circumstance. Subjected to a two-week Covid-19 quarantine upon reaching the center, the immigrants were barely done with it when a national lockdown was imposed. Yet this does not explain the security guards at the center’s gates who have instructions to let no one but Shavei Israel personnel enter or exit, or the strict orders that the immigrants have been given to talk to no one but their immediate families on their cell phones. There have been reports of relatives coming to visit and being turned away or of shouted conversations being held with them through the gate. Finding out what is happening at the Center, our Newsletter has discovered, is only slightly easier than investigating conditions in North Korea.

What we have been able to learn is this:

B'nei Menashe immigrants room at Nordiya

Most of the immigrants are housed six to a room, in three pairs of bunk beds. Their day begins with breakfast, which is served in two messes, one for the olim from Manipur and the other for those from Mizoram. (All meals are prepared by a catering service and served by volunteers from the group.) Afterwards, at 8a.m., come morning prayers, followed by lessons in Judaism until lunchtime, with intermittent breaks. After lunch are more lessons until it is time for evening prayers and dinner. After dinner and before bedtime, the immigrants are sometimes given a talk on Israeli life or other subjects by Shavei International Coordinator Tsvi Khaute. There are no organized recreational activities and nowhere to buy drinks or snacks.

The teachers at Nordiya are all Shavei staff. None are known to be deeply versed in Jewish history, law, or tradition. Although the B’nei Menashe community in Israel numbers several rabbis, as well as a number of teachers authorized by the Rabbinate to instruct their communities, none is employed at the absorption center.

Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the immigrants attend giyyur or conversion classes to prepare them for the rabbinical court they will have to face. Several conversions, announced by Shavei on a Facebook page, have already taken place. Yet the converts, it is said, will have to remain for two more months at Nordiya like everyone else. Hopefully, by then they will have gotten a first glimpse of Israel, and we, a first glimpse of them.

B'nei Menashe at Nordiya before rabbinical conversion court

You Don’t Have To Be Donald Trump

(January 14) You don’t have to be Donald Trump to cry “Fake!” when you lose an election.

Shavei Israel’s new Manipur Administrator Sehjalal (Shlomo) Kipgen did the same this week when he sought to convene a rump session of the state’s B’nei Menashe congregations in Churachandpur on January 10 in order to overturn the elections held for the B’nei Menashe Council last November 5.

Sehjalal’s maneuver was the most recent in a series of Shavei moves designed first to thwart and then to reverse the November vote. At the start, Shavei opposed the holding of BMC elections and threatened to retaliate against anyone taking part in them. When this failed, it ran its own candidate, who was none other than Sehjalal Kipgen, for BMC Chairman, saw him go down to defeat, and tried to form a breakaway organization. When that, too, led nowhere, Shavei switched to its latest stratagem, namely, to call for new elections on the grounds that those conducted in November were invalid.

The current Shavei stratagem was launched on January 5, when former BMC General Secretary Seimang (Yitzhak) Haokip, who did not run for re-election in November, sent out a letter on BMC stationary that fraudulently represented him as still the holder of his office. Declaring that the November balloting was not “free and fair,” and was “thrown into chaos and confusion by people with bad intentions,” the letter called for a revote.

Seimang Itzkhak Haokip's fraudulent letter misrepresenting him as BMC General Secretary

What “bad intentions” those who pushed for the November election had had apart from the wish to restore to the BMC the independent voice Shavei had deprived it of, Seimang did not say. Nor did he explain what was “chaotic and confusing” about a vote that took place calmly after an open debate in which all 24 of Manipur’s B’nei Menashe congregations participated and whose democratic nature not even the losers challenged at the time.

The BMC's FIR

On January 8, the BMC’s currently elected General Secretary, Ohaliav Haokip, filed a First Information Report or complaint to the Churachandpur police, accusing Seimang of having “impersonated and misused” the BMC’s letterhead with the help of Sehjalal Kipgen. Meanwhile, the rump session convened by Seimang met at Beit Shalom synagogue in Churachandpur on the 10th. The results were disappointing for the organizers. Delegates from only 7 of the 24 congregations bothered to show up, among them none from the larger ones, including Beit Shalom itself. No one came from Imphal, Kangpokpi, or Moreh. Of the 15 congregations in the Churachandpur area, only Monglienphai, Zohar, Boljol, Sijang, and Patlen were represented.

Ohaliav Haokip

Despite the poor turnout, the rump faction announced its intent of staging a new election on January 25. “Although there is clearly no popular desire for it,” Ohaliav Haokip told our Newsletter, “Sehjalal and his associates are campaigning aggressively by all available means. There have made both promises and threats. Rumors are circulating of people being told that the new election’s supporters will be given priority on the Aliyah lists that Shavei draws up.”

The Churachandpur police, Ohaliav says, have been slow to act on the case. Consequently, the elected BMC has engaged a lawyer to request a stay order from Churachandpur’s District Magistrate’s Court. Such an order would forbid the rump faction from holding an illegal BMC election and would enjoin Seimang, Sehjalal, and others from using BMC stationary or posing as BMC officials. Once the necessary papers are filed, the court’s decision will be awaited.

Two Letters Tell Two Stories

(January 8) Two letters just received by the Degel Menashe Website tell two stories, only one of which has (so far) a happy ending. Both concern the new group of B’nei Menashe olim that recently arrived in Israel. The first letter is about Malka Zote, who landed in Israel earlier this week with four other young B’nei Menashe women from Mizoram and Manipur. (See today’s story “A Saga of Three Sisters.”) The second letter has to do with Joel and Dana Chhakchhuak, whom we wrote about in our Newsletter of December 10. (See our story from that date, “Mood Is Mixed.”) Both letters appear in full on our Letters & Opinion page.