FEEDING THE HUNGRY, SAYS SHAVEI, IS DETRIMENTAL TO THE COMMUNITY

(30 September) Our Newsletter has learnt, two members of the Bnei Menashe Committee on Food Relief, an ad-hoc group created to distribute food to needy Bnei Menashe families in Mizoram effected by the Delta wave of the covid19 epidemic, received identical letters. The two are Asaf Renthlei and Leah Renthei (they are not related), both prominent members of the community. The letters were signed by Shmuel Khiangte, chairman of the Khovevei Tzion Synagogue, Aizawl and Azriel Pachuau, the synagogue's secretary. They read as follows:

In accordance with the decision of the Shevet Menashe Khovevei Tzion Executive Member Committee, pursuant to our knowledge, duly substantiated by adequate proof, that your actions—the creation of a separate body which is liable to create division, and deliberation regarding a separate minyan—are detrimental to the Community, we hereby submit this letter of notice to you.

We are deeply concerned that you have not only established a separate group, but even formed an Executive body. In accordance with our Constitution, Article sub (1), “If a member of Shevet Menashe (Khovevei Tzion Community) were to engage in anything that is opposition or conflict that is detrimental to the community, or if their actions are demonstrably detrimental to the community, the Executive Committee retain the right to

take any necessary action, and may even go to the extent of revoking their membership.” It is in accordance with this clause that the Executive Committee has decided to act with regard to you, and bids you faithfully continue your engagement with the separate group you have established. Nevertheless, since we want to give you the liberty to make your own choice in this matter, in the event that you decide to remain a member of Khovevei Tzion, we request that you submit a letter in your own hand to the Community leadership (O.B), detailing your disavowal of any further engagement with any other body/group and that you will henceforth guard yourself against any involvement with any activities that are detrimental to the community.

Furthermore, we seek to inform you that if, within three days of receipt of this letter, you do not exercise your choice in this matter, and neither do we receive any response on your part, your membership in Khovevei Tzion will be effectively terminated.

Issued and signed on behalf of the Shevet Menashe Khovevei Tzion Executive Members.

Mizo original of the letter sent to Asaf and Leah.

"The letter was absurd, say Asaf, "In the first place, no separate body was established. What was set up was an temporary committee to distribute food that Shavei Israel had been offered an opportunity to participate in and had declined. It was clear that the ad-hoc committee had no other function than food relief and was in no way intended to set up a separate communal institution. Beyond that, I would like to ask Shmuel Khiangte and Azriel Pachuau what exactly was detrimental to the community in giving free food, with no strings attached to hungry members. If Khiangte and Pachuau think this is harmful to the Bnei Menashe of Mizoram, they have a very strange notion of wherein the community's welfare lies. Moreover, the timing of the eve of Rosh HaShana, a day on which Jews ask God for compassion on His creatures, was appalling; it speaks volumes on Shavei Israel's thoughts and intentions."

Such a demand for a writ of self-accusation would be fitting for the Spanish Inquisition or a modern totalitarianism regime. The charges to which Leah and Asaf were asked to confess were patently ridiculous

Both Leah and Asaf responded to this ultimatum by asking its issuers to clarify exactly what their wrongdoing was. Neither received a reply.

Khovevei Tzion is Aizawl's largest synagogue and Shavei Israel's official place of worship. Already in the past the synagogue has sought to exert total control over the lives and action of its members. New members wishing to join the congregation were asked to sign a loyalty oath in which they pledged total subservience to Shavei Israel. The language of the oath was:

I, the undersigned , have after careful thought and consideration, have my own accord decided to apply for membership in the Khovevei Tzion Community, Aizawl, Mizoram. I also submit myself in obedience to Shavei Israel Organisation, and I swear to remain true to this pledge.

In addition, I vow to refrain from any action or activities, in opposition to Khovevei Tzion and Shavei Israel Organisation. In the event that I break my vow, I promise beforehand and with clear conscience, to gladly accept any necessary disciplinary action taken against me by Khovevei Tzion Community and Shavei Israel Organisation.

Mizo original of the loyalty oath Khovevei Tzion members are made to sign.

"It is obvious" says Leah Renthlei,, '' that Shavei Israel considers loyalty to it is more important than loyalty to Judaism and Judaism's commandment to help one's fellow Jew in need. It's very sad."

Emergency Food Drive Pressed in Manipur, Mizoram

(September 24) A total of ten tons of rice have been distributed to over 200 B’nei Menashe families in the latest stage of Degel Menashe’s emergency Covid-19 food relief campaign in Northeast India. The operation, completed on the eve of Rosh Hashana, assured these families food security for the period of the Jewish holidays.

In Manipur, most of the aid recipients came from the Churachandpur area, where the state’s B’nei Menashe community is concentrated. Under the auspices of the B’nei Menashe Council, the rice was made available at the Beit Shalom synagogue, the city’s largest, which has also served as a food depot in the past. B’nei Menashe living in outlying villages, such as Phalbung, Gamgiphai, and Saikul, had the rice trucked to them, while in Imphal, the state’s capital, it was made available by local dealers.

“To our regret,” our Newsletter was told by Ohaliav Haokip, the B’nei Menashe Council’s general secretary, “not as many families took advantage of our food distribution as in previous rounds. Shavei Israel has stepped up its threats to withhold Aliyah from those accepting aid from Degel Menashe, and with a new group of B’nei Menashe reported to leave for Israel in the near future, this intimidation has succeeded in many cases. It’s sad to see people in need of food afraid to accept what is offered them, even though it comes with no strings attached. But 168 families did respond, and it’s gratifying to know that they were able to spend this year’s holidays without fear of privation.”

In Mizoram, where the rice was distributed by an ad hoc relief committee, the situation was similar. In the capital of Aizawl, where Shavei Israel’s influence is strongest, 18 families took the offered aid. Outside of it, another 22 responded, including eight from the southern town of Pukpui, whose B’nei Menashe community has long been ignored by Shavei Israel. Degel Menashe’s food drive was an opportunity to renew contact with it.

Scenes from the latest round of food relief.

B’nei Menashe Oral History Book Soon to Appear

(September 24) The Gefen Publishing House of Jerusalem has announced the forthcoming appearance of Lives of the Children of Manasia, a book of oral history interviews with elders of the B’nei Menashe community living in Israel. Gefen, a leading publisher of English books on subjects of Jewish interest, plans to release the book in 2022.

The twelve interviews in the book, held in the years 2017-2020, were conducted by Yitzhak Thangjom and edited by Hillel Halkin, who also contributes a lengthy introduction and historical afterword. The project was financed with the aid of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico and its president Sabra Minkus, a long-time B’nei Menashe supporter.

“Hillel and I,” Thangjom told our Newsletter, “kept in touch ever since traveling twice together to Mizoram and Manipur in 1999-2000 to conduct research for Hillel’s book Across the Sabbath River, with which I helped him as a translator and aide. Our oral history project grew out of our awareness that there was an older generation of B’nei Menashe with a history, stories, and a trove of personal and cultural memories that were not being passed on to the young and stood to be forgotten. A whole world was about to be lost. Although we had no illusions about how much of it we could preserve, we wanted to get as much of it on record as we could. Once the New Mexico Jewish Federation gave us its backing, we set to work.”

Thangjom spent nearly three years crisscrossing Israel and taping interviews in their native languages of Mizo and Kuki with dozens of B’nei Menashe, the youngest of them close to sixty, the oldest in his nineties. Each of the interviews lasted many hours and in some cases involved several sessions. Thangjom then translated these into a verbatim English and passed the transcripts to Halkin, who chose those that seemed to him most interesting and edited them for publication. They are, in the order in which they appear in the book, with Miriam Gangte, Elitsur Haokip, T. Aviel Hangshing, Gideon Rei, Ruth Binyamin, Kap Joseph, Sha’ul Llanghal, Mangsat Kipgen, Dvora Israel, Yosi Hualngo, Shlomo Gangte, and Isaac Thangjom.

“Editing an oral history interview isn’t like editing an ordinary manuscript,” Halkin told our Newsletter. “Even when the interviewer tries getting someone to talk sequentially about his or her life, the subject inevitably wanders, jumps back and forth in time, and goes associatively from one memory to the next. The result can be gripping but also confusing to a reader, and it’s the editor’s job to introduce a measure of cohesiveness and continuity into the confusion. You have to do a a lot of rearranging and reordering while at the same time remaining true to what the interviewee has said and how he or she has said it.”

The interviews in Lives of the Children of Manasia, Halkin says, are fascinating. “Each of the life stories told in them shares much with the others and is at the same time totally unique. Some of the men and women interviewed grew up in small jungle villages, others in towns. Some were raised in the old pre-Christian Kuki-Mizo religion, some in families Christianized by British missionaries. Some had much formal education, others had little or none. Some belonged to the founding generation of the B’nei Menashe movement and talk about its early years; others joined it at a later stage. Yet in one way in another, all found their way to Judaism arduously and with great effort, and the book relates the paths they took to it.”

This makes Lives of the Children of Manasia, Halkin says, of great historical value. “Any future scholar wanting to know about the genesis of the B’nei Menashe,” he observes, “will find this an indispensable volume. There are many myths about the B’nei Menashe, ranging from the claim that they are the direct descendants of an exiled biblical tribe that preserved its Israelite identity throughout the ages to the argument that they represent a purely twentieth-century phenomenon typical of post-colonial societies that seek to reinvent themselves after losing their traditional culture. The truth is far more complicated than either of these simplistic views. Although many mysteries still remain about the possible ancient roots of the B’nei Menashe’s Judaism, our interviewees’ accounts provide a firm basis for further research, which has not existed until now.”

Gefen’s publisher, Ilan Greenfield, put things more succinctly. “I think this is an important book,” he told us. “I’m honored to publish it.”

From left to right: Aviel Hangshing, Gideon Rei and Elitzur Haokip, Miriam Gangte.

From left to right: Natan Kipgen, Kap Joseph and Rabbi Shlomo Gangte.