 "A newly arrived Jewish immigrant from India holds a child beside Israeli flags after arriving at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv. File image/Reuters")
Around 5,800 members of the Bnei Menashe community are heading back to Israel.
The tribe, which lives in India’s northeast, will be resettled in Israel under the Aliyah (Return to Zion) programme by 2030. This comes after approval from the Israeli government.
Bnei Menashe is an ethnic community that hails from Mizoram and Manipur and claims to be one of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel. The tribe claims to have been exiled from present-day Israel following the defeat of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC by the Romans.
The Israeli government is likely to resettle them in Nof HaGalil in an effort to strengthen the Galilee region, as per The Jerusalem Post. This is set to be the largest and most organised migration effort for the Bnei Menashe thus far.
Let’s take a closer look at the Bnei Menashe tribe and how they came to settle in India.