Indians Claim To Be A Lost Jewish Tribe — And Now They Can Finally Go Home
A group of about 6,000 people in India claim to be Israel’s long-lost tribe of Manasseh. After centuries of displacement, they finally have their chance to migrate back to Israel and eventually claim citizenship status.
At the same time, some argue that assimilating and gaining acceptance in Israeli culture will pose a challenge — but it is a risk the group is willing to take if it means finally finding a stable, safe home.
Israel’s cabinet approved a plan this past November to relocate roughly 5,800 remaining members of the Bnei Menashe community from India over the next five years. The first group of around 1,200 people is expected to arrive this year, with most new immigrants set to be absorbed in Israel’s northern regions, particularly Galilee.
READ: In New Memoir, Josh Shapiro Confronts Antisemitism, Israel And Political Pressure
The program — backed by a government budget of approximately $28 million — will cover flights, housing, Hebrew instruction and religious conversion-related expenses.
For Israeli officials, the plan completes a process that has unfolded in fits and starts for decades. For the Bnei Menashe, it represents something far more intimate: a reckoning with faith, displacement and the costs of finally leaving.
The Bnei Menashe trace their origins to the Chin-Kuki-Mizo tribal belt of northeast India and western Myanmar. Most were Christian by the early 20th century, following missionary activity in the region. Over time, some community leaders began reinterpreting ancestral songs, rituals and oral histories as evidence of descent from the biblical Tribe of Manasseh, one of the so-called “lost tribes” exiled from ancient Israel.
By the late 20th century, these interpretations had coalesced into a collective movement toward Judaism and, eventually, engaging in the process of Jews immigrating to Israel, called aliyah.
Their claim has long sat at the edges of both religious and political acceptance. Israel does not recognise the Bnei Menashe as Jewish under the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to Jews worldwide. Instead, each migrant must undergo an Orthodox conversion after arrival. Israeli rabbinical authorities have supported the process, but debates persist over theology, history and the role of state institutions in determining Jewish identity.
Despite these uncertainties, around 5,000 Bnei Menashe have already migrated to Israel since the late 1990s, many with the assistance of Shavei Israel, a private organization that works with communities claiming Jewish ancestry. Their experiences have been uneven. Some families have integrated into religious Zionist communities and built new lives, while others have struggled with language barriers, employment and questions about acceptance.
These tensions form the backdrop to the newly approved mass relocation. While Israeli media coverage has largely framed the decision as the conclusion of a humanitarian and religious effort, critics point to its political dimensions. Many of the new arrivals will be settled in the Galilee, a region where Palestinian citizens form a demographic majority and where successive governments have sought to increase the Jewish population through targeted development and migration policies.
For the Bnei Menashe in India, however, the forces pushing them toward Israel are not only theological. In the Indian region of Manipur, ethnic violence between Kuki-Zo and Meitei communities has reshaped daily life since 2023. Entire villages have been burned, tens of thousands displaced, and access to schools, markets and farmland repeatedly disrupted. Members of the Bnei Menashe, who are often identified locally as part of the broader Kuki-Zo population rather than as Jews, have been drawn into the instability.
While many Bnei Menashe describe aliyah as a spiritual return, the move also entails leaving behind languages, cultural practices and social structures rooted in northeast India. Scholars who have studied the community note that this duality shapes how migrants understand both their past and their future.
Gideon Elazar, a sociologist and anthropologist who has conducted extensive fieldwork among Bnei Menashe families in Israel, describes the community as emerging from a “Zomian” highland context, marked by mobility, marginality and layered identities.
In research published with sociologist Miriam Billig, Elazar argues that the group’s migration is best understood not as a simple religious awakening, but as a strategic response to long-standing insecurity. Conversion, he notes, becomes both a spiritual commitment and a pathway into a state that promises stability.
At the same time, Elazar cautions that integration is far from guaranteed. Bnei Menashe migrants arrive as a small East Asian minority within Israeli society and often encounter suspicion, ignorance or outright discrimination. Their placement in peripheral towns, combined with the demands of religious conformity, can intensify feelings of isolation even as they seek belonging.
Indian officials have publicly welcomed Israel’s decision. At a media briefing following the cabinet approval, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal described the relocation as part of a long history of people-to-people ties between India and Israel, noting that such movements have strengthened cultural connections over decades. While India does not actively promote the migration, it facilitates documentation and travel for those leaving, particularly from conflict-affected regions.
As preparations accelerate, uncertainty remains. Not all Bnei Menashe families wish to leave, and some elders worry about what will be lost when an entire community relocates. Others fear that the conversion process and settlement policies may reproduce the difficulties faced by earlier migrants. Yet for many, the risks feel secondary to the possibility of safety and recognition.
As Israel’s plan moves from paper to practice, the Bnei Menashe find themselves at the intersection of faith and statecraft, personal hope and geopolitical calculation. Their journey, shaped by centuries-old narratives and contemporary conflict, raises enduring questions about who gets to belong, and at what cost.
Rishabh Jain is an independent journalist based in Delhi. Follow him at @ThisIsRjain.