This year we celebrated Passover early, on a Sunday a few days before St. Patrickâs Day. My adult children will disperse before the official holiday, but with the darkest days of the pandemic behind us, we have much to celebrate.
The return of a Lost Tribe of Israel, 27 centuries later
Thousands of Bnei Menashe in northeast India began coming back to their ancestors’ homeland in the 1980s. About 6,000 more are waiting to join them.
Bnei Menashe immigrants are welcomed to Israel. Photo by Laura Ben-David
“In our eyes, we were never lost. We knew who we were and always wanted to come home and reconnect with our roots.”
On January 3, three Lhanghal sisters from northeast India – Rut, 28; Dina, 21; and Avigail, 13 – immigrated to Israel, the land their ancestors were forced to leave 27 centuries ago.
The remarkable story begins in 722 BCE, when the Assyrian Empire conquered and deported the nine tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel, which had split from the southern kingdom of Judea 200 years earlier.