The Hindu : Indian Jews resist DNA tests

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 11, 2002

International

International

Indian Jews resist DNA tests

LONDON NOV. 10. After migrating to Israel over three decades ago, members of a remote community of Indians who claim to be descendants of one of the 10 lost tribes of ancient Israel are in a dilemma of proving their identity and are resisting plans to carry out genetic tests to that effect.

The group, which calls itself the Bnei Menashe (children of the biblical tribe of Manasseh), feared that the plan for the DNA test by a group of American and Israeli scientists might undermine its claims to Jewish ancestry, reports said today.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 Bnei Menashe, who came from Manipur and Mizoram, have been living as Orthodox Jews since the early 1970s.

They are members of the much larger Shinlung tribe but gave themselves their new name to reflect their belief in their roots, The Sunday Telegraph said in a report from Jerusalem.

Despite being converted to Christianity from animism a century ago and bearing distinctive Burmese-Tibetan physical traits, they followed religious rites which bore striking similarities to those of Judaism, the report said.

Among their traditions, for instance, was a male circumcision ritual on the eighth day after birth; a holiday on which unleavened bread was eaten — even though the tribe were not otherwise bread eaters — and they used a language of prayer with numerous linguistic connections to Biblical Hebrew.

According to Hillel Halkin, an Israeli journalist who has researched the subject for four years, the group is a remnant of the 10 tribes of Israel that were "lost" after their exile from ancient lands at the hands of the Assyrians in 722 BC. The fate of the lost tribes has intrigued and baffled historians and explorers for centuries.

With the help of Eliyahu Avichail, an Israeli rabbi and lost tribe hunter, groups of Bnei Menashe have periodically migrated 5,600 km from their homeland to Israel, where they are now about 700-strong.

According to their tradition, they arrived in India via southern China, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Before they are granted citizenship under Israel's law of return, they must undergo full conversion to Judaism. The Indian immigrants have struggled to gain acceptance in Israel, where some cynics have suggested that their claims to Jewish ancestry may owe more to fable than fact.

Bnei Menashe fear that the proposal they should undergo DNA testing may further complicate their efforts to assimilate and to bring fellow members of the tribe to Israel.

"Over a number of years, Jewish blood has mixed with non-Jewish blood in our community. So would the DNA test show that we are Jewish? So are people then going to say that we are not Jewish and dash the hopes of the rest of the community to move here? Even if it is not proven according to a DNA test, we feel Jewish and we will still be Jewish." — PTI

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