STATE MIZORAM
‫השנמ ינב‬
Lost Tribe
When scores of Mizo Jews are converting to
Judaism for their natural resettlement in Israel,
there are enough reasons for the other section
to believe otherwise. But that’s for the anthro-
pologists and historians to decide whether they
really belong to the lost tribe of Israel; but for
them, its time to set off for their promised land.
Ratnadeep Choudhury finds…
I
n 1951, when a Pentecostalist called
Chalianthanga or Mela Chala (the
name varies) from Buallawn village
in Mizoram dreamt about God instruct-
ing him to direct his people to return to
their pre-Christian religion and to their
original homeland, he perhaps could not
decipher those words of God instantly.
But it did not take much time for him to
determine his pre-Christian religion to
be Judaism and Israel, the homeland.
When Chalianthanga was preparing
to go to his “homeland” Israel, almost
simultaneously, another group in his
“own country” was raising a demand
for the recall of those tribes who were
driven out from Israel 2700 years ago.
Many years passed since then. Chalian-
thanga and several followers, who were
said to have had set out on foot through
the hilly jungles of Northeast India to-
42 August 08
wards Israel, gave up due to the sheer
distance and terrain. But this setback,
however, did not deter the believers to
grow in number steadily (estimated to
have risen by 50% in recent years) and
today they are all set to complete the
journey to their homeland that Chalian-
thang had started.
The Mizo ‘Jews’ are now hoping to
get a ‘new life’ in their ‘Promised Land’
- Israel. In pursuit of this new life, Mizo
Jews who call themselves Bnei Menashe
(Children of Menasseh) and claim to be
the descendants of Mannasseh, one of
the ten tribes exiled from Israel by the
Assyrians from North Iraq, may soon
leave for their ‘homeland’.
According to the elders of Jewish
community residing in Mizoram – a
group of 100 or at least 50 ‘converts’
may soon leave for Israel and settle
there. The apex body of the Messianic
in India - The United Messianic Youth
Council (UMYC), India, headquartered
in Imphal – announced that in April this
year the Supreme Court of Israel had
allowed ‘Indian Jews’ to secure Israeli
citizenship.
The Israeli Supreme Court on April
16 this year overturned its previous ver-
dict and ruled that Mizo Jews could get
the Israeli citizenship according to the
‘Law of Return’ as per a petition filed
by the US-based United Messianic Jews
Congregation. The Israeli law defines
a Jew as ‘a person who was born of a
Jewish mother or has converted to Juda-
ism’.
Interestingly, before Chalianthanga
pronounced their link to Judaism, they
were all converted to Christianity in the
19th Century. They have no written his-
STATE MIZORAM
tory but their legends refer to a beloved The rapid conversion of Mizos to Juda-
homeland they were driven away from
called Sinlung/Chhinlung. Anthropolo- ism has brought about a change in the
gists and historians believe that it was
located in China’s Yunnan province and
religious equation of the state. This oth-
that the Tibeto-Burman migration from
there began about 6000 years ago.
erwise Christian dominated state is wit-
But the Bnei Menashe are little rigid nessing a rise in Judaism. Many of them
to buy this argument. Their belief found
much credence when Michael Freund are learning Hebrew through correspon-
reported in the Jerusalem Post that the
Bnei Menashe claim to have a chant they dence courses. At the local synagogue,
call Miriam’s Prayer. The words of the
chant are identical to that of the Sikpui
hundreds of Mizos attend prayers thrice
Song and this article is the first known
print reference to Miriam’s Prayer aka
a day, just to show how deep-rooted their
Sikpui Hla. faith is in the Jewish life style.
The Bnei Menashe believe that the
traditional Mizo-Kuki harvest festival
song “Sikpui Hla (Sikpui Song)” which
features events paralleled in the Book of
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