About us
Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org) reaches out and assists "lost Jews"
seeking to return to the Jewish people. These include the Bnei Menashe
of India, the Bnei Anousim of Spain, Portugal & South America, the
"Hidden Jews" of Poland and others.
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Please support Shavei Israel
We need your help to continue with our mission. You can volunteer or make a donation by following this link. We are an IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.
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A special Passover appeal for the Bnei Menashe
With the approach of Passover, Shavei Israel is gearing up to assist the Bnei Menashe communities in northeastern India to celebrate the festival - and we need your help to make it happen.
Large cartons of matzoh - the unleavened bread consumed by Jews in commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt - are being dispatched from Israel to India in time for the start of the holiday so that the Bnei Menashe can take part in its traditional observance. They will be distributed among the more than 50 Bnei Menashe communities in advance of Passover eve.
Other educational and religious items are being sent as well, in order to ensure that our brethren in India have a meaningful and spiritual experience.
Several members of Shavei Israel's staff are currently in India running a three-week long seminar for Bnei Menashe leaders and activists, with an eye on training them to organize and run Passover events in their home communities.
And at Shavei Israel's two educational centers for Bnei Menashe in the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, intensive preparations are also underway. These include classes and lectures dedicated to the holiday, and the production of special kosher-for-Passover kiddush (sacramental) wine that will be distributed to community members.
All told, there are still 7,232 Bnei Menashe still in India, waiting for permission to move to Israel. As we celebrate Passover, which marks Israel's ancient deliverance from Exile to Freedom, let's give the Bnei Menashe an added measure of hope for a better future as well.
Please help us to help them.
Click here to make your donation to Shavei Israel, and have a kosher and happy Passover.
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Shavei profile: Tzvi Khaute - From Manipur to Israel
In this
issue, we are launching a new series of profiles of individuals from
lost and hidden Jewish communities whom Shavei Israel has helped. Our
first profile features Tzvi Khaute from the Bnei Menashe. We hope you
enjoy!
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As a child growing up in the small Indian village of Churachandpur near the Burmese border, Tzvi Khaute didn't pay all that much attention to Jewish tradition. Like most kids, Tzvi was more interested in playing soccer with his friends and doing well at school. Nonetheless, even from a very young age, Tzvi always knew that by being Jewish he was different.
"My grandfather, who was the chief priest of the village, told us that our living in India was only a sojourn and temporary, and that we Bnei Menashe are separate from the rest of the country - politically, socially and ethnically," Tzvi recalls.
His family instilled within Tzvi a deep pride in their roots as Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for "the Children of Manasseh"), who trace their descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes which were exiled from the Land of Israel some 27 centuries ago by the Assyrian empire.
As he grew up, Tzvi began to take more interest in his heritage. He took note of the rituals of the Bnei Menashe that he would later learn were in many ways parallel to modern Jewish observance. "Shabbat was always observed as a rest day from work," he says. "We never mixed milk and meat, and chicken and cattle were slaughtered by the community priest."
In the mid-1990s, while working for the Israeli government, Shavei Israel chairman and founder Michael Freund became involved with assisting the Bnei Menashe, paving the way for large
numbers of community members to move to Israel.
To read more, please click here where the story continues on the Shavei Israel website.
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Congratulations!
Everyone here at Shavei Israel wishes mazel tov (congratulations) to Tzvi Khaute and his
wife on the birth of a baby girl last week!
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This month in social media
Here's some of what we posted on the Shavei Facebook site this month:- Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham's appointment as the first Bnei Anousim emissary to Spain received coverage in all the major Israeli news outlets and many overseas.
- Members of the Bnei Ephraim in India knitted kippot (yarmulkes) for their Bnei Menashe brethren.
- Israelis did inspiring work in Haiti, providing quick medical services and even building a temporary tent school for the earthquake stricken residents.
- Shavei Israel published its first Polish-language guide to Purim.
- Also in Poland, the old Jewish cemetery in Przemysl has been returned to Jewish hands.
- The BBC interviewed Michael Freund, Tzvi Khaute and Rabbi Yehuda Gin on the Bnei Menashe. We have links to both the audio and written transcript.
- Tzvi and Michael also appeared on the "Tuesday Night Live" program from Jerusalem. We have the video.
- A new archaeological discovery confirms the Biblical description of
David and Solomon.
You can find us at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jerusalem-Israel/Shavei-Israel/
We also have dozens of videos of "lost" Jewish
communities on our YouTube site. Visit us at http://www.youtube.com/user/ShaveiIsrael
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