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[VIDEO] Newly arrived Bnei Menashe kids at Givat Haviva absorption center in Israel
This is such a beautiful thing to see: Bnei Menashe children, recent immigrants to Israel, singing Hebrew songs! Click here to enjoy.
 | | Newly arrived Bnei Menashe children in Israel |
This video - and pictures here - were taken last Wednesday during an important outing arranged by Shavei Israel for representatives from various government ministries and local municipalities to meet in person the Bnei Menashe now staying at the Givat Haviva absorption center. Included in the group was the Director-General of the Absorption Ministry, Dima Apartsev.
To read more about their visit, please click here.
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Shavei Israel sponsors weekend seminar in southern Italy; appoints new rabbi to work with Bnei Anousim
 | | Bnei Anousim participants in a Shavei Israel sponsored weekend seminar in Italy |
When most people think of the Inquisition and the subsequent expulsion from the lands where Jews had lived for hundreds of years in Europe, the immediate connotation is with Spain and Portugal. But the perpetrators of the Inquisition were equally active in the southern part of Italy. In Sicily, for example, there were once 52 Jewish communities; all were decimated by the early part of the 16th century.
There is another surprising and lesser known similarity: just as there is a reawakening today in Spain and Portugal of awareness among Bnei Anousim - the descendents of people whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism by the Inquisition some 500 years ago and to whom historians refer by the derogatory term "Marranos" - there is a parallel revival happening in southern Italy as well.
Shavei Israel recently sponsored a seminar for 80 Bnei Anousim in southern Italy. It was an exciting opportunity for the participants to meet each other, to pray, eat and learn Torah. And starting in February, southern Italy will have its own Shavei Israel emissary: Rabbi Pinchas Punterello, who previously served as the rabbi of the Jewish community in Naples
Click here for details about the weekend Shabbaton and to read more about Shavei Israel's latest activities to address this growing interest in the region.
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