A group of Kukis wants to travel to Israel, claiming to be the Bnei Menashe, one of Israel’s ten lost tribes. They won’t be able to do so unless they formally accept Judaism. Prafulla Das explores the perplexing situation of people split between a tumultuous past and an uncertain future.
Avihu Singsit, a 70-year-old native of Manipur’s Churachandpur district, is looking forward to moving to Israel. He says, “I’ve been waiting to go to the holy country that God picked for my forefathers.” He is one of Manipur’s tens of thousands of indigenous people who want to flee India for Israel.
Singsit and others began practicing Judaism in Manipur in the 1970s, after learning that they were the Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for “sons of Manasseh”), descendants of the tribe of Manasseh, one of the ten “lost tribes of Israel” deported by the Assyrian empire more than 2,700 years ago.