Many Lost Tribe members said they no longer feel that they belong in their native countries. It is hard for them, for example, to find jobs that will allow them time off to observe the Jewish Sabbath and other holidays. The Jews I met in Aizawl told me that they face some discrimination in India. Rabbi Avichail named the group Bnei Menashe, meaning Sons of Manasseh, which was one of the 10 lost tribes. With the help of Eliyahu Avichail, a rabbi who traveled the world in search of Lost Tribe communities, some began moving to Israel - though not without facing skepticism from Israelis who questioned their motives, their sincerity and their historical ties to Judaism. In the 1970s, thousands of people from the Shinlung tribe in northeast India began taking up the practices and rituals of the Jewish faith. British missionaries had converted most of the local population to Christianity, and some of the converts saw connections between the rituals of their old practices and those of the ancient Jews they had read about in the Old Testament.Įventually, the belief that their ancestors were a tribe of exiled Israelites began to spread. Many of the Lost Tribe communities in northern India formed in the 1950s. They are easily missed among the region’s Christian and Buddhist populations. The Lost Tribe Jews in northeast India and northwest Myanmar are a small minority, numbering less than 10,000, by some estimates. And yet here, again, I experienced a mutual curiosity and was granted intimate access to their lives. They had never before encountered a foreigner, they said, let alone someone who was both Jewish and interested in photographing their community. The community there - which dates to the 1980s, when a group of Christians converted to Judaism - was more isolated than the ones I had come to know in India. I managed to put some words together in my haggard state and was then treated to a lovely meal that had been prepared by the community in the temple’s backyard. Inside, I met with the 20 or so members of the community who promptly asked me to deliver a speech, which - after spending time with the Lost Tribe communities in Mizoram and obliging similar requests - wasn’t entirely unexpected. The temple, just outside the city, was a two-story wooden building with thatched bamboo walls and a sheet-metal roof, surrounded by fields. I was sleep deprived and dazed by travel, but they informed me that the entire community was eagerly awaiting my arrival at their synagogue.
#GLIMPSES LOST COMMUNITIES INDIA MYANMAR SERIES#
After my time in Aizawl, I decided to find my way there.Īfter a harrowing series of bus rides lasting more than 24 hours, I arrived in Kalay - a flat, tropical city surrounded by expansive farmlands - and was met by a few Lost Tribe members. He told me of a small group of Lost Tribe Jews in Kalay, a small city in the Sagaing Region of his home country. One of the members of the congregation in Aizawl was from Chin State, in western Myanmar. The next morning, they called and said that one of the congregants had passed away and invited me to photograph the funeral.
They seemed open to the idea but were noncommittal they would have to talk to the other members before letting me know their decision. When two representatives arrived at my hostel, I explained my interest in their community and my wish to photograph their religious services and rituals. I called a contact from one of the local congregations and arranged a meeting.
I decided to seek out members of the Lost Tribes and see if they would allow me to photograph their rituals and daily lives.Ī few weeks later, I arrived in Aizawl, a city built atop densely forested hills. Lost Tribe Jews, I soon learned, believe they are descended from the 10 tribes of Israel that were exiled from the ancient kingdom of Israel by Assyrians around the eighth century B.C. Having grown up in a Jewish family without ever fully embracing the religion of my observant parents, I was intrigued and wanted to know more. In 2017, while I was traveling through India, a friend from the northeastern state of Assam told me about the communities of Lost Tribe Jews in the neighboring state of Mizoram.
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