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Lives of the Children of Manasia: Oral history interviews with the B'nei Menashe community
The Kuki-Mizo are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group living in the northeast Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, in the remote foothills of the Himalayas along the Burmese border, and the Judaizing movement that led to the formation of the B’nei Menashe started in their midst in the early 1970s. Many of the men and women interviewed in Lives of the Children of Manasia were among the founders of this movement. Their individual life stories, each fascinating in its way and some telling of experiences that our modern minds find difficult to grasp, narrate a collective drama that until now has been shrouded in myth and misconceptions. These stories explain how an initially small of number of people, whose immediate ancestors were illiterate rice farmers, jungle warriors, and practitioners of a traditional tribal religion, courageously found their way to Judaism; what about the latter attracted them though they had never before met a rel Jew in their lives; and how their fierce attachment to their new faith eventually brought them and thousands of others to Israel, where some 5,000 of them live today as full citizens.
Kindle Edition
Published September 4, 2022
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About the author
Hillel Halkin
60 books27 followersHillel Halkin (born 1939) is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist, who has lived in Israel since 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_...
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 25, 2023
This book was given to me by LIBRARYTHING in exchange for my honest review, as part of the early reviewers.
"Lives of the children of Manasia" published in 2022 and written by author Hillel Halkin, already known for his book "Across the river Sabbat: in search of a lost tribe of Israel" published in 2002 , tells the story of the "Kuki-mizo" people and the mystery surrounding their origins.
Hillel Halkin, is a NY-born writer and translator of Hebrew and Yiddish literature who focuses on Jewish culture and politics.
This novel takes us to discover the "B'nei Menashe, a very ancient Jewish community, gather the Mizo (the Mizo people migrated from China around 750 AD and remained in western Myanmar. They then slowly began to migrate to present-day Mizoram during the fourth decade of the 16th century) and the Kuki (the first reference to the word Kuki can be dated to 1777 CE, when it first appeared in British records).
The number of Bnei Menashe is less than 9,000, and several thousand have emigrated to Israel, the land they have claimed since 1970.
The objective of this book is to understand the questionable veracity of their belonging to the Jewish religion. Could they have been the ancestral line of one of the so-called "lost" ten tribes, namely the biblical tribe of Manasseh?
The author relies on the fact that in the 1970s, hundreds of people residing in northeast India, Mizoran and Manipur, renounced their native religion, Christianity, in order to embrace Judaism.
This people of Tibeto-Burman stock, native of Mizoran and Manipur, had migrated to the tropical forests of the foothills of the Himalayas, self-managed in complete autarky in the past: they were hunter-gatherers, under the protection of their God "Manasia/Manmasi". The British colonization of India compelled them to abandon their customs, and made them subject to their governmental laws, and converted them to Christianity.
Paradoxically, their Kukimizo religion eradicated, was "renewed" into a religion that combined the old biblical laws with that of the New Testament.
This then spread widely, until attributing "Manasia/Manmasi" to "Menashe" - the son of Joseph in Genesis -
That is to say that they had "restored" the ancestral religion of yesteryear.
The mystery remains intact today: could it be that these "Manasia/Manmasi" were the descendants of the ancient Israelites exiled by the Assyrians between 722 and 734 BC?
The association "Manasia/Manmasi" and "Menashe" arose around 1940, before expressing itself publicly around 1950: The visualization of a "bridge" connected them, from the northeast of India to Israel, meaning that the Kukimiso people would regain - had to regain - the sacred land of their ancestors in Israel.
1960 affirmed their conviction, supported by the inserruction in 1966, which opposed the Kukimiso to the army of India. Which generates the scattering of multiple preachers, sects of all kinds, come to prophesy the "true" religion to follow. It was a confused quest, more obscure than ever before, through which people rushed, to find the door to their salvation.
Small groups have formed everywhere, taking advantage of the windfall, to appropriate these poor troubled souls. Christianity was gradually, for these peoples in deep spiritual search, repudiated in favor of Judaism, before emigrating to Israel, converted.
Thus, between 2017 and 2019, dozens of immigrants converted to B'nei Menashe in Israel were interviewed in their native languages, Kuki and Mizo.
This book legitimizes their prayers to make known to the world the claim that they are an integral part of Israel.
Many feel truncated by Christianity insofar as it does not respect the doctrines taught by the divine will. They feel betrayed. It is at the origin of the shism which then fractured those followers of Christianity and those of Judaism.
We follow them, follow various communities, at their expense, and constantly question ourselves. After many painful restarts, successive moves, banishments from their own homes...they then decide to unite. Many will learn Hebrew! This in order to convert with dignity, before being "admitted" to the Holy Land.
From this crucial moment in their lives, they will not deviate from their objective: they have finally reached their path!. They gave all they had to seek the true religion: "Manmasi" and "Menashe" of the Bible, thus, spawned a new tribe in Israel.
This exemplary book in the quest for God with unshakeable faith, which demonstrates with what fervor they worked together, all driven by the spiritual hunger to reconnect with the true God in their eyes.
Twelve absolutely fantastic life journeys underpin this remarkable book for its historical rigor and the quality of the transcribed accounts.
A book that I enjoyed very much. Astonishing confessions, which ring true, where these people reveal all their lives, the events that have marked their daily lives, their challenges and successes, their ways of recovering from hardships, and above all, above all, the image of exceptional mutual aid. ! It also allows them to finance the many trips they have to make! An edifying community cooperation, typically Hebrew, which allows them to adhere to a collective project.
Bright and uplifting! I was transported to a culture far removed from our materialistic contingencies.
Read this book! He will test your spiritual foundations.
"Lives of the children of Manasia" published in 2022 and written by author Hillel Halkin, already known for his book "Across the river Sabbat: in search of a lost tribe of Israel" published in 2002 , tells the story of the "Kuki-mizo" people and the mystery surrounding their origins.
Hillel Halkin, is a NY-born writer and translator of Hebrew and Yiddish literature who focuses on Jewish culture and politics.
This novel takes us to discover the "B'nei Menashe, a very ancient Jewish community, gather the Mizo (the Mizo people migrated from China around 750 AD and remained in western Myanmar. They then slowly began to migrate to present-day Mizoram during the fourth decade of the 16th century) and the Kuki (the first reference to the word Kuki can be dated to 1777 CE, when it first appeared in British records).
The number of Bnei Menashe is less than 9,000, and several thousand have emigrated to Israel, the land they have claimed since 1970.
The objective of this book is to understand the questionable veracity of their belonging to the Jewish religion. Could they have been the ancestral line of one of the so-called "lost" ten tribes, namely the biblical tribe of Manasseh?
The author relies on the fact that in the 1970s, hundreds of people residing in northeast India, Mizoran and Manipur, renounced their native religion, Christianity, in order to embrace Judaism.
This people of Tibeto-Burman stock, native of Mizoran and Manipur, had migrated to the tropical forests of the foothills of the Himalayas, self-managed in complete autarky in the past: they were hunter-gatherers, under the protection of their God "Manasia/Manmasi". The British colonization of India compelled them to abandon their customs, and made them subject to their governmental laws, and converted them to Christianity.
Paradoxically, their Kukimizo religion eradicated, was "renewed" into a religion that combined the old biblical laws with that of the New Testament.
This then spread widely, until attributing "Manasia/Manmasi" to "Menashe" - the son of Joseph in Genesis -
That is to say that they had "restored" the ancestral religion of yesteryear.
The mystery remains intact today: could it be that these "Manasia/Manmasi" were the descendants of the ancient Israelites exiled by the Assyrians between 722 and 734 BC?
The association "Manasia/Manmasi" and "Menashe" arose around 1940, before expressing itself publicly around 1950: The visualization of a "bridge" connected them, from the northeast of India to Israel, meaning that the Kukimiso people would regain - had to regain - the sacred land of their ancestors in Israel.
1960 affirmed their conviction, supported by the inserruction in 1966, which opposed the Kukimiso to the army of India. Which generates the scattering of multiple preachers, sects of all kinds, come to prophesy the "true" religion to follow. It was a confused quest, more obscure than ever before, through which people rushed, to find the door to their salvation.
Small groups have formed everywhere, taking advantage of the windfall, to appropriate these poor troubled souls. Christianity was gradually, for these peoples in deep spiritual search, repudiated in favor of Judaism, before emigrating to Israel, converted.
Thus, between 2017 and 2019, dozens of immigrants converted to B'nei Menashe in Israel were interviewed in their native languages, Kuki and Mizo.
This book legitimizes their prayers to make known to the world the claim that they are an integral part of Israel.
Many feel truncated by Christianity insofar as it does not respect the doctrines taught by the divine will. They feel betrayed. It is at the origin of the shism which then fractured those followers of Christianity and those of Judaism.
We follow them, follow various communities, at their expense, and constantly question ourselves. After many painful restarts, successive moves, banishments from their own homes...they then decide to unite. Many will learn Hebrew! This in order to convert with dignity, before being "admitted" to the Holy Land.
From this crucial moment in their lives, they will not deviate from their objective: they have finally reached their path!. They gave all they had to seek the true religion: "Manmasi" and "Menashe" of the Bible, thus, spawned a new tribe in Israel.
This exemplary book in the quest for God with unshakeable faith, which demonstrates with what fervor they worked together, all driven by the spiritual hunger to reconnect with the true God in their eyes.
Twelve absolutely fantastic life journeys underpin this remarkable book for its historical rigor and the quality of the transcribed accounts.
A book that I enjoyed very much. Astonishing confessions, which ring true, where these people reveal all their lives, the events that have marked their daily lives, their challenges and successes, their ways of recovering from hardships, and above all, above all, the image of exceptional mutual aid. ! It also allows them to finance the many trips they have to make! An edifying community cooperation, typically Hebrew, which allows them to adhere to a collective project.
Bright and uplifting! I was transported to a culture far removed from our materialistic contingencies.
Read this book! He will test your spiritual foundations.
February 25, 2023
Interviews of Israelis who are from the Kuki-Mizo tribes of NorthEast India. Each interviewee had his/her own experience of coming into Judaism, ofter first going through Christianity.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews