Tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim Are To Be Leaders Back To Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

                 Jacob blessing Joseph's 2 sons, Manasseh and Ephraim 

The two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim were from the sons of Joseph, and Joseph was the son of Jacob and Rachel, his first love.  Simcha Jacobovici, producer and archaeologist,  just mentioned that it is these 2 tribes who will start of the return of the Lost Tribes to Israel as prophecised on Youtube.  They are one of the 1st claiming to be from the Lost Tribes and have already entered Israel.  

Manasseh was the son of Joseph and Asenath (Gen.41:50-1).  His grandfather, Jacob, conferred on both he and his brother, Ephraim, equal portions of inheritance with his own sons-with their uncles, in the division of Canaan.  The tribe was divide into 7 families, one called Machir and the other 6 claiming kindship with Gilead.  half the tribe, together with those of Reuben and Gad, requested territory in Transjordania, which was granted by Moses on condition that they accompany the remaining tribes in the conquest of the land as scouts preceding the main body.  

This half-tribe received Gilead, Bashan and Argob.  After the conquest of Canaan, the other half received territory in the west of the country around the Valley of Jezreel.  Both these areas were highly fertile.  

Tiglath-Pileser III and King Sargon (reigned from 721 to712 BCE) exiled much of the population from both sections but part remained.  A Jewish population , partly descended from the tribe of Simeon, still existed in the West Manasseh region in the earlier 2nd Temple Period in the 530 BCE days.                                

The tribe of Manasseh has been found to be in NE India.  The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew: בני מנשה‎, "Children of Menasseh") are an ethnolinguistic group in India's Northeastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram. The Chin, Kuki, and Mizo peoples of this particular group claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and have adopted the practice of Judaism.   Members of the group include ethnic Chins, Lushais, Kukis, and Mizos. Collectively they are often referred to as Shinlung.        Nagaland also has Konyak tribes who have been headhunters.  70,000 Indian Jews live now in Israel which is over 1% of Israel's total population. (Updated 9/14/2021)

I might add that Afghanistan, Pakistan and India also is the home of the Pashtuns, now believed to be from the 10 Lost Tribes taken away by the Assyrians in 721 BCE.  So it is possible that some made their way to NE India.                                     

 The Chin, Kuki, and Mizo peoples of this particular group claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and have adopted the practice of Judaism.  The Chin, Kuki, and Mizo peoples were primarily animists; among their practices was headhunting.  In other words, they were headhunters.  Then they had been converted to Christianity in the 1800's.  My question is how did they evolve into headhunting?  It had to be that an Israelite woman was captured by headhunters and the branch grew from her.  The Konyaks are of Mongoloid in origin. Before the advent of Christianity into Nagaland, the Konyaks were the believers of “Animism” worshipping different objects of nature. About 95% of the population follows the Christian faith now.

One of their tribal leaders reported having a dream that his people's ancient homeland was Israel, and some of the Bnei Menashe began to re-embrace the idea that they were Jews. The Bnei Menashe started studying and practicing Judaism since the 1970s in a desire to return to the religion of their ancestors. The total population of Manipur and Mizoram is more than 3.7 million. The Bnei Menashe are estimated by Shavei Israel to number around 10,000; close to 4,000 have emigrated to Israel. 

When Christian missionaries had encountered the tribe in the late 19th century, they had found similarities between some of their own biblical stories and the Bnei Menashe's mythology. They have no written history but their legends refer to a beloved homeland that they had to leave, called Sinlung/Chinlung. The various tribes speak languages that are branches of indigenous Tibeto-Burman.

Dr. Shalva Weil, a senior researcher and noted anthropologist at Hebrew University, wrote in her paper, Dual Conversion Among the Shinlung of North-East (1965):In a 2004 study Weil says, "although there is no documentary evidence linking the tribal peoples in northeast India with the myth of the lost Israelites, it appears likely that, as with revivalism, the concept was introduced by the missionaries as part of their general millenarian leanings." In the 19th and 20th centuries, Christian missionaries "discovered" lost tribes in far-flung places; their enthusiasm for identifying such peoples as part of the Israelite tribes was related to the desire to speed up the messianic era and bring on the Redemption. Based on his experience in China, for example, Scottish missionary Rev. T.F. Torrance wrote China’s Ancient Israelites (1937), expounding a theory that the Qiang people were Lost Israelites. This theory has not been supported by any more rigorous studies.                                                

In 2003–2004 DNA testing of several hundred men of this group did not provide conclusive evidence of Middle Eastern ancestry. A Kolkata study in 2005 suggested that a small number of women sampled may have some Middle Eastern ancestry, but this may also have resulted from intermarriage during the thousands of years of migration of Jewish peoples. In the early 21st century, Israel halted immigration by the Bnei Menashe; after a change in government, the immigration was allowed again. The chief rabbi of Israel ruled in 2005 that the Bnei Menashe were recognized as part of a lost tribe. After undergoing the process for formal conversion, they will be allowed aliyah (immigration).

By 2005, some 800 converts had settled in Israel, helped by an organization called Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based group that attempts to give help and succor to “lost Jews” seeking to return to the Jewish people. For the most part the Shinlung do not see themselves as converts in the usual sense of the term: like other such groups – one might cite the Bene Ephraim Telugu-speaking Jews of Andhra Pradesh who believe themselves to be descended from the Tribe of Ephraim – they believe that they are historically of Jewish descent. This controversial claim has found little support among scholars, although a gifted Israeli essayist and translator – Hillel Halkin – took up their cause in a colorful account published in 2002. He was joined in 2005 by the Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, who decided to formally recognize the Bene Menashe as “descendants of Israel” and agreed to dispatch a beit din from Israel to northeast India to convert them.     

The Afridis, Yusufzais and other Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan have also been alleged to be the descendants of the lost Jewish tribes such as the Efraim. However, DNA and other research towards validating such claims has been inconclusive . 

The Bene Israel Jewish community from West India is a unique population whose history before the 18th century remains largely unknown. Bene Israel members consider themselves as descendants of Jews, yet the identity of Jewish ancestors and their arrival time to India are unknown, with speculations on arrival time varying between the 8th century BCE and the 6th century CE. 

Putting together the results from all analyses point to Bene Israel being an admixed population with both Jewish and Indian ancestry, with the genetic contribution of each of these ancestral populations being substantial. The admixture took place in the last millennium, about 19–33 generations ago. It involved Middle-Eastern Jews and was sex-biased, with more male Jewish and local female contribution. It was followed by a population bottleneck and high endogamy, which can lead to increased prevalence of recessive diseases in this population. One asserts that the community originated in one of the Jewish communities in the Middle East. According to the researchers, they arrived in India 19 to 33 generations ago — 600 to 1,000 years ago — much later than estimates of community members. Over 70,000 members of the Bene Israel community live in Israel today, making it the largest Indian Jewish group in the world.

      Below are Bnei Ephraimites of India.                               

In the southern part of India has been found the Ephraimites.  

 Bene-Ephraim of Andhra Pradesh (India), whose unique circumstances provide an interesting new perspective on theoretical discussion about legitimization of identities.

The community of Bene-Ephraim (or 'Telugu Jews') was established in the late 1980s in the Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh by a group of Christianised Madiga untouchables who declared that they belonged to one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. In 1992 the community established a synagogue and introduced a number of Jewish rites into their practice. Shortly afterwards they started seeking recognition by the State of Israel and among the Jewish communities in the West. Though they have not been 'recognised' by any of Israeli officials the community have established contacts with Amishav and Kulanu organizations in Israel and the USA respectively, which unite those interested in finding and assisting communities that are 'rediscovering' their Jewish origin. Through this connection Bene-Ephraim have had several visits from rabbis and other interested individuals who have been helping them to establish practices of more mainstream Judaism.                                             

 These people are also Bnei Ephraim in India.  Indian historian says genetic link exists between members of his clan and Lost Tribe.  Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi, an Indian historian, says he may have found a genetic link between members of his clan in northern India, the now-Muslim Afridi Pathans, and one of the Ten Lost Tribes. "There were those who looked at this research as part of a big Zionist conspiracy against Islam," said Aafreedi, who is currently conducting research at Tel Aviv University into possible Israelite descent among certain Muslim Indian groups. "They felt I was trying to deprive Islam of its bravest followers, the Pathans, by converting them to Judaism. They felt that my convincing them of their Jewish heritage was just another form of conversion." According to Aafreedi's study, which was published as an e-book, about 650 out of the 1,500 members of the Afridi Pathan clan in Malihabad, India, may possess genetic material shared by nearly 40 percent of Jews worldwide. If confirmed, the findings would support the clan's connection to the tribe of Ephraim, Aafreedi said. A related Indian Pathan group numbering some 800 people was not tested for the project

The Bene Ephraim circumcise their children; celebrate all Jewish holidays, including Purim and Chanukah, which postdate their exile from Israel; keep mezuzot in their homes; teach their children Hebrew and give them Hebrew names.  They’re landless farmers who work for others but who keep Shabbat as a day of rest. “That cuts into their incomes,” which average only $1.40 per day, she said. They live in clay-walled houses with thatched roofs and no running water, though there is intermittent electrical service.  Despite their adherence to Jewish life-cycle events, they are willing to undergo conversion to assure their link to the wider Jewish world, although that is problematic in India, which has laws against missionaries.           

      Deceased Pashto poet, Sahil Afridi, was simplicity, humbleness, personified

Yet the tribe of Afridi in Afghanistan,  are more likely to be from Ephraim.  The Afridi (Pashto: اپريدی، افریدی‎; also spelled Apridi) are a tribe of Pashtuns. Their traditional homeland is in Khyber and Darra Adam Khel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.  That's known to be the most dangerous area. Most Afridis speak a northern variety of Pashto known as Afridi Pashto.

All Afridis follow Islam Sunni by sect. Their conversion to Islam is attributed to Sultan (Emperor) Mahmud of Ghazni by Ibbetson and Haroon Rashid.  The Muslim conquests of Afghanistan began during the Muslim conquest of Persia as the Arab Muslims migrated eastwards to Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxiana.

 The tribe of Ephraim was the most northern tribe of Israel.  During the period of Judges, before King Saul, Ephraim claimed priority among the tribes, partly because their religious center was situated at Shiloh in its territory.  The secession of the northern tribes after Solomon's death centered on the tribe of Ephraim, to which Jeroboam, the 1st king of the northern kingdom of Israel, belonged.  The prophets later spoke of the House of Judah and the House of Ephraim., as representing the 2 branches of the Hebrew people. 

Resource:

https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-features/researcher-claims-proof-of-tribe-of-ephraim-in-india

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=057TwFlGz10---making assumption, claim is not proven about tribe of Kuki in NE india in Manipur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnei_Menashe#:~:text=The%20Bnei%20Menashe%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%99,adopted%20the%20practice%20of%20Judaism.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bene-menashe

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.cjnews.com/news/lost-tribe-israel-found-southern-india

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afridi_Pashto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afridi

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152056        DNA of India/Jews

Plos one

https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/the-last-headhunters-of-nagaland/

https://www.boredpanda.com/the-last-living-head-hunters-from-nagaland-noth-east-india/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

https://mon.nic.in/culture-heritage/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_India#:~:text=Over%2070%2C000%20Indian%20Jews%20now,%25%20of%20Israel's%20total%20population).