Between Egypt and Iraq: Land of the Jewish Experience

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees which was on or near Mesopotamia's Euphrates River city south of Babylon, today known as the country of Iraq.  He migrated with his father, Terah,  wife, Sarah-his niece, and others to Canaan.  Isaac was born in the Negev, and Isaac became the father of Jacob by his wife, Rebekah bat Bethuel. 

                                               

 Jacob, the youngest of twin sons of Isaac,  married his cousin Leah of Aram , today's Syria at Haran and then her younger sister,  Rachel, also at Haran. Haran was named for Abraham's brother, and was a trading town of NW Mesopotamia and the center of a moon cult. Assyrian inscriptions mention a Hebrew settlement there.  Leah had 6 boys and a girl.  Rachel had 2 sons, Joseph (Jacob's 11th son)  and Benjamin, his 12th son.                                                   

 The family, having  experienced a time without rain, and food was terribly scarce  during this famine. Jacob instructed ten of his sons to travel to Egypt to buy some grain to prevent his family from starving. Jacob purposely kept his youngest son, Benjamin, from going to Egypt to prevent him from experiencing harm. In obedience to their father, the ten brothers departed from Canaan to buy some grain in Egypt.

Jacob died in Goshen, E. Egypt at age 147. The Cave of the Patriarchs or Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Jews as the Cave of Machpelah and to Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham, is a series of caves situated 30 kilometres south of Jerusalem in the heart of the Old City of Hebron in the West Bank. Abraham buried Sarah here.  Jacob is buried here, too.  The next burial in the cave is that of Abraham himself, who at the age of 175 years was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael. The title deed to the cave was part of the property of Abraham that passed to his son Isaac. The third burial was that of Isaac, by his two sons Esau and Jacob, who died when he was 180 years old. There is no mention of how or when Isaac's wife Rebecca died, but she is included in the list of those that had been buried in Machpelah in Jacob's final words to the children of Israel. Jacob himself died at the age of 147 years.

Joseph had been taken by traders to Egypt as a young man.  There he eventually became Viceroy of the Pharaoh. A viceroy is an official who runs a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. He must have been like the 2nd in command to the pharaoh.                                   

             Jacob giving son Joseph his coat of many colors

Joseph, 30 years old, owned grazing land in Goshen, Egypt, which was the beginning of settlement for the Israelites. He married Asenath, daughter of Poti-phera, Chief of On, Joseph's old master.   Joseph had told his brothers to return home and tell their father Jacob that his son Joseph was still alive, and to bring Jacob, all of their families, and all of their belongings to live in Egypt where they would be taken care of. Genesis 46:8-27, lists all the descendants of Jacob that came into Egypt.

Joseph meets his brothers and tells them to bring back Jacob so the family now numbering 70 packed up and went to Egypt.   Exodus 1:5 says, “The total number of Jacob’s descendants was 70.” Deuteronomy 10:22 says, “Your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 people in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”

Joseph died at age 110 and his body was brought back to Canaan for burial.  His history has been dated back to the 18th to 16th centuries BCE.  

This was the time during the Hyksos domination of Egypt.  They were also Semitic people who overran Egypt  after the destruction of the Middle Kingdom.  Their scarabs, etc, bore names similar to Hebrew. They ruled Egypt from 1720-1580 BCE (English dating) and during this period, the Israelites entered the country and were favorably treated.  the period of bondage when the Jews were held as slaves for 400 years, is believed to have begun after the expulsion of the Hyksos.  

The term, Hyksos is Egyptian, meaning "rulers of the foreign lands."  It was first applied to his people by MANETHO, a 3rd century BCE Egyptian priest and author on the History of Egypt, who erroneously took the word to mean "shepherd kings."  

When the  10 northern Tribes were taken as slaves by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, 27,290 Israelites  were taken by Sargon to Assyria and Media, replacing them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  They were taken right back to whence they began, Babylon and Ur on the Euphrates River area.   The map below advances 398 years showing the growth of countries during Alexander the Great's Empire in 323 BCE and how the northern tribes expanded from Ur and Babylon.                                    

Today we have identified the Pashtuns as some of the descendants of the Northern tribes.  Pashtuns have been found in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  They had been brought right back to where their ancestors had left.  Abraham was born in  about 1948 BCE of the 2nd millennium BCE, and his descendants were kidnapped in 721 BCE; 1,227 years later and heading back to their ancient origins.   

                                                               

 Iraq showing the 2 rivers, Tigris and Euphrates and showing Egypt, where our history lies between the two.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://truthsnitch.com/2017/06/21/many-jacobs-descendants-went-egypt-70-75/

What On Earth Was Going On in 70 CE?

Nadene Goldfoot                                       

     Eretz Yisrael (land of Israel) was not called Palestine until 135 CE.  This didn't take place for 65 years after the destruction of the 2nd Temple by Rome.  

Babylon-Shinar-Kasdim (Chaldees) Cradle of humanity-scene of man's 1st revolt against G-d. Abraham was born here in Ur, Jews had remained here, created Babylonian Talmud, produced works of literary merit (Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobit), became main center of rabbinic studies at beginning of the 3rd century CE. They were affected by 70 CE of fall of Jerusalem.   Academies were founded here, spiritual center for all Jewry.  Persecutions in 5th century led to the Jewish revolt under Mar Zutra II when Talmud was finished.  Jewish position  was difficult until Arab conquest in 7th century.  The ancient city was the capital of the Babylonian empire. It was considered to be a center of commerce, art and learning and is estimated to have been the largest early city in the world being perhaps the first to reach a population above 200,000.  While many Judeans returned to Jerusalem when the Babylonians allowed it after 539 BC, many others stayed and built up a vibrant Jewish community that lasted two millennia.

Assyria was an aggressive kingdom in the 20th century BCE and expanded during the 13th and 10th centuries. Sennacherib was their important general who left attacking the northern 10 tribes of Israel in 721BCE.  He ravaged Jerusalem in 700, later forced to leave because a plague hit his army and they returned home.  Assyria declined rapidly and was succeeded by Babylon.  By 70 CE?   Assyria, also at times called the Assyrian Empire, was a Mesopotamian kingdom and empire of the Ancient Near East that existed as a state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BCE until its collapse.  By 150 BCE, Assyria was largely under the control of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians seem to have exercised only loose control over Assyria, and between the mid 2nd century BCE and 4th century CE a number of Neo-Assyrian states arose; these included the ancient capital of Assur itself, Adiabene with its capital of Arbela (modern Irbil), Beth Nuhadra with its capital of Nohadra (modern Dohuk), Osroene, with its capitals of Edessa and Amid (modern Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir), Hatra, and "ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ" (Beth Garmai) with its capital at Arrapha (modern Kirkuk). Assyrian Adiabenian rulers converted to Judaism from Ancient Mesopotamian religion in the 1st century. After 115 CE, there are no historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene, and the populace remained followers of Mesopotamian religion or Christianity. (Could it be that some of the Jewish royalty got this far east at the fall of Jerusalem? )

Aram-Ancient Syria: The coastline was settled by Phoenicians, constantly in friction with Israel and Judah until 8th century when overrun by the Assyrians. Syria overrun by Greeks.  The Greek presence in Syria began in the 7th century BCE (600s)  and became more prominent during the Hellenistic period and when the Seleucid Empire was centered there.

Roman Greece:  Ancient Greece was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BCE to the end of classical antiquity, that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories—unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire (336-323 BCE)   It was in the end of  the Hellenistic period (323–146 BCE), during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East from the death of Alexander until the Roman conquest.  By 70 CE was -Roman Greece which is usually counted from the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC to the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in AD 330.

                                                

  70 CE:  Destruction of the Temple  Tisha B'Av (Hebrew: תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב‎ Tīšʿā Bəʾāv; "the ninth of Av") is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusalem.

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Northern Africa, and Western Asia ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a principate with Italy as metropole of the provinces and the city of Rome as sole capital (27 BCE – CE 286). Jerusalem was destroyed by fire as well as the Temple by the Roman occupiers.  The Romans built their own Roman temple on the site of the Jewish Temple..  When Moslems entered, they in turn built their Mosque of Omar over the Roman temple.  

Persia-Iran: King Cyrus of Persia in 538 BCE conquered the Babylonian Empire.  Then all Jews in Mesopotamia and in Israel and Judea were under Persian rule.  Cyrus is thought to have been Queen Esther 's son as she was married to King Ahasueros of Persia.  From 4th century BCE onward, Jews lived in Persia in considerable numbers. The future was full of more persecutions.  

India-Ophir:  Hebrews go back with India to the time of Solomon.(I Kings 9:26-8)  Jews didn't enter again till the 6th century CE. A place where Solomon got gold for the Temple: 420 talents which was brought to Solomon.  It was Hiram of Tyre who sent a fleet of ships with his servants, shipmen who knew the sea with Solomon's servants that went to Ophir for the gold. By 70 CE they probably had forgotten about Solomon and his seeking gold.  

North America was not yet discovered by anyone other than the native inhabitants.  The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia via Beringia. A vast variety of peoples, societies and cultures subsequently developed.  The Oshara Tradition people lived from 5500 BCE to 600 CE. They were part of the Southwestern Archaic Tradition centered in north-central New Mexico, the San Juan Basin, the Rio Grande Valley, southern Colorado, and southeastern Utah. The Pueblo people came after them.  

There are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes in the U.S., including 229 in Alaska. These “nations within a nation” are the only tribes that have a formal nation-to-nation relationship with the U.S. and its federal agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).Leif Eriksson Day ( commemorates the Norse explorer (b:951 CE) believed to have led the first European expedition to North America. Nearly 500 years before the birth of Christopher Columbus (b:1451), a band of European sailors left their homeland behind in search of a new world.

                                          
South America was not yet discovered either.  The earliest generally accepted archaeological evidence for human habitation in South America dates to 14,000 years ago, the Monte Verde site in Southern Chile. The descendants of these first inhabitants would become the indigenous populations of South America.Explorer.   Christopher Columbus sets foot on the American mainland for the first time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. Thinking it an island, he christened it Isla Santa and claimed it for Spain. Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451.

                                               

                            Portrait of the boy, Eutyches, a Roman

 The succeeding emperor, Nero, was a connoisseur and patron of the arts. He also extended the frontiers of the empire, but antagonized the upper class and failed to hold the loyalty of the Roman legions. Amid rebellion and civil war, the Julio-Claudian dynasty came to an inglorious end with Nero’s suicide in 68 CE., 2 years before Jerusalem was burned down. 

                                         

                                               

Africa:  Rome's first province in northern Africa was established by the Roman Republic in 146 BCE, following its elimination of Carthage by Scipio Aemilianus in the Third Punic War. Africa Proconsularis or Africa Vetus (Old Africa), was governed by a proconsul. It is possible that the name "Africa" comes from the Berber word "afer", "ifri" or "Aourigha" (whose name would have been pronounced Afarika) that designated a tribe. Some Jews did resettle in northern Africa after 70 CE.                       

Europe: Jews entered after 70 CE when Jews were taken as slaves to Rome.  Alexander the Great brought the mass of the Jewish people into the European orbit.  Jews were in Greece in 2nd century BCE. Jews were in Rome as early as  as 139 BCE.  From 57 BCE, Eretz Yisrael was under roman control.  Jews were scattered throughout the empire from political intercourse, trade, war and captivity.  They were in Spain from time after destruction of 1st temple in 586 BCE , and of 1st century CE and Gaul,  a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, and parts of Northern Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, particularly the west bank of the Rhine. before 70 CE. By the 4th century they were in the Rhineland (Germany's area).Warfare took place between the Romans and various Germanic tribes between 113 BCE and 596 CE. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire that started in the late 2nd century BCE. The series of conflicts was one of many factors which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire.

 As for France, individual Jews lived there before 70 CE, and that organized Jewish communities existed there during  the period of the Roman Empire, being traders.  Their position deteriorated with the triumph of Christianity as the Catholic Church Councils reinforced rules against Jews.  

Finding much anti-Semitism in Europe, even affecting what clothing they were allowed to wear...One of the earliest illustrations of such a hat perched atop the head of a Jew is found in the early 14th-century Codex Manesse. In the image, we see the figure of Süßkind von Trimberg, a Jewish poet and troubadour, wearing just such a hat. In this medieval German poetry anthology, Süßkind is credited as the author of six of the poems inscribed in its pages. He happens to be the first German-Jewish poet whom we know by his full name.

At the height of its fashion in Europe, at the turn of the 12th century, the pointed hat suddenly fell out of favor, around the time of the tragic and violent encounter between West and East during the First Crusade. Before making their way to Constantinople and the Holy Land, some crusaders led pogroms against German Jewish communities. These fueled anti-Jewish sentiment and imagery, which featured negative depictions of Jews wearing the pointed hat. Thus the item began to be associated in the medieval European mindset with the “killers of Christ” and with treachery in general. What self-respecting Christian would want to wear such a hat after that?  That's why they forced Jews to wear this outdated hat.  

Reference:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_South_America#:~:text=The%20earliest%20generally%20accepted%20archaeological,indigenous%20populations%20of%20South%20America.

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

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

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).