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Bnei Menashe Jews from Mizoram and Manipur states in Northeast India who have migrated to Israel are still struggling to find acceptance by other Jews in Israel.

As Jews around the world are marking the High Holy days, a three-week period to celebrate a new year on the Jewish calendar and reflect on the one that’s passed, Radio Australia presenter Alana Rosenbaum catches up with Rabbi Shimon Gangte, a Bnei Menashe priest at Kiryat Arba who told her the problems face by Jews from Mizoram and Manipur who migrated to Israel.

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ROSENBAUM: The 500 Bene Menashe in Kiryat Arba have cast aside most of their old rituals, and taken on a more mainstream approach to Judaism. They dress much like the other orthodox Jewish settlers; women in long skirts, and men in skullcaps, known as a kippahs. But Rabbi Gangte says the community still struggles to find acceptance in Israel.

GANGTE: Every time we go somewhere new we have to deal with a lot of silly and stupid questions ‘Where are you from, Indonesia? Thailand? Are you Jewish? Why do you have that kippah? Do you know what being Jewish is? Are you a convert? Are you related to Bruce Lee?’ It’s crazy.

ROSENBAUM: He says there’s growing resentment in the community.

GANGTE: When you come here people view you on a different spectrum, as someone trying to escape their poverty in India, so it hurts us a lot, and there’s a lot of anger among my community. A lot of people try to suppress that and on Yom Kippur it really comes out, when you ask for forgiveness and atone for your sins. A lot of people do remember these things.

ROSENBAUM: There are about 1,400 Bene Menashe Jews in Israel and most of them live on settlements. They’ve come under fire from politicians who want to return the occupied territories to the Palestinians.

GANGTE: The settlers offered us to live here because they’re often looking to strengthen their settlements. That’s one of the reasons. The second reason is economically it makes more sense, because it’s much cheaper to live out here. The Indian rupee is not very strong, so even if we come with a lot of money, when we convert it into Israeli shekels we only get about one tenth of what we had. So most of us can’t afford to live in the big cities.

Full report at Radio Australia.net.au

Note: The bold ones are an emphasis fro me – the poster.