(Photo by: Laura Ben-David)
By; Abigail Klein Leichman - January 17, 2021
On January 3, three Lhanghal sisters from northeast India – Rut, 28; Dina, 21; and Avigail, 13 – immigrated to Israel, the land their ancestors were forced to leave 27 centuries ago.
The remarkable story begins in 722 BCE, when the Assyrian Empire conquered and deported the nine tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel, which had split from the southern kingdom of Judea 200 years earlier.
Menashe (Manasseh) was the largest of these so-called Lost Tribes. They wandered through Central Asia and the Far East for centuries, eventually settling in the villages of Manipur and Mizoram along the borders of Burma (now Myanmar) and Bangladesh.
Isolated from the world, the Bnei Menashe (children of Manasseh) continued practicing biblical Judaism and dreaming of their return for 2,700 years.
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