Sunday, October 20, 2013

Freund succeeds in bringing in 900 more non-Jewish Bnei Menashe

JPost   Following last week’s cabinet decision to allow the immigration of nearly 900 members of the Indian Bnei Menashe community to Israel, Michael Freund, the founder and chairman of the Shavei Israel organization that lobbied for their aliya, told The Jerusalem Post that he wishes to see the entire community come to Israel soon.

“Our goal is to bring all the remaining members of the Bnei Menashe community here to Israel as quickly as possible,” Freund said during a telephone interview on Thursday. [...]

While the Chief Rabbinate does not consider the Bnei Menashe to be Jewish according to Halacha, the members of the community consider themselves to be of Jewish ancestry and “committed Zionists and observant Jews” whose goal “is to return to the land of their ancestors,” Freund remarked. [..]

According to Freund, last week’s cabinet decision allows 200 Bnei Menashe to be brought by the end of the year, 400 in 2014 and another 300 in 2015. All of the immigrants will be housed in a private absorption center run by Shavei Israel and will then be settled around the country. [...]

5 comments:

  1. They are gentiles much like the Ethiopians and much of the Russians brought to Israel.

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  2. considering that they are converted l'fi halacha, and they are fully mitzvah observant in Israel, then calling them non Jews is issur d'oraita.
    They are not coming to Israel to live as goyim, or to marry rich ashkenazim that they already are invovled with. they are converting in order to keep the mitzvot.

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    1. Eddie please show me where it says that when a non-Jew plans to convert - it is a Torah prohibition to refer to him as a non-Jew?!

      I assume you would say that the Russians or Ethiopians came only to keep mitzvos and they are all shomer Torah and mitzvos now?!

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  3. Judaism does not do mass conversions. We should be turning prospective converts away; certainly not encouraging them. And we all know the fallout of mass converts in our historical past.

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    1. Not true. I have come across a number of historical accounts of entire gentile villages in Eastern Europe converting. This even happened in Lithuania as late as about 100 years ago.

      In any event, they may be non-Jews now, but relatively soon after coming to Israel they will, in all likelihood, all convert individually al pi halacha. They are known to be very observant and enthusiastic.

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