Guest post from "RaP"
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Shavei Israel's Michael Freund in his own words -- he wants to reach millions, tens of millions of 'lost Jews'!
A year ago, YNet interviewed Michael Freund about himself and his goals in a lenghty interview. What he said is very revealing, here are some key passages:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4018444,00.html
YNet News.com - Jewish World
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Columbus of hidden JewsHe wanders Amazon jungles, travels to Chinese villages, searches Spain for Marranos, and sees India’s Bnei Menashe as his life's mission. Michael Freund has an obsession: Discovering remote Jews
Itamar Eichner
Published: 01.25.11
It happened six years ago. Michael Freund decided to go on a South American adventure. Armed with high motivation, he entered a small canoe and went off into the Amazon River of Peru, quickly finding himself among wild jungles filled with trees and animals resembling those which appear in children's nightmares.
Suddenly, he noticed a group of Native Americans in a canoe approaching him. He waved to them. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something strange – the names of their boats were typical Moroccan Jewish names: Ben-Zaken, Levi, Ben-Shushan.
Freund, the Christopher Columbus of Jews, smiled with satisfaction. Right then and there he knew his journey was a successful one: Another lost Jewish tribe had been found.
"I went to visit a village in the area, and on the way we stopped to buy drinks," he recalls. "I saw a sign: 'The Ben-Shimol family.' I knocked on the door and a gentleman of about 80 answered.”
“’I am from Israel I told him. He looked at me excitedly and replied: ‘I am a Jew and my father is a Jew.'"
The elderly man invited Freund into his house and showed him a large picture of his father – a Moroccan Jew who had married a Peruvian. "He barely knew his father, who had about 20 children," Freund said. "The only thing he received from his father was his name - along with the one Jewish commandment he had taught him: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ I couldn't believe it. In a remote village in the Amazon, you find Jews. Over the years, several hundred of these Jews have moved to Israel and undergone formal conversion.
The Spanish Wailing Wall
Freund, an American immigrant, has a mission: Locating remote and hidden Jews and descendants of the Jewish people.
He devotes all his efforts and resources to this project as founder and director of the Shavei Israel organization, which works to strengthen the connection between descendants of Jews and Israel and the Jewish people.
According to assessments, he has put his own money into the project while raising large sums in donations from others. His organization is active in many countries throughout the world and helps different communities: From the descendants of Bnei Anousim (whom historians refer to as Marranos) in Spain, Portugal and South America, to remote communities in places such as China.
"It's a type of fixation that doesn't let me rest," said Freund. "I feel obligated to these communities forgotten by history, but they haven't forgotten us. Several years ago I visited Palma de Mallorca in Spain. There was a Jewish community there until 1435, several decades before the expulsion. In one of the alleyways of Palma’s old city, I saw people passing by a wall, nonchalantly rubbing their hands along the stone and quietly kissing it as they walked by. It turned out the wall was part of a church known as 'Mount Zion', which had been built centuries ago on the ruins of Palma’s synagogue. The bottom part of the wall is all that remains of the synagogue, and the Chuetas (descendants of Palma’s Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism centuries ago) had retained the custom of touching the stones and then kissing their hand to show that they hadn't forgotten their Jewish heritage," he said.
Over the years Freund has succeeded in helping thousands of Jewish descendants reconnect to their roots. In Jerusalem, he created a conversion institute known as “Machon Miriam Jerusalem Seminary”, which is named after his late grandmother Dr. Miriam Freund-Rosenthal. The institute has assisted numerous descendants of Jews from Latin America, Spain and Portugal to reconnect with their roots.
By all accounts, there are millions of Marranos throughout the world. "They are descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted under duress, many of whom continued to practice Jewish customs in secret despite the persecution they faced at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition,” he said and added, "The Marranos are a living and breathing phenomenon, but the Jewish world largely ignores them." ...
Lost tribe of Israel
Freund is apparently the primary address for remote Jewish communities and descendants of Jews. They turn to him from all over the world and ask that he visit them.
This began over 15 years ago, after Freund made aliyah from New York and went to work for Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister. He served as deputy to the communications director, the late David Bar-Ilan.
One day a letter from the Bnei Menashe community in northeastern India addressed to the prime minister found its way to Freund’s office. The Bnei Menashe, who claim to be descents of a lost tribe of Israel, had been writing to every Israeli premier from Ben-Gurion onwards, but they had never received a reply.
After studying the matter and meeting with members of the community, Freund brought about an annual arrangement with the Interior Ministry that enabled 100 Bnei Menashe to come to Israel, undergo conversion and receive citizenship.
Subsequently, his organization, Shavei Israel, built educational centers in India for the Bnei Menashe. In March 2005, after a two-year investigation, the Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Shlomo Amar recognized the community’s Jewish roots. Over the past decade, approximately 1,700 Bnei Menashe have made aliyah. Another 7,232 Bnei Menashe remain in India, awaiting permission to move to Israel.
The last time Freund succeeded in obtaining permission to bring a group to Israel was in 2007, when 230 Bnei Menashe from the Indian state of Manipur made aliyah. Since then, the aliyah has stopped.
Freund is a gentle person. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't raise his voice. But he is frustrated. "I simply do not understand why these wonderful people are stuck and forced to wait years before being allowed to fulfill their dreams. This is a big mistake. The Bnei Menashe want to be here and deserve to be here," he says.
"When I was there I met a family whose son is a lone soldier serving in the IDF, risking his life, while the Israeli government doesn't allow his family to reunite with him here. There are currently 18 lone soldiers like him who are stuck in India. It's heartbreaking.” ...
What motivates you?
"I see it as my mission in life. There are people who travel great distances to look for spectacular views. I go to look for Jews. We are a small nation and we don't have all that many friends out there. So we should be reaching out to descendants of the Jewish people to cultivate a stronger connection with them. Two years ago a genetic study was carried out in Spain and Portugal which found that 20% of the male population of Iberia has Jewish genetic material. Because of all the persecution we have endured throughout the centuries, the Jewish nation was scattered to the four corners of the earth. So it isn't surprising that there are traces and remnants of Jews in all sorts of remote places. There are millions of such people out there and my dream is to reach each and every one of them. It behooves us to reach out to them, because we only stand to benefit from it in a range of fields, from public diplomacy to tourism." "
