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Our group has now flown from Israel to Amman, from Amman to Delhi, from Delhi to Calcutta, and from Calcutta to Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland in the North East.

I have to say that for a group of twenty middle-aged and older religious folks I'm amazed at the energy and spirit of this group. Everyone is helping everyone else. Friendships have been formed and the atmosphere is really upbeat, despite the long haul out here and the delays.

How we made it on time, and as our guides Moshe and Eyal said, on schedule, is not only a testament to their logistics capability, but more so what's called here 'India Time'. We were late for our connection from Amman to Delhi; then that spilled over to the connection from Delhi to Calcutta, and from Calcutta to Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland. So even though we were late, we pretty much fitted in to how the airport schedules here worked, which is, punctuality is a relative concept, and that's how we got here on time.

While some of the participants on this expedition managed to make some time for prayer here and there, this is the first time that the group has had a chance to pray together and form a minyan. It's quite a sight to see ten Jewish men break out their tefillin and talits, argue for a moment or two in which direction to stand, and then unite in prayer. While the arrivals hall was not particularly full of other passengers, a stillness came over the airport as Indian airport workers, as well as the women in our group, looked on.

Inside the arrivals hall we were greeted by a small group of Bnei Menashe, a woman who works with our guides, a retired colonel, and a young man. We all say hello to each other, and before I've even realized it I've met my first Bnei Menashe. Maybe because I was super tired or maybe because I was expecting something totally different [maybe a band of Hebrew-looking ancient warriors?] the initial greeting kind of passed over me.

Until the young man walked over to me, extended his hand and said "Shalom, I'm Ishmael, I'm a Bnei Menashe." I shook his hand, and I must admit, a rush of thoughts and feelings made their way into this experience. Firstly, I believe that I was looking into his eyes, into his manner, listening to the words he said to me: "Shalom, I'm Ishmael, I'm a Bnei Menashe." I think it's my healthy journalistic skepticism, but I was trying to catch him out. Does he truly believe he is a Jew, a descendant of the Menashe tribe? Is he trying to convince me, and himself? Did I notice a slight twitch, a hesitation when he spoke, or was I just finding things I was prejudiced to look for?

"Have you always had that name, Ishmael?" I asked him, wondering if he fully grasped not only the nature and connotation of his name [Ishmael, the son of Abraham who established the Arab nations], but also the line of questioning I was embarking on. Ishmael nodded, saying he was born with that name. Later, Moshe told me that the pronunciation of his name is actually Ish-mi-el, which, if you take the literal Hebrew translation, means "Person from God," or Ishma-el "God Listens", and that the young man could only pronounce his name as Ishmael.

I had promised myself somewhere between the four sleepless flights to Nagaland that since I was not here as a researcher, but rather a chronicler of a reunion, whether real or make-believe, I would try and suspend my disbelief and just go with it, whatever 'it' was.

In the final analysis it doesn't really matter if they are the descendants of the lost tribe of Menashe or not. They believe they are. And there are enough people in Israel and the Diaspora who believe they are. And their relationship to Israel and other Jewish communities is expanding, and many of them are making aliya.

In some sense, I think its arguable that Diaspora Jews understand this need to connect with the lost tribes more than contemporary Israelis do. As I've mentioned in a previous post, the myth of the brave lost tribes coming to the rescue of the persecuted shtetl Jew was everything the Diaspora Jew was not: strong, proud, warrior-like and had a vivid connection to a land.

In any case, suspending my disbelief became easier the more of the Bnei Menashe we met.

As we left the arrivals hall and ventured outside [gratefully out of our last airport] we were greeted by a half-dozen Bnei Menashe women and a smaller group of men. Informed that our group was coming to meet them on an expedition, several of them made their way over to the airport to greet us first. By the look of them, they had traveled for at least a day from the outlying villages. The women were neatly dressed and extended both their hands out to us saying something that sounds like "Salom".

Our expedition's first meeting with the Bnei Menashe at Dimapur Airport. Some of them traveled for days to come greet us. PHOTO: Israel Weiss Photography weisssi@bezeqint.net

PHOTO: Israel Weiss Photography weisssi@bezeqint.net

Again I look at these women and search out their features, eyes and mannerisms for something familiar to me from the Jewish women I knew in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Ra'anana, Johannesburg, New York, and Milan. And I guess that what I look for I find, because yes, their warmth and chattery nature reminded me of Rachels, Rivkas, and Ruth's I've met around the world.

As soon as our group finds itself outside and with the Bnei Menashe some color returns to their cheeks, the cameras come out, and everybody is posing with everybody else. Amidst the hugs and gifts of "sweets from Jerusalem" - this is just a first taste of what many of the people on this expedition have come here for: the feeling that they are reconnecting with Jews that have been lost to "the tribe" [that is, the entire, united Jewish tribe], and it feels to people like they are performing a mitzvah, a good deed.

I had a bad premonition that this kind of reunion would turn into a scenario of the "tourists" taking pictures of the "exhibits" in this outdoor museum, but the feelings seemed really genuine on both sides, and there was mutual affection and excitement. And it is really important to them. Some of them walked for days just to come and meet us when they heard there were going to be a group of Israelis in the area.

And anyway, show me any other nation on earth that can do this kind of tourism.

Amir Mizroch is the News Editor at The Jerusalem Post, a writer and an award-winning blogger. For all of Amir's blogs and articles, visit his personal blog Forecast Highs.

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