Ten Lost Tribes Challenge - India: How did a small tribe from Samaria get all the way out here?

We board "the best bus we could find" in Dimapur and take the long winding road up the mountain range towards the Kohima, the capital of Nagaland. This is a fascinating and beautiful part of North East India. It is here that British and Indian forces stopped the advancing Japanese army in 1944. We are heading up into the Naga Hills on the one side and the Chin Mountain Range on the other. The Chin is an extension of the Himalayas.

The group's spirits are up - finally we are out of all these airports and in the open country. Quite often the group will spontaneously break into song. Although I don't know all the words, I recognize the religious songs, and it's amazing to hear these Hebrew verses in the rain forest of Nagaland, North East India. Also, one of the participants says it's good to be praying and singing when driving along a mad, winding, back-road where trucks, buses, cars and cabs all mingle because there are no lanes, and there is no order [it feels like a video game: every time our bus passes a truck I feel like we've won ten points and get to play on, until game over].

This region has very little tourist infrastructure - it's not on the tourist map in India at all. The airport immigration clerk in Delhi asked me why I was going to Nagaland, and was rudely disbelieving when I said "holiday and tourism." "Nobody goes there for holiday and tourism," he said to me, adding "that's why I am surprised you are going and want to know why you are going."

Some of the signs along the road are interesting: Plant trees today for a smiling tomorrow; no forest, no water, no life; Eradicate Illiteracy Campaign; leprosy is curable. In a clearing on a mountain face written in bold white paint someone wrote: "Where will you spend eternity? Jesus welcomes you to heaven." There are many signs for churches here, and Moshe, our guide from Shai Bar Ilan Tours tells us that Nagaland is predominantly Christian. Even the bulls and cows are not holy here as they are in the rest of India. In Nagaland, bulls are used for plowing the fields and are then eaten.

I'm reminded that whatever the Bnei Menashe may have been thousands of years ago, about 150 years ago they were converted to Christianity by missionaries who followed British colonialists. While there might be some messianic undertone to this expedition, the truth is that it's a great idea for religious tourists. The expedition has not brought with it material on how to best navigate the Israeli bureaucracy, nor have they carried with them Old Testaments or learning books on Judaism. They have not come here to convert the Bnei Menashe or to give them any practical immigration advice. The Bnei Menashe themselves seem wholly into this. So if the members of the expedition say things like, "see you next year in Jerusalem" does that cross the line from tourism to something else? It doesn't feel like it with these people. They are giving genuine moral encouragement to what they already see as a process taking place within the Bnei Menashe themselves. Nothing more, nothing less. Are they at the same time providing the Bnei Menashe with some hope that one day they will make it "back to Israel"? Is that such a bad thing for people wanting to believe that?

In one sense there is something to this story that I can identify with on an entirely different level: This is, in essence, a contemporary story about a group of people of arguably Jewish descent [trade Bnei Menashe with Russian immigrants to Israel, for instance] who can't  figure out what their identity is or should be [ask anyone these days if they are Reform, Orthodox, Modern-Orthodox, Conservadox, Flexidox] living in a land ravaged by war and terrorism [North East India is in the grips of several secessionist struggles]. Any of this sound familiar to anyone?

The road up to Kohima is truly a nightmare. And as we climb higher into the mountains above the clouds I wonder to myself: How on Earth did a small tribe who lived in Samaria thousands of years ago make it all the way out here?

Sensing we are close to our destination, the group starts to sing Shevet Achim Gam Yachad [tribe of brothers united]. I'm not surprised someone chose this song, it really is an apt description of how everyone feels. We arrived in our hotel in Kohima exactly twenty-four hours after we left Israel and I haven't slept one minute.

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.

PREVIOUS ENTRIES:

• Conversation with a Bnei Menashe tribesman - Nov 18,2008
• Indian airports spell chaos - Nov 18,2008
• News from Amman - the first stop en route to India - Nov 17, 2008
• Dreams of reunification and travel preparations - Nov 16,2008
• Meeting the lost tribe of Menashe - Nov 16, 2008
• Government approves aliya of 150 Bnei Menashe - Nov. 12, 2008