Indian airports spell chaos

The airport has been overrun by paramilitary forces. Oh wait, no, these soldiers actually work here.

I'm used to seeing civilians working at airports worldwide, with police and army units providing security. Well, at Indian airports, the soldiers do everything. There are soldiers printing out your boarding pass, other soldiers checking your boarding pass, still others ushering you from place to place, frisking you, soldiers at the scan machine, metal detector, and there was even an officer who offered to write down my name and address on the little tag you tie to your hand luggage. What beautiful handwriting for a colonel.

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Meeting the lost tribe of Menashe

The Ten Lost Tribes Challenge is an initiative developed jointly by Shai Bar Ilan Geographical Tours and Eretz Ahavati, each a leader in different aspects of geographical tourism. The two companies have joined together to bring travelers from all over the world with a new type of in-depth tourism.

The expedition departed Sunday for the Indian subcontinent with the aim of meeting with the dispersed descendants of Menashe and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph. The 12-day journey will travel to the border area between Burma, India and Bangladesh in northeast India, to  the states of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, and then continue to the northern plains of  the state of Uttar Pradesh. During the first part of the expedition we will meet with  members of the Shinlung ethnic minority, who live in the mountainous regions of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, and who claim descent from the tribes of Menashe and Ephraim. Within breathtaking, exotic and remote landscapes there live many communities of the Kuki, Mizo and Naga tribes. All the groups are distinct from one another.

Government approves aliya of 150 Bnei Menashe from India

The Interior Ministry has granted permission to the Shavei Israel organization to bring a group of some 150 Bnei Menashe from northeastern India on aliya, a government source told The Jerusalem Post last week.

The Bnei Menashe claim descent from a lost tribe of Israel and some 7,200 of them reside primarily in the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, which border Burma and Bangladesh.

While there has been no decision to allow the remaining 7,200 Bnei Menashe to make aliya, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit has allowed the 150 in on humanitarian grounds, as members of this group were previously promised their aliya would be approved, and thus many of them had sold their homes and most of their possessions.

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