Members of the Bnei Menashe tribe in Northeast India prepare for Passover, baking matzah and observing traditional rituals, hoping to return to their ancestral land, Israel.
The Bnei Menashe have repeatedly called for the Israeli government to permit them to make aliyah and join their fellow Jews in protecting their homeland.
Approximately 5,500 members of the Bnei Menashe community currently reside in India, waiting for the opportunity to start new lives in Israel.
Seventy-five of the recent immigrants from India have enlisted in combat units, while 140 were called up for reserve service across Israel.
Some 190 people have died in the conflict since May, including at least one Bnei Menashe • No response yet from Israeli authorities
The Bnei Menashe Jewish community – which numbers roughly 5,000 total inside India – has become a victim of ethnic tensions in India's northern state of Manipur.
"Religious state education in Israel serves as an ideal environment for immigrants from Ethiopia and India," said MK Moshe Solomon, who added that these schools need more resources.
In 2005, a chief rabbi of Israel affirmed their identity as a “lost tribe” group with historic Jewish ties, but researchers have not found sufficient evidence to back the claim.
Violence erupted during a protest march on Tuesday by thousands of tribal people opposing a demand by a non-tribal group for the constitutionally defined status of an official tribe.
The siddur, created by the Shavei Israel organization, contains the original Hebrew text according to the Sephardic rite along with a phonetic transliteration and annotations in the Kuki language.
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