WHO WE ARE
OUR FOUNDING
Degel Menashe grew out of an oral history project, involving hundreds of hours of interviews with elderly B’nei Menashe in Israel, which was begun in 2017 under the sponsorship of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico. This project sparked the idea of founding an organization for the purpose of assisting the B’nei Menashe communities in Israel and India in meeting the many challenges facing them.
With this in mind, Degel Menashe was established in 2019 and recognized in the same year as a Non-Profit Organization by the Corporations Authority of Israel. Its goals are listed as: “Assisting the B’nei Menashe community -- in Israel by encouraging its integration in Israeli society, advancing it educationally and vocationally, helping to develop its younger, Israeli-born generation, and working to preserve its cultural heritage; and in India, by strengthening it and furthering its immigration to Israel by all possible means.”
These goals are ambitious. With your help and participation, we will do our best to achieve them.
At the founding meeting of Degel Menashe at the Jewish Community Center(JCC) in Albuquerque.
Degel means a flag in Hebrew, and our name of “Menashe’s Flag” derives from the account in the book of Numbers of how, when the twelve tribes of Israel camped around the tabernacle in the desert, each flew its own standard. The emblem on that of the tribe of Menashe, according to Jewish tradition, was the re’em or oryx, a long-pronged antelope known for its strength and beauty. We have made it our logo.