Third Annual Degel Menashe Scholarship Award Ceremony Held in Ramla

(December 9) Degel Menashe’s 2021-22 academic scholarships were awarded this week to 18 recipients, four more than the previous year. The award ceremony was held in the city of Ramla, near Tel Aviv, and presided over by the city’s mayor Michael Vidal.

The award winners, all young members of Israel’s B’nei Menashe community, will be studying for degrees or professional certificates in a wide range of subjects, including nursing, engineering, education, psychology, fine arts, social work, interior design, medical instrumentation, and business administration. The institutions to be attended by them include Ben-Gurion University, Ariel University, The Holon Institute of Technology, The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, The Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art, Tel-Hai Academic College, Hadassah Academic College, and other places. The average scholarship will cover approximately 40 percent of tuition costs.

The ceremony was hosted by Ramla’s municipality, which volunteered to sponsor the event as part of its effort to attract future B’nei Menashe immigrants. “You have a wonderful community, while we’re one of the most diverse cities in Israel,” Mayor Vidal told the award winners, to each of whom he handed a grant money check. “Besides native-born Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, we have immigrants from Ethiopia, Bukhara, Georgia, India, South America, and the Bene Israel community of India, to name a few places. We’ll welcome you with open arms if you come.”

A B’nei Menashe presence in Ramla would be a positive development, our Newsletter was told by Degel Menashe’s executive director Yitzhak Thangjom, a Ramla resident himself. “Until now,” said Thangjom, “B’nei Menashe have all been sent, without consulting them or taking their needs or desires into account, to small towns in Israel’s north, where educational and employment opportunities are fewer than in a centrally located place like Ramla. Many B’nei Menashe, particularly the more talented and ambitious, could benefit from being in the Tel Aviv area.”

The 18 scholarship recipients were also addressed by deputy mayor Avraham Dozrayev and municipal councilor Ronen Rothstein, as well as by Ministry of Immigration and Absorption representative Meir Yechieli, who gave them a detailed explanation of their rights as children of immigrant families and of the ways in which the ministry can assist young students like them.

Award winners, speakers, and guests of honor.

Remarks were also made by Avner Isaac, chairman of Israel’s Indian Jewish Heritage Center. Isaac stressed the need for B’nei Menashe youngsters to strengthen their community by engaging the government and its offices and taking a pro-active stand on issues affecting them.

The award winners listened attentively. “I learned a lot from the discussion of our rights,” said Yitzhak Lungdhim, who is studying social work at Hadassah College in Jerusalem. Ziva Gin, a B.A.. student at Tel Hai College in the Upper Galilee, added: “It gave me a good feeling to know that there are people who are concerned for our community and want to see it advance and flourish,” And Ronia Lunkhel, who is enrolled in a program for traditional Chinese medicine at Reidman College in Tel Aviv, spoke for everyone in thanking Degel Menashe for “opening up educational opportunities for all of us.”

Lunkhel also served as master of ceremonies as a last-minute replacement for Degel Menashe board member and scholarship program director Bat-El Rently, who broke her glasses shortly before the proceedings began. This was one of several hitches that occurred at the event, which saw the mayor and his entourage arriving, not late as politicians usually do, but half-an-hour early, taking the organizers by surprise. Yet the difficulties were all overcome in good spirits and the evening ended with a chance to socialize over a buffet Indian dinner.

The 18 scholarship winners are:

Top row, from left to right: Dina Kipgen Rachmim (M.A. English), Yael Lunkhel (BSc, Industrial Design), Yiftach Gangte (Engineering), Edna Gin (BFA).

Second row, from left to right: Osnath Lotjem (Medical Instrumentation), Bracha Haokip (Interior Design and Planning), Yossi Kipgen (B.A. Lab Technician), Tehilla Sharon ( B.A. Psychology).

Third row, from left to right: Nitzana Lhungdim (B Ed), Betzalel Gin (Engineering), Yitzhak Lhungdim (B.A. Social Works), Emuna Boitlung (Nursing).

Fourth row, from left to right: Atara Menashe (B Tech), Akiva Lhungdim (MBA), Ronia Lunkhel (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Ziva Gin (B.A, Multidisciplinary).

Scholarship winners whose photographs do not appear are: Rivka Gangte (Nursing) and David Lotjem (Business Administration).

A Last-Day-of-Hanukkah Gift

(December 10) It all began with coffee at a local café. Jessica Thangjom, the wife of Degel Menashe’s executive director Yitzhak Thangjom and herself a member of the board of KeepOlim, an NGO that lobbies for the rights of immigrants, has an old friend, Mona Judah. One day about a month ago, Mona, an executive at the World Jewish Congress who hails from the Bene Israel community of Indian Jews in Israel, called Jessica and said that she wanted to meet. When they got together, Mona told Jessica her that she had been following her activities on Facebook and would like to contribute her share by giving a Hanukkah present this year to the B’nei Menashe. Did Jessica have any suggestions as to what form this might take?

Mona Judah.

The two talked it over and decided that the best present would be gift cards to a needy B’nei Menashe community. The most useful gift, they concluded after considering the possibilities, would be food and the most deserving community that of Tiberias, whose new B’nei Menashe immigrants have been struggling while showing a commendable ability to organize and take matters into their own hands.

Some of the food card recipients: B’nei Menashe Torah students in Tiberias.

Their strong commitment to Judaism has been a part of their economic difficulties, since many of their menfolk are Torah students who do not hold paying jobs.

Mona and Jessica turned to the Tiberias community’s recognized leader, Aharon Chongloi, who agreed to draw up a list of worthy recipients. Ordering the food cards from the Rami Levi supermarket chain took longer than expected, but at the last minute they arrived just in time for the last candle of the holiday. “It was a minor Hanukkah miracle,” Jessica says – and a much appreciated one by the gift cards’ recipients.

Hanukkah Celebrated in Manipur, Mizoram, With Help of More Degel Menashe Food Aid

(December 2) As Hanukkah was celebrated this week, Degel Menashe’s fifth round of emergency food relief to the Covid-stricken B’nei Menashe communities of northeast India was in full swing. Some eight tons of rice and hundreds of bottles of cooking oil were distributed to nearly 300 families in the two states of Mizoram and Manipur, bringing to 70 tons the total amount of rice made available since the relief campaign began in the spring of 2020. The money for this latest round was generously donated by the American Jewish NGO Scattered Among the Nations, whose chairman Bryan Schwartz has been a consistent B’nei Menashe supporter.

Bryan Schwartz.

In Manipur, as in the past, this week’s aid operation was conducted by the B'nei Menashe Council, which used Churachandpur’s Beit Shalom synagogue, the largest of all B’nei Menashe houses of worship, as its main distribution center. One-hundred-and-eighty families from Churachandpur and nearby villages came to the synagogue, where communal candle lighting ceremonies were also held, to collect their allotments of roughly 50 kilos of rice and one bottle of oil per household. Another 70 families were supplied from depots in Imphal, Kangpokpi, and Sajal.

Candle lighting in Manipur.

Although constituting a sizable percentage of the B’nei Menashe population of Manipur, the number of food recipients was lower than in previous rounds. The reason for the decline, our Newsletter was told by BMC advisor Nechemiah Lhouvum, is that more families succumbed this time to pressure from Shavei Israel, which again let it be known that acceptance of Degel Menashe-sponsored assistance may jeopardize chances for Aliyah. Because 2021, Lhouvum said, saw a resumption of Shavei-Israel controlled B’nei Menashe Aliyah after several years of abeyance, and there has been talk of its continuing in 2022, families have grown more reluctant to be helped by Degel Menashe, even though they are financially hard-pressed. Yet many stood firm. “The epidemic has put us through a difficult two years,” Lhouvum said. “Even though Shavei has managed to frighten many who could have benefitted from the aid, there are many others who have taken it and are happy that they did.”

In Mizoram, where Shavei’s dominance is greater than in Manipur, rumors of a new Aliyah contingent that will leave for Israel next summer has had even more of an effect. “Several families," says Asaf Renthlei, director of the state’s B”nei Menashe Emergency Relief Committee, “dropped out after reporting having been threatened by the Shavei functionaries, while others were dissuaded by friends.”

Asaf Renthlei.

This happened, he observed, even though the B’nei Menashe community in Mizoram is suffering badly. The state is currently one of the worst-hit by Covid in India despite its having been among the strictest in imposing anti-Covid lockdowns.

One explanation of this seeming paradox, Renthlei observes, is that the isolation caused by the lockdowns led to a decrease in asymptomatic infections and to the immunity provided by them, which is now taking its toll. Although no Covid-related deaths among Mizoram’s estimated 1,000 B’nei Menashe have been reported, some 50 have tested Covid –positive and five have been hospitalized. Moreover, since most B’nei Menashe are day laborers, the economic slowdown caused by the epidemic’s surge had made it difficult for them to find work, a situation that is particularly dire in the capital of Aizawl, where the cost of living is higher and most of Mizoram’s B’nei Menashe live. “It's difficult to say exactly,” Renthlei says, “but I would guess that at least half and perhaps as much as two-thirds of the state’s B’nei Menashe are in bad economic trouble.”

All in all, 125 individuals from 32 households, approximately 12 percent of Mizoram’s B’nei Menashe population, braved Shavei’s threats and took the proffered aid. About one-third were from Aizawl, with the rest from the towns of Pukpui, Kawlkuhl, and Tuirial, where Shavei’s grip is weaker. Allocations were on a per individual basis, with each person receiving eight kilograms of rice. As opposed to Manipur, the distribution took place by a system of vouchers, which could be exchanged at grocery stores for food.

In addition to the food aid, Renthlei and his Relief Committee colleagues organized modest communal Hanukkah meals in Aizawl, Pukpui, and Kawlkulh. Those attending them lit candles, sang Hanukkah songs and ate chhangban.

Two stages of chhangban.

Chhangban, Renthlei explained, is a traditional Mizo winter delicacy that has become a B’nei Menashe Hanukkah dish. It is made from sticky rice flour that is soaked in water overnight and then pounded into a dough that, at one time wrapped in banana leaves and boiled, is now more commonly deep-fried. Eaten with “jaggery,” an Indian sugar cane-and-date syrup, it’s a meal in itself, says Renthlei, whose description makes it sound very much like a B’nei Menashe latke. In Manipur it is known as changman, and Beit Shalom is planning to stage the eighth and last candle lighting of the holiday with a changman festivity.

Chhangban takes time and effort to prepare and is prepared only by a few in Israel, most of whose B’nei Menashe prefer to buy their Hanukkah treats, such as the traditional Israeli sufganniya or jelly doughnut, in supermarkets. (Not that making genuine, homemade sufganiyyot isn’t time-consuming, too!) Nor, apart from a gathering in Tiberias, were there B’nei Menashe communal meals this Hanukkah in Israel. The community’s main holiday event was a doubles badminton tournament held in Ofra, a town in Samaria north of Jerusalem.

Gadi Hangshing (left) and Oz Menashe in badminton finals.

Badminton is a major sport in India, and the players came from virtually all of the 14 Israeli townships with B’nei Menashe populations. The winners were the hometown players Gadi Hangshing and Oz Menashe, who beat their fellow finalists, the brothers Binyamin and Ya’akov Ralte of Nof ha-Galil.