A Letter From Manipur

(July 21) Our Newsletter has received the following letter to our readers from Ohaliav Haokip, General Secretary of Manipur’s B’nei Menashe Council:

Ohaliav Haokip.

“The second wave of Covid 19 has struck India with a ferocity not seen the first time around. This time, it has also hit the two states of Manipur and Mizoram, home to the B’nei Menashe community of India’s northeast, with a devastating effect. There is now a complete lockdown in all of Manipur, with only essential services like ambulances, fire trucks, and the like allowed to travel. Although the lockdown is officially in force until July 31, there is no doubt that it will be extended. The streets and roads are deserted. Curfews have been imposed. Yet this does not even seem necessary, since the fear of infection and death is so great that most people have simply shut themselves up in their homes.

“Practically all economic activity has been halted and few people have work. Everyone has been affected financially, and things only seem about to get worse. Even those with money have trouble obtaining food, because the market places and groceries have been shut down, and food can only be bought at shops that are operating clandestinely and charging higher prices.

"Things are much worse than they were a year ago, during the first wave of the pandemic, when part of the economy remained open. At the present moment, I would estimate that some 180 B’nei Menashe households out of close to a thousand in Manipur are in an emergency situation.

“The rate of illness is climbing and is currently averaging close to 20 percent of those tested in Manipur, one of the highest figures in the world. On July 21, 1,327 positive tests were reported in a state of 3.1 million people. Moreover, the real rate is undoubtedly much higher, since many people with symptoms not requiring hospitalization prefer not to be tested at all, and no testing is available in most rural and outlying areas. For the most part, reliable tests can be conducted only in hospitals. Even in Churachandpur, Manipur’s second largest city, testing stations can be found only in the center of town. In the suburb of Songgel in which I live, a testing unit has arrived only once since mid-May, when the epidemic’s second wave began – and response to it was minimal.

A shuttered street in Churachandpur.

“Daily news of new cases and fatalities circulate daily through every neighborhood. People are scared to report symptoms because they do not want to stigmatized or ostracized. Although vaccinations are obtainable, many people have refused to get them because of rumors of health complications caused by them. An atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust hangs over all of us: in Churachandpur, Imphal, Kangpokpi, Moreh, and all over Manipur and the Indian northeast. For the B’nei Menashe, the problem is even more acute because there is talk of new Aliyah groups and people are afraid to be excluded from them or left behind. Everyone knows about the high incidence of Corona in the last batch of olim that left for Israel in May, and all are aware that the next time there will be much more stringent examinations. Although there have most certainly been quite a few cases of illness in the B’nei Menashe community, almost none are being talked about.

“One of the few incidences of Covid among the B’nei Menashe that I know of is that of Michael Kipgen from Gamgiphai, a small village of 50 families some 25 kilometers west of the state capital of Imphal.

Michael Kipgen on a hospital cot.

"Michael, 32-years-old, married, and the father of two small children, spoke with me over the phone this week from his hospital bed in Kangpokpi, where he is recovering from a serious case of the disease and is still on oxygen. His medical bill is being paid for with the help of an appeal put out by our B’nei Menashe Council, which has raised over 30,000 rupees for the purpose. “I have no idea where I caught the virus from,” he told me. “Gamgiphai is a small, isolated village. If I can get it, anyone can. No one is safe anywhere.”

Ohaliav Haokip Speaks with Michael Kipgen

Question: How and when did you come down with the corona virus? Michael Kipgen: It happened about two weeks ago. One day I ran a fever. My back ached, I had no sense of smell, and I felt weak, tired, and short of breath. On July 11, my family took me to Kuki Christian Church Hospital in Imphal, where I was tested. The results came back positive the next day. . To this day, I have no idea who I caught the virus from. Our village has little contact with the outside world. Maybe it was from someone in the local marketplace. Judging from my case, the virus is everywhere. . Q: Have other members of your family been affected? MK: My 69-year-old father is also seriously sick with Covid and undergoing treatment at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal. My younger brother, who was to have taken his high-school matriculations exams this year, is in isolation at home. Q: When were you moved to where you are now? MK: On July 14. That’s when I was taken to the Leikop Covid Care Centre in Kangkokpi, where I’m now being treated. Q:What has it been like? MK: As I told you, I was very weak and found it hard to breathe, so I had to be put on oxygen. My oxygen level was very low. If I’m off the oxygen for even five minutes, I can't breathe. I’m very lucky to have received financial assistance, because there is an oxygen shortage not only in Manipur but in all of India. If I hadn’t been able to pay for it privately, I surely would have died. Now I’m recovering, slowly but surely. The fever has gone down and I’m not so fatigued any more. I’m very grateful to the BMC for the aid that it gave me and for its support and prayers.

Editorial note: In light of the situation, Degel Menashe has decided to send emergency funds to Manipur for the purchase of 5. 5 tons of rice for needy B’nei Menashe families.

Degel Menashe Provides New Food Relief in Mizoram

(July 22) With the drastic worsening this month of the Covid 19 situation in Mizoram, as in the rest of Northeast India, Degel Menashe reached out to the state’s B’nei Menashe community for the second time in a year with emergency aid. Twenty-seven households totaling 109 individuals, an estimated ten percent of Mizoram’s B’nei Menashe population, received an initial amount ranging from 500 to 700 rupees (close to ten dollars) per family member for the purchase of food.

A grandmother and grandson with an aid carton.

Although such sums may seem small by Western standards, they go a long way in India, where two days’ worth of rice, the staple that provides much of the average person’s diet, cost well under a dollar.

The aid campaign was administered by Elisheva Khiangte, a long-standing member of the B”nei Menashe community of Aizawl, the state capital.

Elisheva Khiangte.

Of the 27 families, 18 were from Aizawl while the others were from outlying towns and villages. As with previous Degel Menashe relief operations, this one, too, was fiercely opposed by Shavei Israel, the Jerusalem-based organization entrusted by the Israeli government with the B’nei Menashe’s Aliyah to Israel, on the grounds that it infringed on Shavei’s control of the B’nei Menashe community. Many needy B’nei Menashe families, their breadwinners put out of work by the pandemic, declined to accept the proffered aid because of Shavei’s threats. Asking to remain anonymous, one of Aizawl’s B’nei Menashe told our Newsletter:

“When Shavei representatives in Mizoram learned of the aid, they were furious. A year ago, when Degel Menashe also stepped in with food for hungry B’nei Menashe families, community leader Jeremiah Hnamte was forced by Shavei to public apologize at a Shabbat service for helping to distribute it, and Shavei was confident that no one would dare defy it again. I personally know of one case in which a person involved in the current aid effort received a telephone message to back off or risk placing his future Aliyah in jeopardy. It was given him by a friend who felt uncomfortable about relaying it but had been ordered by Shavei officials to do so. Four households that I know of that had initially agreed to accept aid from Degel Menashe changed their minds under pressure from Shavei.”

Shavei Israel itself, while succeeding in blocking aid to many families, has provided them with none of its own. “A few weeks ago,” the same source told our Newsletter, “Shavei posted a notice in Aizawl that it would soon be sending assistance. Yet nothing arrived and there have been no further updates. Everyone knows that Shavei is hard-pressed for funds, but whether this is the reason for its utter failure to help so far, I can’t say.”

The B’nei Menashe families in Mizoram who were willing to stand up to Shavei are now in a better position to pay for other necessities that competed with food, such as rent and non-Covid-related medical expenses. “I know we’re mourning for the Temple,” a woman wrote from the town of Birkawthlir on the day before the fast of Tisha b’Av, “but I was overjoyed when I received food aid from Degel Menashe. Our lives have been very difficult these past three months. I hope God will forgive me for finally smiling happily after so long a time.”

And Elisheva Khiangte sent Degel Menashe a message saying:

“From the Holy Land you are the only ones who sent the poor families of the B'nei Menashe community of Mizoram money to buy food and medicines with. God bless you!”

Avi Hangshing Wins Handgun Competition

(July 15) When Avi Hangshing applied for a Degel Menashe scholarship in 2019, his ambitions were not just for himself. “As my personal hope,” he wrote in his application for funding that would help him to train to be a competitive handgun marksman, “I want to be a good model for young B’nei Menashe.” Although pistol shooting was not one of the fields Degel Menashe had in mind when it launched its scholarship program, Avi so impressed the scholarship committee with his seriousness and motivation that he was awarded a grant. This month he justified its faith in him by coming in first in the League 6 handgun competition held in Kibbutz Ginegar by the Israeli branch of the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) – and in doing so, proved the role model he had hoped to be.

Fresh from his victory, Avi was interviewed this week by our Newsletter. Here is what he had to say.

Tell us a bit about your background.

I was born in 1984 in Kangpokpi, a town in northern Manipur. Kangpokpi had many different ethnic groups, and I grew up surrounded by different religions and cultures – besides the Kuki spoken by us B’nei Menashe, there was Manipuri, Nepalese, Hindi, and all kinds of tribal languages. We kids all played together and spoke each other’s languages. You couldn’t tell a secret in any of them because everyone would understand it!

The B’nei Menashe community was too small to operate its own school and I attended a Christian elementary school and high school. It was a four-kilometer walk in each direction to get there and back, but the buses were so slow and stopped so often for passengers that we could race them and sometimes beat them.

When did your family come to Israel?

When I was 16. Although I grew up always knowing that we would make Aliyah one day, it was hard to believe it was happening when the time came. Even though it was a huge change, I felt at home from the day we arrived in Israel. I took learning Hebrew very seriously, and perhaps because I already knew so many languages, I was speaking it well in four or five months.

We lived in Kiryat Arba. After finishing high school, in 2003, I began my army service. I asked to be assigned to the Paratroopers because I wanted to be in a crack unit, and I got through the selection process. Of the 500 of us who started, only 85 made it to the end. After a year of training, including parachute jumps, we were put on front-line duty. It was a difficult time. The worst part of the Second Intifada was over, but the situation was till tense and we were constantly involved in anti-terror operations. There were times when we were given leave and then called back to our base even before we managed to reach home. The single thing that most kept us going was the sense of brotherhood that developed among us: Moroccans, Ethiopians, Russians, Indians, Yemenites, Argentinians, and others – we cared for each other and took care of each other as though we had grown up under one roof. There were good times and bad times, but it’s the good ones I remember – and if the bad ones come to mind, you joke about them and they become good ones, too.

What happened after your discharge from the army?

For 15 years, I worked as a security guard and shooting instructor in Kiryat Arba. Recently, I took a job with a company named Bul Armory in Tel Aviv and moved there.

Avi Hangshing.

It’s an Israeli company that makes customized guns, mainly for competitive shooters, which are sold all over the world. I work in quality control. We have to make sure that every gun meets the customer’s specifications and is tested for accuracy before being shipped.

How did you get interested in shooting?

I always loved sports – soccer, basketball, whatever. But shooting was my real passion – not just with guns, but archery too. After I finished the army I took a job as a security guard for which I had to go through additional firearms training. I loved it, and our trainer told me at the end of the course that I had good form and should become a trainer myself. I took his advice, took another course, and got my instructor’s license. One day years afterwards someone saw me giving a demo shooting class and asked if I had ever heard of the IPSC. I hadn’t, but when I looked into it I saw that competitive shooting was a whole new world. I began to take part in it and am now in my third year of competition.

How does competitive shooting different from ordinary shooting?

In ordinary shooting, the main thing is accuracy. You want to hit the target. In competitive shooting, it’s accuracy, speed, and maneuverability. You have to hit a target or multiple targets as quickly as possible, and from a variety of positions – standing, kneeling, running, turning.

Avi shooting from a seesaw.

Some of the targets are moving or swinging themselves. It’s important not only to be a good marksman but also to be in good physical shape, because you may have to shoot while encountering an obstacle, or crouching at a low window, or sprinting from one point to another. And you’re doing all this against the clock, so that every fraction of a second counts.

You have to be the cowboy with the fastest draw!

Not exactly. It’s possible to shoot from the hip like a cowboy and hit a target – but only if it’s close. Past a range of 10 meters or so, it’s very hard. In competitions we shoot holding the gun with two hands in front of us. In my type of event the target can be as far as 70 meters away and you get to fire two shots at each.. There’s a bullseye and you get five points for hitting the inner circle, three points for the next, and one point for the next.

Before working for Bul Armory, I didn’t have the advantage of other competitors, who had sponsors and could train three times a week or more. I would train with an empty gun in my room, pasting different-sized stickers on the wall and imagining that the bigger ones were closer targets and the smaller ones further off. Once I received my Degel Menashe grant, I was able to buy more bullets and make more use of firing ranges. In 2019, I came in fourth in the League 2 competitions at Ginegar, and I’ve been improving steadily since. There are many shooting clubs in Israel, several in each in league, and the three winners in each get to compete in the annual National Championships.

Did you think you had a chance to be one of the top three this time?

I knew the match was going to be a hard one. My rivals were good and not easy to beat. On the day of the match, I tried to feel calm. I guess I didn’t look it, though, because a former national champion came up to me and asked: “Avi, are you nervous?” I smiled and said “Yes,” and he smiled back, patted me on the shoulder, and said, “Good. Then you’re one of us.”

I knew the sequence of shots I would have to take and I tried to plan them all out in advance without any unnecessary moves, pauses, or bullets. I felt that I was making a lot of five-point hits and reloading quickly. I could hear the judges complimenting me, too, and when I took my last shot and said “Whew!” and sat down to cool off, people began to congratulate me and tell me that I had won.

The winning scorecard.

I didn’t believe it, though, until I saw my scorecard. I had a perfect score and had beaten several previous national champions!

What next?

The National Championships will be in September-October, and the top three places will get to represent Israel in international competitions. Who knows? If I keep working hard I might eventually, God willing, earn a slot to compete overseas on behalf of both Israel and the B’nei Menashe. One of the reasons I compete is to let people know who I am and where I’m from – that I belong to the one of the lost tribes of Israel that has come home. It’s one of the best ways we can introduce ourselves to the world. I’d like to see more B’nei Menashe youngsters take up sports and succeed. If I can do it, why can’t they? And I’d like once again to thank Degel Menashe for its support. It was definitely a factor in my winning.