Aliyah from India By Brian Blum for Shavei. In 2002, Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund and Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Shlomo Riskin, visited the Bnei Menashe in India. For ten days they traveled between villages in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, meeting with dozens of Bnei Menashe community members and hearing their remarkable stories. Aviel Tongkhohao Hangshing was one of them.
Aliyah from India
In 2002, Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund and Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Shlomo Riskin, visited the Bnei Menashe in India. For ten days they traveled between villages in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, meeting with dozens of Bnei Menashe community members and hearing their remarkable stories. Aviel Tongkhohao Hangshing was one of them.
An elder of the community in Kangpokpi, Hangshing was attending a question and answer session about Israel and aliyah. He tentatively raised his hand and Rabbi Riskin called on him.
“Rabbi,” Hangshing started. “I’m worried about something. I’m already 81-years-old. I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it to Israel, and I haven’t done a formal conversion to Judaism yet. But I keep Jewish Law and do all the mitzvot here in India. My question is: when I go up to heaven, will I get credit for them?”
Rabbi Riskin was moved to tears by the anguish he felt in Hangshing’s petition. “Of course it’s going to count,” the rabbi reassured Hangshing.
In the ensuing years, Hangshing became a key pillar of support to Shavei Israel in India, helping identify which Bnei Menashe would be suitable for aliyah and serving as one of the leaders of the community.
But when the gates of aliyah from India opened again last year, Hangshing approached Michael Freund with a different question. “I am old. I don’t know when my time will come, but I feel I must make it to Israel before I die. Can you make it happen this time?”
On May 29, 2014, Aviel Hangshing landed in Israel, fulfilling a dream he has held for so many years. He arrived with his wife and two daughters, the latter both in their twenties. They are now living in the Kfar Hasidim absorption center along with some 300 other Bnei Menashe new immigrants.
Hangshing is the most senior Bnei Menashe to arrive so far. “The day after we came to Israel was my 90th birthday!” he says, proudly.
Except that the math doesn’t exactly add up. We asked Tzvi Khaute, Shavei Israel’s coordinator for the Bnei Menashe in Israel, if he knew when Hangshing was born. “Well, he’s really 93,” Khaute says. “But in India, record keeping is not what it should be. And sometimes people will say they’re a different age in order to get a job.”
Whether he is really 90 or 93, Hangshing’s reunion with Freund was as sweet as the coconut milk Hangshing used to drink back in India. “He came right over to me and hugged me and said ‘thank you so much, now I can die here in the Holy Land,’” recounts Freund. “I said to him, don’t rush things! I want you to first live in the Holy Land!”
Hangshing’s journey to Israel was anything but straightforward. “As a child growing up in India, my family and I didn’t live in a village with other Bnei Menashe so we didn’t have any of the Bnei Menashe traditions,” he explains.
One night, however, there was a great thunderstorm, and Hangshing’s uncle suddenly ran out into the middle of the compound in the pouring rain, looked to the sky, and began shouting, “The children of ‘Manmashi’ still live!”
Who was this Manmashi? Hangshing wondered. As he began his research, he discovered that many of the ancient customs of the Kuki people who live in Manipur were similar to those found in biblical Judaism. Could the name Manmashi be derived from “Menasseh” (that is, “Menashe”), one of the lost tribes of Israel?
In 1991, Hangshing met Shimon Gin, the first Bnei Menashe to make aliyah. (Gin was tragically killed in a traffic accident in 2009. His brother Yehuda is among the first Bnei Menashe to receive rabbinical ordination – we have a video profile of him here.)
Shimon Gin had returned to India that year to teach Hebrew and Judaism. As the two men got to talking, the pieces finally fell into place: Hangshing knew that the unspoken second part to what his uncle had cried out in the courtyard – “the children of Manmashi still live” – was “and we are the children…of Menashe.”
Hangshing is no stranger to Israel. In 1982, even before he realized his personal connection to the Jewish people, he visited Israel following the wedding of his daughter in London. “Israel was so different then,” he remembers. “There was a lot more land and open space. Now Israel is growing so fast. Wherever I go, I find big cities!”
Hangshing spent most of his career in the government, for the Indian Administrative Service. He worked in the education and health departments and retired as a commissioner of education for the Manipur region.
Hangshing made aliyah with his wife and two daughters. He has another daughter and three sons from a previous marriage who still live in India. One of those sons, a customs official now living in Mumbai, even visited Israel. “He stayed for two weeks and was very impressed.” While his son is interested in his Jewish roots as well, “it is very difficult for government officials to practice Judaism. They have a full time job. They have to work on Shabbat. I think when he retires from his service, he may come here too.”
Hangshing says that making aliyah was surprising to some of his friends back in India. ”Before I came, many people said to me, have you gone mad? You have money, you have two nice houses here in India. I told them, I don’t need any of this. The only thing that’s important is to follow G-d’s commandments.”
But for now, Hangshing is wanted at a birthday party thrown by his daughters in Kfar Hasidim. Whether he is 90 or 93, one thing is certain: he has earned the right to blow out his candles in the land of his forefathers.
Aliyah from India
