Poland: Shavuot guide in Polish language

A new Polish-language guide to the holiday of Shavuot will be given to thousands of hidden Jews throughout Poland by Shavei Israel.

The new guide explains the holiday's meaning and significance, traditional songs and recipes, and is part of the group's efforts to reach out to hidden Jews and help them reconnect.

Currently active in nine countries, the non-profit organization's aim is to strengthen ties with descendants of Jews around the world. The communities it helps include Bnei Menashe (India); Bnai Anousim (Spain, Portugal and South America); Subbotnik Jews (Russia); Kaifeng (China), Polish hidden Jews from the Holocaust era and others.

According to Shavei Israel's founder and chair Michael Freund, "In recent years, an increasing number of Poles have rediscovered their Jewish ancestry, seeking to reclaim the precious heritage that was so brutally taken from them and their forebears. It is our hope that this book will, in some small way, enable a new generation of Polish Jews to celebrate Shavuot with joy, as well as gain a better understanding of our eternal faith."

According to the press release:

About the “Hidden Jews” of Poland and the revival of Polish Jewry – a phenomenon that has gained in strength in Poland in recent years, with many Jews slowly returning to Judaism and the Jewish people. Many of these Jews lost all contact with Judaism due to the extreme anti-Semitism that they encountered after the Holocaust, and some of them even converted. Others concealed their Jewishness from the Communist authorities and now feel free to resume their true identity. Another phenomenon pertains to Jewish young people who were adopted by Catholic families and institutions during the Holocaust. They were told nothing of their Jewish identity, and only in recent years have they or their descendants gradually begun to rediscover it. Today around 4,000 Jews are officially registered as living in Poland, but according to various estimates, there are tens of thousands of others who have concealed their true identity, or are simply unaware of it.

For more information, click here.

Bnai Menashe: Jewish roots

The Bnei Menashe of India are discussed in this Haaretz article

In the 1940s, Dr. Hofalam Miluy Lantang was a young Indian doctor treating the Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribe that lives in north-eastern India. In his travels among the tribe's villages, he heard songs and saw traditions that sparked his curiosity and he decided to document them, without realizing their significance.

Only in 1999, more than 50 years later, in a meeting with Hillel Halkin, a writer and Israeli journalist researching the connection between the tribe's members and the Jewish people, did he discover that the traditions he recorded do indeed link the tribe to the Jews. These are the same traditions that prompted some tribe members to define themselves as Bnei Menashe, some 800 of whom have already immigrated to Israel, while thousands more are waiting to follow their example.

Lantang, now 88, was interviewed during his visit to Israel last week. He was afraid the customs would disappear so he began recording them. He says the customs have all disappeared and that his documentation is the only proof.

Customs include:

Repetition of words Manamasi (Menashe) in many of the tribe's songs, especially describing their travel across Asia. The group's "Song of the Sea" is a description reminiscent of the Exodus:

"When there was a king, the Red Sea dried up/in the afternoon we were guided by a cloud and at night by fire/during the day we fought many enemies/but those enemies were swallowed up by the Red Sea/and for those same people there is water that came forth from the rock."

Their Festival of Rice Bread resembles Passover. All year the tribe ate bread from rice with yeast. Once a year (May-June) during a three-day holiday, they ate rice bread without yeast.

In relation to circumcision, the Kuki tribe do not follow this tradition. However, an infant born without a foreskin is referred to as having "a sex organ of the old style," a reference to the fact that this tradition was followed in the past.

Hillel Halkin, author of "Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel," describes the Bnei Menashe's journeys, and Lantang's role. Although some researchers say the tribe learned similar Jewish customs from Christian missionaries or from the New Testament, Halkin says Lantang's work showed the traditions existed long before as he recorded songs transmitted through the generations long before the missionaries arrived.

Some 800 of the Bnei Menashe have already immigrated to Israel. Some reports indicate another 7,000 wish to immigrate as well.