A promised land in the offing?

Jewish religious leaders from Israel are visiting the northeast for increased conversion does not bode well for the region

Ashis Bishwas Kolkata

As if there were not problems enough in the region, contours of a new tension with international ramifications are emerging in the troubled northeast. Muslim organisations and observers feel deeply concerned about what they perceive as the slow formation of a new Jerusalem in this ethnically sensitive region. What fuels their fears is the increasing traffic of Jewish religious leaders and Rabbis to Mizoram and Manipur. Some people from Christian-majority Mizo, Chin and Kuki tribes in these states have claimed for themselves Jewish ancestry. They have been accepted as remnants of the historic Israeli Manaseh tribe by the international Jewish community. A number of Mizos and Manipuris have left to settle in Israel in recent years and more are on the way.

In itself, this traffic to Israel would not have bothered anyone much, in view of the small size of the northeast communities —the total population of the northeast communities among whom the Rabbis have been busy preaching has been estimated at around 200,000.

What spells concern is the reverse traffic from Israel and other Jewish communities to the region. More specifically, Muslim organisations and observers, claiming to speak for around nine million people settled in the region, are uneasy about certain pronouncements and activities of the visiting religious leaders. They allege that the Zionist lobby seeks to carve out a new Jewish homeland in the northeast. Recent reports in the Milli Gazette comment on these trends extensively, noting also an increasing US role in the region.

The Mizo Jews are covered by an umbrella organisation called the Chhilung Israeli Peoples Convention, based in Aizawl. Under its auspices, visiting rabbis have claimed that according to the Torah, there would be one holy land for the Jews in the west and one in the east. Israel in the west has become a reality, it remains for the northeast to fulfill the second part of the prophecy.

These developments have been reported from the region in the Indian media as well. During the NDA regime, there was close interaction between the Indian official intelligence apparatus, the US intelligence, and the Mossad. Israeli intelligence agents have visited Kashmir and other areas, to study possible linkages between Palestinians and Islamic jehadists. Hardnews carried a story last month as to how Israeli or western agents could have been involved in providing some explosives for the blowing up of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.

In the backdrop of the international offensive against Islamic terrorism worldwide, the creation of a fortified Jewish settlement in a sensitive region of south Asia may be explained in strategic terms.

Observers in the region are also intrigued by the apparent inaction on the part of the church in the face of such aggressive conversion to Judaism. For instance Mizos, mostly Christians, number around 750,000. Yet scores have embraced Judaism and many more are eager to emigrate to Israel. Strangely, there has been no reaction from the church.

There are, however, divisions among the Rabbis about accepting the converts. The Israeli organisation Amishav helps the converts to travel to and settle in Israel, but in such areas as Gaza and West Bank, which were Arab territories. This means that the new settlers face the brunt of Palestinian insurgency in those areas, having just escaped from the phenomenon in the northeast.

However, most Mizo settlers, keen to stay in the holy land, say they do not mind the rigours. Israeli government sources do not treat the emigrants as Jews, until they have been properly converted. Intriguingly, Amishav and other organisations have set up Hebrew teaching schools and cultural institutions in Manipur and Mizoram, to speed up conversions. In future, the fallout of the traditional hostility between Jews and their Muslim neighbours in West Asia could well cast its ominous shadow in a region already on the brink with its own ethnic/religious problems. The conclusion that the new settlers are being used as cannon fodder to protect kosher Jews living in the comfortable interior from terror strikes has also been articulated by observers. And still the exodus continues.