The Bene Menashe

Abstract This chapter focuses on the community of the Bene Menashe, who stem from a number of Christian groups of the Indo-Burmese borderland. In the 1950s, several of these groups declared that they descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. In 2005, the Bene Menashe became recognized as people of Israelite descent by the Israeli Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, and in 2011, they were allowed by the Israeli government to continue their migration through conversion. The chapter traces the history of the Bene Menashe, noting in particular the political factors that have determined the development of their Israelite identity.