The Immigration and Strategic Assimilation of Bene Menashe: A Zomian Jewish Community in Israel

Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among a community of immigrants from the Eastern Indian states of Manipur and Mizuram, Bene Menashe, this article deals with how these immigrants have used ethnic identity to further integrate into mainstream Jewish and Israeli society. Originally known as the Kuki-Chin-Mizu, Bene Menashe claim to be descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, cut off from other Jews for 2,700 years. Several thousand members of the community have emigrated to Israel since the 1990s. Bene Menashe’s background as a singular community of East Asian immigrants in the peripheral town of KA and as recent converts to Judaism, as well as their Zomian (Upland Southeast Asian) background, are central to the community’s negotiation of ethnoreligious identity. Their efforts to integrate into contemporary Israeli society often contrast with the drive of Israeli cultural agents to emphasise the group’s lost tribal heritage, and the community has also both emphasised and sought to discard their previous ethnic identity. Bene Menashe in KA, this article shows, employ several strategies to further their ‘strategic assimilation’ into Israeli society.