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India’s Bnei Menashe community in crisis as ethnic violence burns synagogues and displaces hundreds
(JTA) — For the past several years, life was good for Lalam Hangshing as president of the Bnei Menashe Council, the governing body for Jewish communities in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram.
While living at his parents’ house, he and his wife enjoyed the clean air and beautiful scenery of Manipur, a state in northeast India home to close to 3 million people. Miles away, Hangshing rented out a newly-built four-story home to a film production company.
Everything changed on May 3, when rioting broke out between the ethnic majority Meiteis and the tribal minority Kukis, a violent conflagration that had been building up for years. Local groups say Meiteis began targeting Kuki institutions and razing homes to the ground, and Hangshing — also the general secretary of a Kuki-led political party — feared his house was next.
“When the problems started on the third of May, with military precision, the mobs went straight to [Kuki] houses,” Hangshing said. “They ransacked them and vandalized them and they burned each and every house in Imphal city within one and a half days.”
According to Shavei Israel, an NGO that helps “lost tribe” Jewish communities immigrate to Israel, over 1,000 members of the community, or 20% of their total, have been displaced. One community member was killed, and another was shot in the chest and is hospitalized. Two synagogues and mikvahs, or ritual baths, were burned down.
(Degel Menashe, an Israeli NGO that is dedicated to supporting the Bnei Menashe and has a longstanding feud with Shavei Israel, said one synagogue was burned.)
Hangshing is Kuki, as are the thousands of other Bnei Menashe Jews in Manipur. On May 4, Hangshing left his home and over a month later, has yet to return.
He spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Delhi, more than 1,000 miles from his home. His four-story house has been completely destroyed, but his parents’ home is somehow still standing. He worries about family possessions, such as religious books belonging to his father — who had helped found Manipur’s Jewish community — and a favorite set of golf clubs left behind, all in danger of being looted or destroyed any day now.
Another estimated 292 Bnei Menashe families have fled to Kuki-majority hill areas within Manipur or to the nearby state of Mizoram, according to Shavei Israel.
In Mizoram, over 100 Jews initially took refuge in the Shalom Tzion synagogue in Aizawl, in the houses of other Jewish families or at hotels, but most have moved to a paramilitary camp nearby. Community leaders say the refugees are not facing any immediate danger and have enough food and supplies thanks to the tens of thousands of dollars in aid rolling in from Shavei Israel and Degel Menashe.
“They basically just fled with their documents, and they have prayer books, their tefillin and ritual items, and the clothes on their back,” said Asaf Renthlei, a Mizoram Jewish community member and Degel Menashe volunteer. At relief camps, he said, community members have observed Shabbat every week since they fled.
“This is one of the gravest crises the Bnei Menashe in India have ever experienced,” said Michael Freund, who has been chairman of Shavei Israel since he founded the organization in 2002.
Over 100 Bnei Menashe have taken shelter in a synagogue in Mizoram. (Shavei Israel)
“A state gone rogue”
Violence broke out in Manipur state in early May when tribal groups launched a protest against the Meitei’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status, which is traditionally reserved for minority tribes such as the Kukis and ensures certain rights to education, government jobs and other privileges. The Kukis (which make up about 16% of the population and are majority Christian) say that the Meiteis (who make up 53% and are majority Hindu) already have outsized privilege and political representation.
The May 3 protest was only the spark that has ignited a conflict based on long-standing grievances against the Kuki minority, said Sushant Singh, a senior research fellow at India’s Centre for Policy Research.
“At the core of it, it is about Meiteis claiming that they are the original inhabitants of the state, Kukis are illegal immigrants, and… [the Meiteis] have been forced to occupy only 10% of the land,” Singh said. “And because of the special privileges that tribes have in India, they cannot go and occupy the land occupied by Kukis.”
As the conflict enters its second month, over 100 deaths have been recorded and an estimated 40,000 people have been displaced; some entire villages are destroyed and over 200 churches have been burned, as well as the two synagogues in the Imphal area. A statewide internet blackout has been in place since the beginning of May.
While both Kukis and Meiteis have participated in the violence, Kukis have “suffered the most,” and state police and security forces have joined Meitei groups in targeting Kukis, Singh said. Human Rights Watch has called on India to investigate police violence in Manipur, which local groups have disputed.
“It has essentially been a state gone rogue acting against a minority community,” Singh said.
Though the government has called for a ceasefire and established a peace committee, those efforts to quell the violence have been unsuccessful. The military has implemented security measures and evacuated Kukis further into the hills and Meiteis into the plains, but Singh said this has only reinforced geographical divides, instead of facilitating a solution that could allow the two groups to live alongside one another in the future.
Citing the government’s failure to protect them, Kukis have called for separation from the state of Manipur. As the conflict stretches into its second month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to comment on the crisis in his country’s northeast.
“The army has been called in but they are very ineffective because it’s a civil war. They can’t take sides. They just stand around and when the firing gets too heavy, they stand aside so it’s left to us to fend for ourselves,” Hangshing said.
According to one organization, two of the community’s synagogues have burned down and another Torah scroll was torched. (Shavei Israel)
An appeal to Israel
The Bnei Menashe identify as descendants of a “lost tribe” group, tracing their origins to the Israelite tribe of Menasseh. In 2005, a chief rabbi of Israel affirmed their identity as a “lost tribe” group with historic Jewish ties, but researchers have not found sufficient evidence to back the claim. Bnei Menashe Jews began immigrating to Israel in the 1990s, and because of their “lost tribe” status, they all undergo formal Orthodox conversions upon arrival. Around 5,000 remain in the states of Manipur and Mizoram today, and about 5,000 have already immigrated to Israel.
Many have struggled to gain entry into Israel over the past two decades, and they are now asking the Jewish state to expedite the immigration process to help them escape the violence. But despite recent celebrations surrounding the opening of a new Indian-Jewish cultural center in central Israel, to which Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog sent recorded blessings, Jerusalem has yet to publicly respond to the situation.
Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, visited India last month on a planned trip aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries. He did not comment on the matter, and his visit was cut short due to a military operation in Israel.
“I think under [Benjamin] Netanyahu, particularly in this stint as prime minister, there are very few expectations. He is very close to Mr. Modi’s government, so I don’t think anybody expects anything from Netanyahu,” Singh said.
The Bnei Menashe’s “grey zone” religious status, in the words of Renthlei, makes their immigration to Israel more complicated for them than most. Before the Bnei Menashe can even apply to immigrate, they must face a panel of rabbis — who usually come all the way to India — for interviews.
“It’s not like Ukraine. The Ukrainians are Jewish without any doubt. But the Bnei Menashe, we are in some gray zone of not exactly not Jews, but not exactly Jews also,” Renthlei said. “It’s unlikely that the Bnei Menashe would just be able to make aliyah, even in this situation, unlike the Ukrainians.” Thousands of Ukrainian Jews have immigrated to Israel since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps facilitate immigration, and the UJA-Federation of New York have provided funding to Shavei Israel to help displaced persons, representatives from Shavei said. The Jewish Agency, the ministry of aliyah and integration, and the Israeli consulate in India did not respond to JTA’s requests for comment.
“We’re too small to matter, I suppose,” said Isaac Thangjom, director of Degel Menashe. Thangjom, who lives in Israel, has been in contact with officials in the ministry of aliyah and integration.
“They are very concerned, but they haven’t given me any explicit answer despite my proddings,” he said. “Their responses have been very tepid.”
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US-Brokered Peace Talks Break Off Without Deal After Overnight Russian Bombardment of Ukraine
Some windows glow in a residential building left without heating and facing long power cuts after critical civil infrastructure was hit by recent Russian missile and drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Alina Smutko
Ukraine and Russia ended a second day of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Saturday without a deal but with more talks expected next weekend, even as overnight Russian airstrikes knocked out power for over a million Ukrainians amid subzero winter cold.
Statements after the conclusion of the talks did not indicate that any agreements had been reached, but Moscow and Kyiv both said they were open to further dialogue.
“The central focus of the discussions was the possible parameters for ending the war,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X after the meeting.
More discussions were expected next Sunday in Abu Dhabi, said a US official who spoke to reporters immediately after the talks.
“We saw a lot of respect in the room between the parties because they were really looking to find solutions,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We got to real granular detail and (we feel) that next Sunday will be, God willing, another meeting where we push this deal towards its final culmination.”
A UAE government spokesperson said there was face-to-face engagement between Ukraine and Russia — rare in the almost four-year-old war triggered by a full-scale Russian invasion — and negotiators tackled “outstanding elements” of Washington’s peace framework.
Looking beyond next week’s negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the US official voiced hopes for further talks, possibly in Moscow or Kyiv.
“Those sorts of meetings have to happen, in our view, before we get a bilateral between (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Zelensky, or a trilateral with Putin, Zelensky and President Trump. But I don’t think we’re so far away from that,” the official said.
BOMBARDMENT OF UKRAINE BEFORE SECOND DAY OF TALKS
The bombardment of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and its second-largest city Kharkiv by hundreds of Russian drones and missiles prompted Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha – who was not at the talks – to accuse Putin of acting “cynically.”
“This barbaric attack once again proves that Putin’s place is not at (US President Donald Trump’s) Board of Peace, but in the dock of the special tribunal,” Sybiha wrote on X.
“His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table.”
Saturday was scheduled to be the final day of the talks, billed by Zelensky as the first trilateral meeting under the US-mediated peace process.
The UAE statement said the talks were conducted in a “constructive and positive atmosphere” and included discussions about confidence-building measures.
Kyiv is under mounting Trump administration pressure to make concessions to reach a deal to end Europe’s deadliest and most destructive conflict since World War Two.
US peace envoy Steve Witkoff said at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week that a lot of progress had been made in the talks and only one sticking point remained. However, Russian officials have sounded more skeptical.
RUSSIA WANTS ALL OF DONBAS
After Saturday’s talks, Zelensky said the US delegation had raised the issue of “potential formats for formalizing the parameters for ending the war, as well as the security conditions required to achieve this”.
The US official said the proposed security protocols were widely seen as “very, very strong.”
“The Ukrainians and many of the national security advisors of all the European countries have reviewed these security protocols. And to a person, and this includes NATO, including (NATO Secretary General) Mark Rutte, they have expressed the fact that they’ve never seen security protocols this robust,” the official said.
Ahead of the discussions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday Russia had not dropped its insistence on Ukraine yielding all of its eastern area of Donbas, the industrial heartland grouping the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the 20 percent it still holds of Donetsk – about 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) – has proven a major stumbling block to any deal. Most countries recognize Donetsk as part of Ukraine. Putin says Donetsk is part of Russia’s “historical lands.”
Zelensky has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has not been able to capture in four years of grinding, attritional warfare against a much smaller foe. Polls show little appetite among Ukrainians for any territorial concessions.
Russia says it wants a diplomatic solution but will keep working to achieve its goals by military means as long as a negotiated solution remains elusive.
Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said late on Friday that the first day of talks had addressed parameters for ending the war and the “further logic of the negotiation process.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine came under renewed Russian bombardment.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 375 drones and 21 missiles in the overnight salvo, which once again targeted energy infrastructure, knocking out power and heat for large parts of Kyiv, the capital. At least one person was killed and over 30 injured.
Before Saturday’s bombardment, Kyiv had already endured two mass overnight attacks since the New Year that cut electricity and heating to hundreds of residential buildings. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said on Saturday that 800,000 people in Kyiv – where temperatures were around -10 degrees Celsius – had been left without power after the latest Russian assault.
Zelensky said on Saturday Russia’s heavy overnight strikes showed that agreements on further air defense support made with Trump in Davos this week must be “fully implemented.”
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Conscription Law Heads to Final Vote in Knesset Amid Political Showdown
A drone view of Jerusalem with the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
i24 News – Israel’s conscription law is reaching its final stretch as the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to complete its discussions this week before bringing it to a first reading vote in the Knesset plenum, i24NEWS’s Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) affairs correspondent Ari Kalman reported Sunday.
The legal counsel of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to support the legislation, subject to changes that will be made in the wording of the law. However, it is not certain that this will satisfy its opponents. Meanwhile, opponents of the law within the coalition insist that they have “a majority that can defeat the law.”
Against the backdrop of the crisis with the Haredi parties, the state budget is expected to be brought to a first reading vote on Monday. Recently, i24NEWS reported that the Knesset’s legal advisor, Attorney Sagit Afik, told Knesset members that at least two months are required from the moment it is placed on the Knesset table until its final approval. Therefore, the coalition is required to submit it this week in order for it to be approved on time.
The problem facing the coalition and Prime Minister Netanyahu is that this year there is not enough time to pass the budget by the end of March, as Passover Eve falls on April 1, and therefore the budget needs to be approved in its third reading by March 25, two months from today.
Amid the pressure and the attempt to bring the budget to a vote, the Hasidic Council of Torah Sages published its decision this month against the conscription law: “The Council expresses its deep pain and concern over the campaign of harassment against Torah students by various authorities, the harm to them and to their rights, their public denigration and humiliation for being students of God’s Torah; something that is becoming increasingly severe.”
They also wrote that the Council of Torah Sages demands a law “without personal and institutional sanctions and without arrests, as has been customary all these years. Any other legislation that harms Torah scholars whose Torah study is their profession, imposes sanctions on them, or sets quotas is unacceptable. And it must be opposed with all force.”
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Syria and Kurdish Forces Extend Ceasefire by 15 Days Amid Rising Tensions
A person holds flags as people celebrate after the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of Syria’s oil-rich northeast, has signed a deal agreeing to integrate into Syria’s new state institutions, the Syrian presidency said on Monday, in Damascus, Syria, March 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
i24 News – A four-day ceasefire between Syrian government forces and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which expired on Saturday night, has been extended by 15 days, officials from both sides said, providing a temporary respite amid rising tensions in northeast Syria.
The extension, effective from 11 PM local time, was announced by Syria’s defense ministry to support an ongoing US operation transferring Islamic State detainees from Syrian prisons into Iraq. The SDF confirmed the agreement was reached through international mediation, while dialogue with Damascus continues.
The ceasefire follows recent advances by government troops, who seized swathes of northern and eastern territory from the SDF in the past two weeks, consolidating control under President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Sharaa had initially given SDF forces until Saturday to lay down arms or face renewed fighting.
The US has been conducting shuttle diplomacy to establish a lasting ceasefire and facilitate the integration of the SDF, which was Washington’s main partner in Syria for years, into the state led by Sharaa. Senior US and French officials reportedly warned Sharaa against sending troops into remaining Kurdish-held areas to avoid potential mass abuses against civilians.
As tensions escalated ahead of the Saturday deadline, SDF forces reinforced positions in Qamishli, Hasakeh, and Kobane. Kurdish security sources indicated the buildup was precautionary amid fears of renewed conflict.
The offensive earlier this month marked the culmination of a year of rising tensions. Sharaa, whose forces toppled Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, aims to bring all of Syria under state control, while Kurdish authorities have resisted merging their autonomous civilian and military institutions into Sharaa’s administration.
With key oil fields, hydroelectric dams, and facilities holding Islamic State detainees now under government control, the 15-day ceasefire offers a brief pause. The situation remains fragile, and the international community continues to monitor developments closely.