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NEWS - Lost Jewish Tribe Wants Isra



Subject: NEWS - Lost Jewish Tribe Wants Israeli Home

Lost Jewish Tribe Wants Israeli Home

 By SARI BASHI Associated Press Writer 

 JERUSALEM (AP) - A group from India that claims to be a lost Jewish
tribe asked Israel on Tuesday to welcome it home after 2,500 years of
exile - the latest request
 that has Israel reconsidering its open-door policy to Jews and their
descendants.

 About 450 members of the Shinglung community have come to Israel over
the past 10 years, and activists asked Parliament's Immigration and
Absorption Committee
 on Tuesday to admit and grant citizenship to an additional 100
Shinglung per year.

 ``Since I was a young boy, I was taught that Israel is the place to
which we have to return,'' said Samuel Joram, 39, who arrived from the
Indian province of Mizuru two
 years ago with his mother.

 But Israel, which since its inception has actively urged Jews from
around the world to settle there, fears that a flood of non-Jewish
immigrants would threaten the
 Jewish character of the nation.

 Naomi Blumenthal, chairwoman of the immigration committee, said
granting the request would leave Israel vulnerable to demands from 2
million people in northeast
 India and in Myanmar, also known as Burma, who are ethnically related
to the Shinglung.

 On the other hand, denying the request could make the government an
easy target for criticism, she said.

 ``We have a bad experience with Jewish organizations, mostly in the
United States, who would then try to portray us as a racist country that
doesn't want to bring
 people who are different,'' she said.

 Representatives of the 3,500-member Shinglung community say they are
descendants of Menashe, a tribe that was lost after the Jews were exiled
from Israel in 586
 B.C. Joram said his ancestors, separated from Judaism's other 11
tribes, called themselves the children of Menashe.

 In the 1970s, with the help of a businessman from the Monopur province
who studied at a Jewish institute in Bombay, Joram said the Shinglung
began rejecting
 Christianity and adopting modern Jewish practices. They began coming to
Israel in 1989.

 Israel's Law of Return, established when the country was new, poor and
surrounded by enemies, grants Jews or descendants of Jews automatic
citizenship and
 financial assistance.

 However, now that Israel is prospering and making peace with its
neighbors, officials fear that residents of poorer countries will claim
Jewish roots to take advantage of
 Israel's higher quality of life.

 ``If you bring one, think of how many non-Jews will come,'' said
ultra-Orthodox lawmaker Shmuel Halpert. He added that thousands of
Falash Mura - Ethiopian Jews
 who converted to Christianity - are also demanding to immigrate.

 But some Israelis see the newcomers as political strength - most are
housed in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, claimed by
the Palestinians as
 the site of a future state. The settlers welcome the addition to their
political base that opposes land-for-security deals with the
Palestinians.

 Blumenthal said experts would be appointed to investigate the origins
of the Shinglung. But prospects still look bleak for Joram, who wants to
bring his brother and
 sister from India to Israel.

 ``The longing and love for Israel is still there today,'' he said.