![]() ![]() Davis, 26 June 1922 (Office of Indian Affairs, Rosebud Agency Record Group 75 National Archives and Records Administration-Kansas City via Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project) “He recently heard that a student from Genoa was killed in Montana by a horse and he fears that this may be his son.” Letter from unknown Chief Clerk in Charge to Sam B. “The father…is very anxious to see where his son has gone,” a school clerk wrote the superintendent on the father’s behalf. Morris ran away from the school in 1921 - “deserted,” according to the militaristic language school officials used - like hundreds of other young Indigenous children who resisted the boarding school policies that forcibly stripped them of language and identity, often hundreds of miles from home. Morris Jenis Jr.’s father knew only his son, a Native American student at the Genoa Indian School in Nebraska 100 years ago, had not been seen in a year. They are not automatically covered under the Jewish Law of Return which requires proof of at least one Jewish grandparent.It is a desperate plea from a father seeking information about his missing son. As reported in the Israeli press, the Bnei Menashe require special government authorisation from Israel to move to the country. Another seven thousand live and practice Judaism in India. At present, there are about three thousand members of Lost Tribe communities from India living in Israel. Over the last two decades, Jewish-Zionist groups, with funding from private donors and evangelical Christian organisations, have facilitated the relocation of members of the Lost Tribe communities from northeast India to Israel. The communities are known as the Bnei Menashe, meaning Sons of Manasseh, one of the ten lost tribes. Almost all expressed a desire to return to Israel. They were eager to know about my upbringing and had many questions about what life was like in Israel, where I had briefly lived. I was no longer a mere photographer documenting their rituals, but rather a fellow Jew from the outside world, the kind they had only limited contact with and looked upon with great curiosity. I experienced what would become a pattern through the rest of my journey-the Lost Tribe members warmly and wholeheartedly welcomed me into their homes and services. What surprised me most were the personal interactions after the funeral when I had put my camera away. The first thing I photographed was a Jewish funeral in Aizawl. In March 2017, I travelled to Mizoram and parts of Myanmar to meet the Lost Tribe communities and document their rituals and daily lives. However, I was curious to learn more about these communities in India who identified so strongly with the Jewish faith-something that I had simply taken for granted for most of my life. I was raised in a Jewish family-my parents are observant Jews, but I had never fully embraced the religion. I had previously been aware of the existence of Lost Tribe Jewish communities around the world but had not actively given it much thought. ![]() Those who identify as members of Lost Tribes believe that they are the descendants of the ten Jewish tribes that were exiled from ancient Israel after the Assyrian empire conquered it around 722 BCE. ![]() A friend from Assam told me about “Lost Tribe” Jews in neighbouring Mizoram. I first learnt about Jewish communities living in India while traveling through the country in 2017. ![]()
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