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Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion Among the Shinlung Or Bene Menasseh1

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Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion Among the Shinlung Or Bene Menasseh1 © Kamla-Raj 2004 Anthropologist, 6(3): 219-233 (2004) Lost Israelites From the Indo-Burmese Borderlands: Re-Traditionalisation and Conversion Among the Shinlung or Bene Menasseh1 Shalva Weil SHINLUNG AS CHILDREN OF account for periods of intense religious fervour MENASSEH IN JERUSALEM (cf. Wilson, 1973). The study of conversion from one religion to On Thursday night, December 4, 2003, eight another has been a traditional subject of interest brides in white dresses and veils from the so- for anthropologists and members of other called Bene Menasseh (Hebrew: “Children of disciplines, yet it has suffered from several major Menasseh”) community in Israel were married limitations. It has characteristically been to eight grooms in suits in Jerusalem’s Great discussed in relation to Christianity, ‘conversion’ Synagogue. 400 friends, relatives and suporters often being synonymous with ‘conversion to attended the ceremony, which was conducted by Christianity’ (Pauw 1975). Of course, this is not a Rabbi under the traditional Jewish wedding exclusively so, and conversion to Islam has been chupa (bridal canopy). The eight couples had documented in several contexts. However, been married previously in India, but not conversion to Judaism, traditionally a non- according to Jewish law. According to the proselytizing world religion,2 is a relatively unex- Associated Press reporter, a 31 year old member plored field. of the community called Michael Menasseh, who In academic circles, the study of conversion immigrated to Israel nine years ago, acted as has sometimes tended to don the mask of translator and adviser for the group (Rabinowitz, objectivity, while actually supporting conversion, 2003). Menasseh said that the reception in Israel the researcher in fact being (Lienhardt, 1961), or had been mixed, because of questions over their ‘becoming’, the missionary or the convert. Jewishness. “We have a connection (to Judaism), Lienhardt, whose excellent studies of the Dinka but there is no proof,” he said. “It is very difficult constitute classic reading in anthropology, is for us” (Rabinowitz, 2003). All the couples had probably the best example of his kind. Further- undergone full orthodox conversion to Judaism more, research has usually focussed upon a single according to the halacha (Jewish law). Since their conversion movement, irrespective of the fact that original weddings had taken place when they were adherents to one religion may have undergone not Jewish, they now had to re-marry according multiple radical transformations. In the case of to Jewish tradition in order to be recognised as indigenous religions, believers may adapt basic married couples in the Jewish religion. elements of traditional religion with a more dominant religion; in the case of world religions, RELIGIOUS CONVERSION adherents may convert to a second, or even third, world religion in the course of one life-span. Religious conversion implies accepting a set Added to this complex reality is the phenomenon of beliefs and practices which is quite different of “re-traditionalisation”, by which otherwise from the system of truth and religious often heterogeneous populations are integrated commitment previously experienced (Heirich, and mobilized against an external tradition and 1977). The reasons for group conversion are often culture (Smith, 1990). intriguing and encompass such searching questions as why one group in a particular culture DUAL CONVERSION AMONG THE area might be reluctant to convert to a world SHINLUNG religion while another group might endorse it (Rigby, 1981); why conversion movements gain This paper is an attempt to delve into some of sudden popularity; and why people convert at all the issues of conversion raised above among a (Kammerer, 1990). Ideas about the millenium are collection of different tribal peoples claiming often associated with conversion, and sometimes Israelite descent who lived in the Indo-Burmese 220 SHALVA WEIL borderlands, and some of whom today live in the the Shinlung began some 30 years ago, when State of Israel. In India, they were known by a groups of heterogeneous people in Mizoram and variety of appellations, but collectively as the Manipur in India and in Tiddim, Burma, started Shinlung;3 in Israel, they are known as Bene observing Judaic practices in the belief that Menasseh, linking them with the Biblical tribe of Jewish customs and the Jewish faith were Menasseh. There is no attempt in the article to compatible with indigenous tribal religion and support or refute these peoples’ claims or their could in fact replace it. Their link to Judaism was conversion to Judaism, although I do recount to through a lost Israelite claim associated with ‘emic’ worldviews and indigenous reconstruc- millenarian beliefs, which may have been tions of past, present and future. Instead of introduced to them through Christianity, or describing a single conversion movement, then, alternatively, may have been inherited from their which is the usual focus of articles on religious indigenous religious beliefs. The dual conversion conversion, this article deals with the pheno- appealed to ancient ties, as well as creating older menon of dual conversion to a second world yet newer identities of ethnicity and nationalism. religion, while exploring the connection between In this article, the fabrication of a new ethno- traditional religious beliefs and the new religious history and the creation of a wider myth of cognitive order. allegiance to an ancient Jewish diaspora shall be In fact, the Shinlung from the Indo-Burmese examined in order to seek an explanation for the borderlands have taken place in two stages: the recent, somewhat bizarre, religious transfor- first was from different types of indigenous mation to Judaism, and its results: the emigration religions, often described as animistic religions, of a few hundred people from India and Burma to Christianity, and the second conversion was to pursue a new destiny in a new location in Israel. from Christianity to Judaism, a world religion that is relatively insignificant in India and Burma.4 CONVERSION TO JUDAISM While this paper does recount the first metamor- phosis to Christianity, the subject matter is The conversion of the tribal peoples of north- different from many other articles on conversion east India and Burma to some form of Judaism in that the primary focus is on conversion to over the past few decades has not swelled the Judaism, a world religion that, while containing ranks of the Jewish communities in India and missionary elements, is not usually considered a Burma to any extent. The numbers converted are proselytising religion. both insignificant, and almost impossible to assess The Akha highlanders of Burma and Thailand, due both to the closed nature of the geographical documented by Kammerer (1990,1998), share a areas from which they hail, and the dynamic similar background to the Shinlung, from many nature of their conversion. Moreover, contact points of view. They converted to Christianity, between the converted tribal peoples, who today despite their initial resistance to the new religion, call themselves the ‘Children of Menasseh’ and from an indigenous zah, or form of religion and the local Jews in India is limited to a handful of way of life. Clearly, the Akha did not convert to pupils who study side by side with Bene Israel Judaism, and herein lies the great difference; Indian Jews in Mumbai, and familiarity with one nevertheless, the Shinlung replaced their indige- or two leaders of the Indian Jewish communities nous religion by a different world religion. in Calcutta and New Delhi. In 1996, I noticed Following Kammerer (1990), it would be two Shinlung members attending the synagogue inappropriate to analyse the contact between prayers in New Delhi; however, they were not different forms of religion – in our case, indige- counted as part of a minyan (quorum) by the nous religion and Christianity and then Judaism - regular members of the community belonging according to Western models of co-existence, both to the Baghdadi Jewish community and the compartmentalism or syncretism, as in other parts Bene Israel, on the grounds that they had not yet of the world; an alternative model of what converted to Judaism. In 2000, on a visit to the Kammerer (1990: 287) calls ‘replacement’ is Jewish community of Bombay, I was informed more apt, by which the tribal peoples abandon that one or two pupils from north-east India that one set of norms and customs and change their were studying at the ORT (Organisation through religious identification and participation. Rehabilitation Training) Jewish technical school The process of conversion to Judaism among in Bombay were attributed special privileges. LOST ISRAELITES FROM NORTH-EAST INDIA 221 Although Christianity and Judaism in India Tribes. I shall then examine the source of the and Burma can be said to display structural relatively recent religious transformation of the similarities in terms of their out-of-caste relation tribal peoples of north-east India and Burma to to Hinduism and their incongruity with Buddhism, Judaism and the source of the widespread numerically they are intrinsically different. affiliation with an Israelite heritage is related to Christians in India number more than 14 million the process which Smith (1990) terms “re- souls, while at their peak prior to 1948 the Jews traditionalisation”. The connection between re- were only 23,000 (Reissner 1950); today a total traditionalisation and the search for ethnic of 5,000 Jews live in India.5 In Burma, no more autonomy will be examined in an attempt to than a handful of Jews remain.6 understand the reasons for conversion among The total phenomenon of conversion to some groups of people whom, at first glance, bear no form of Judaism in situ in north-east India/Burma apparent allegiance to the religion to which they is probably not widespread. In the second half of are converting. There is no documentary evidence the 1980s, Tudor Parfitt was informed in Bombay of Jews or Israelites on the Indo-Burmese border- that “several thousand families” had “reverted” lands, and legends about the Ten Lost Tribes were to Judaism in Manipur (1987).
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