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Reconstructing the Heritage of the Bene Israel Community Through Reconstructing the Heritage of the Bene Israel Community Through Developing The Community Family Tree By Nissim Moses Historian-Bene Israel Heritage & Genealogy Research One thing is certain that even though it was believed for many centuries and by many socio-anthropologists that the Bene Israel might be the remnants of one of the lost tribes of Israel; the Bene Israel are in fact a group of persons who departed from Israel and arrived in India around about 370 B.C.E. i.e. during the time the Greek Seleucids ruled the ancient land of Israel and were persecuting the Hebrews and trying to force pagan worship in the land of Israel. This was a practice abominable to the ancestors of the Bene Israel who have now been definitely proven by modern DNA studies to be Levites. To the Bene Israel it has become quite obvious that it is quite difficult to the Jewish socio-anthropologist and Rabbis, brought up under post second temple Jewish Rabbinic laws to comprehend the fact that Judaism at one time was a much more simplistic common sense based religion based upon actions and deeds and not a prayer and meditational based religion based upon a complex of rabbinic laws to suit the specific needs of certain specific parts of the Jewish community and later generalized by rabbis as applicable to all. This article/presentation will present the development of the Family Tree which today consists of some 37,000 name data entries, some 15,000 photographs, several hundreds of bio-Briefs information snippets and tens of detailed Bio-Briefs and single page pictorial lifetime reviews of the contribution of our people to the evolution of Modern India and the society around us, both in India and Israel. Most persons start developing their family tree for the purpose of tracing their ancestry. This project embarked on a more ambitious plan – to try and develop the true roots and ancestry of the Bene Israel Jewish Community in India. Right at the start it was found to be feasible because the historical legend/story that the whole community consisting of some approximately 120,000 persons today are descended from some 14 persons consisting of seven men and seven women. In order to reconstruct the heritage; practices quite commonly used in mathematical studies and psychology, such as cognition, comparative and correlation techniques and pattern development was used. This method permitted through the correlation of ancient 1st & 2nd Temple Religious practices and customs, the lack of knowledge about certain post 2nd Temple religious practices and laws, the traditions of the people of the community, their ancestral professional occupation, their practice of religious rites and traditions, their name structures and format, their historical sites in India, and results of modern DNA studies, to quite accurately reconstruct and develop the Heritage of the Community, from the time they left the ancient land of Israel some 2300 years ago for India, till their return to modern Israel. Some of the Traditions and customs brought by the Bene Israel to India being the first foreign refugees to India were 1. Burial of the dead facing west. Note Islam & Christianity did not exist then and the Hindus burnt their dead. The ancient Cemetery at Nowgaon still existing is evidence of their practice. 2. Their occupation as oil pressers. 3. Practice of circumcision. 4. The Malidah and Hena (Mehndi) Services a practice of pre second temple period. Lighting of only one lamp/candle on Sabbath. 5. Keeping of the Sabbath. 6. Occupation in Service industry –such as farming, fighting as warriors, lawyers 7. Name structure and roots of both name & family name traceable only to Hebrew and absolutely no connection to Marathi which did not exist at the time of their arrival in India. Note Marathi which was the main language spoken by the majority of the community in India, came into existence as a dialect in the 12th Century and evolved into a language only in the 16th Century with the Modi script and then to the Devnagri script only in the early twentieth century. 8. Construction of Succoth & Simchat Torah booths out of palm branches only. Pictures shown below highlight some of the inputs that went into the development of this genealogy based development of the Bene Israel Heritage and the reconstruction of our history. The above pictures show the Arrival, the first Occupation and the practice of Peace and Thanksgiving Ceremony of pre second Temple times by the Bene Israel The Ethrog (Citron) Tree (planted by the author in New Delhi), the Construction & Decoration of Booths & Celebration of Succoth & Simchath Torah The Bene Israel Tradition of lighting one Sabbath Lamp a pre 2nd temple custom and the post 2nd temple tradition of lighting two candles or lamps for Sabbath .
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