Bnei Menashe aliyah dream in danger
Family Yotam Ginminthang Baite and his family are awaiting their aliyah to Israel
Yotam Ginminthang Baite is 32 years old, with his own carpentry business, living on India’s northeastern border with Myanmar. All of his family – his parents, his siblings and their families – have already made aliyah to Israel. Finally Yotam, his wife and children are preparing to fulfill their own aliyah dream and join his family. They are on the list.
Malka Sitlhou, the third among eight children, is 22 years old. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Churachandpur Government College. Her father, whose dream was to make aliyah, passed away in 2009. Now Malka looks forward to actualizing what her father couldn’t by making aliyah with her mother and six of her siblings to join older sister Rachel who is already in Israel. They are on the list.
Nehemiah Houngal Lhanghal is a 55 year old man in private business in the village of K. Patlen in northeast India. He has been waiting for years to make aliyah . He, his wife and three children are on the list too.
Yotam, Malka, Nehemiah and their families are all on a list of 251 Bnei Menashe who have been given permission to make aliyah this spring. But their dream is now in danger.
Over the past two and a half years, with your help, Shavei Israel has invested nearly four million dollars to bring 927 Bnei Menashe from India to Israel, and help start their new life. We have paid for their flights, then their housing and food once they arrive at the Kfar Hasidim absorption center. We have set them up in new homes in Acre, Upper Nazareth, Migdal HaEmek and Safed. We have ensured that their Hebrew education continues there and we have set up after-school programs for their children to guarantee that their integration into Israeli life is smooth and successful. We run job training programs and have placed Bnei Menashe men and women into meaningful and well-paying positions.
And yet, as we gear up for the next round of immigration – with hundreds more Bnei Menashe packed up and ready to go – it is now in danger of stalling.
Simply put, the money isn’t there.
Certain large donors who have made much of the aliyah possible are not in the position this time around to help. Our lists are complete, the infrastructure is in place, but the immigration is, tragically, unexpectedly, now on hold.
We are turning to you with a request more urgent than any we’ve asked before – to help Yotam, Malka, Nehemiah and their families take the final steps towards a new life in the homeland of their forefathers. Without your generous contribution, the next immigration to Israel will not happen.
Here’s what you can do.
For a donation of $5,000, you can sponsor the aliyah of an entire Bnei Menashe family of five.
For a donation of $3,000, you can make the immigration of a family of three possible.
For a donation of $1,000, you can bring a single Bnei Menashe young man or woman to Israel.
A donation of $850 will cover airfare from India to Israel.
A donation of $100 will pay for bus fare to the airport within India for a family of four.
For $50, we can buy a Bnei Menashe family new luggage for the journey home.
The American Friends of Shavei Israel is a U.S. 501c3 non-profit organization so your donation is eligible for a U.S. tax receipt.
And as a special bonus, if you are one of the first 100 people to make a donation of any amount, we will send you a free copy of our electronic Passover Haggadah “On the Wings of Eagles” which features pictures and stories of the Bnei Menashe on their own exodus to Israel, not from Egypt but from India. Print it out and use it at your Seder table.
It’s not too late to be a part of the miracle. Please visit our donate page and give generously. Yotam, Malka and Nehemiah are counting on you! We cannot let this opportunity pass us by!