Around 240 immigrants from the Bnei Menashe community in northeast India landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday night as part of Operation “Wings of Dawn” — a historic initiative to complete the community’s immigration to Israel. This was the first of three flights expected over the next two weeks, carrying a total of roughly 600 new immigrants.
Who Are the Bnei Menashe?#
The Bnei Menashe are a Jewish community living in the states of Mizoram and Manipur in northeast India, near the borders of Myanmar and Bangladesh. Community members belong to the Chin, Kuki, and Mizo peoples, and identify as descendants of the tribe of Manasseh — one of the ten tribes exiled from the Kingdom of Israel during the Assyrian conquest in 721 BCE.
The community’s Jewish awakening began in the 1950s, when a tribal leader reported a dream revealing the Land of Israel as his people’s ancestral homeland. From the 1980s onward, community members began making their way to Israel with the help of Israeli rabbis. In 2005, then-Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar formally recognized the Bnei Menashe as a lost tribe, paving the way for organized immigration. All community members undergo Orthodox conversion upon arrival in Israel.
Operation Wings of Dawn#
The operation follows a government decision from November 2025, initiated by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer, and Finance Minister Smotrich. It is jointly managed by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and the Jewish Agency for Israel, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, the Conversion Authority, the Population and Immigration Authority, and other agencies.
Under the plan, around 1,200 community members are expected to arrive by the end of 2026, with an additional 4,800 to follow by 2030. In total, Operation Wings of Dawn will bring approximately 6,000 immigrants, completing the Bnei Menashe community’s aliyah. Over the past two decades, some 4,000 community members have already made the journey under previous government programs, with the most recent arrivals landing in 2020.
Settling in Northern Israel#
The immigrants on the first flight — dozens of young families — will be absorbed at immigration centers in Nof HaGalil and Kiryat Yam, where they will reunite with family members who arrived in earlier waves.
Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer said: “We are making history as we bring the entire Bnei Menashe community to Israel. There is no more fitting or moving time to welcome a plane full of immigrants than right after the country’s 78th Independence Day.”
Jewish Agency Chairman Major General (res.) Doron Almog added: “Aliyah is the growth engine of the State of Israel, and every new immigrant is a lighthouse of hope. The Bnei Menashe community brings with it unconditional love for the State of Israel.”
Photo: Maxim Dinshtein for the Jewish Agency for Israel
Sources: The Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel
