A third charter flight carrying 110 members of the Bnei Menashe community from Mizoram, India touched down at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday evening, 6 May 2026. The arrival completes the planned first wave of Operation Wings of Dawn, bringing the six-week total to roughly 600 new olim across three flights.
The UJA-Federation leg#
Unlike the two earlier flights in April, the 6 May leg was sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York. UJA CEO Eric S. Goldstein flew to Mizoram and accompanied the families back to Israel, later publishing a first-person dispatch from the trip, “To India, and Home.” His piece describes the singing of Hatikvah on the tarmac and the on-the-spot reunions with relatives who had made aliyah years — in some cases decades — earlier. UJA’s involvement marks the first time the operation has been carried by a North American federation rather than the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency alone.
What the milestone means#
In six weeks, three charter flights have moved approximately 600 Bnei Menashe from northeast India to Israel — roughly the entire first-wave target set by the November 2025 cabinet decision that launched the operation. About 5,800 community members remain in Mizoram and Manipur. Under the plan jointly run by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and the Jewish Agency, a further tranche is expected in the second half of 2026, with the full community of roughly 6,000 to be in Israel by 2030.
Where the new olim are headed#
The 110 arrivals are being absorbed at the same northern integration centres used for the April flights — Nof HaGalil and Kiryat Yam — where most will spend the first year studying Hebrew and going through formal Orthodox conversion before moving on to permanent housing, often near relatives in Migdal HaEmek, Ma’alot, Afula or Kiryat Shmona. Several hundred earlier Bnei Menashe olim have served in the IDF since 7 October 2023; two staff sergeants from the community have been killed in action.
Background#
For the operation’s history, the community’s claim of descent from the tribe of Manasseh, and the 2005 recognition by then-Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, see our earlier piece on the first Wings of Dawn flight. The New York Times also published a deeper feature on the community by Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar — “A Lost Tribe in India Makes Its Exodus to Israel” — on the day of the first flight.
Sources: UJA-Federation of New York, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Ynet.
