He learned to speak Japanese and became a scholar in a Shinto Shrine and a devoted investigator of the Biblical origins of the Japanese people, their roots, culture, rites, and ties to the Ten
Lost Tribes of Israel.
In my earlier exploration of these events, I focused on the extent to which such claims presaged an important series of connections being publicly drawn between the ancestors and the
Lost Tribes of Israel, and global and local Christians and Christianities (Dundon 2010, 2011).
In this study the author seeks to answer the popular question of what happened to the "Ten
Lost Tribes of Israel." Basing her work on biblical and nonbiblical ancient sources as well as later Jewish and Rabbinic literature, she traces the dispersion of Israelites from the time of David to the third century BCE.
But by 2005, Israel's Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Jews Shlomo Amar officially recognized the community as one of the legendary '
Lost Tribes' of Israel, providing them with the right to settle in the Jewish state and gained Israeli citizenship under the 'Law of Return.' However, two years later the government ceased providing visas to this Indian tribe, before changing the policy yet again recently.
Did you know there are 75 to 90 million descendants of the
Lost Tribes of Israel alive today who are mixed in with the 2.1 billion people worldwide that call themselves Christians?
The Mystery of the Ten
Lost Tribes by Dr Ziva Shavitsky is a far more practical and solidly based study of the records of the Ancient Near East.
"I am very optimistic that within the next few weeks we will at last have a historic breakthrough which will allow the
lost tribe of Bnei Menashe to return to Zion," Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organisation that has been at the forefront of Bnei Menashe immigration to Israel, was quoted as saying.
From the title, readers might expect a tribe-by-tribe description and analysis of the ten
lost tribes, but Benite's approach is very different.
Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who claim a connection to the 10
lost tribes, the Pashtuns, or Pathans, have the most compelling case.
Her latest novel Tales of the Ten
Lost Tribes takes its name from the myth of the ten tribes of Israel who were banished by the Assyrians then lost in time.
The Lemba: A
Lost Tribe of Israel in Southern Africa?
"This is a major historical event," he said, "because these members of a
lost tribe of Israel can return home after 27 centuries."