India's "lost" Jews set for long-awaited homecoming
AIZAWL, India (Reuters) - Dalia Doliani Sela sits in her simple house poring over the Bible and learning Hebrew, dreaming of a life of piety and a family reunion with her children in the Promised Land.
Sela is an Indian by birth, part of a community in the country's remote northeast who says they are one of the "lost tribes of Israel", exiled from their homeland 2,700 years ago.
"I want to be there when my last days come. Because Israel is the land of Sarah. It's the first place where she will come," she said, referring to the wife of the biblical patriarch Abraham.
Sela, a 63-year-old mother of 10, is among the first group of India's Bnei Menashe community to be allowed to settle in the Holy Land since rabbinical leaders in Israel formally recognized them as Jews and carried out a mass conversion ceremony in India last year.
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Sela is an Indian by birth, part of a community in the country's remote northeast who says they are one of the "lost tribes of Israel", exiled from their homeland 2,700 years ago.
"I want to be there when my last days come. Because Israel is the land of Sarah. It's the first place where she will come," she said, referring to the wife of the biblical patriarch Abraham.
Sela, a 63-year-old mother of 10, is among the first group of India's Bnei Menashe community to be allowed to settle in the Holy Land since rabbinical leaders in Israel formally recognized them as Jews and carried out a mass conversion ceremony in India last year.