LITTLE ROCK — ‘Lost tribe’ Jews move to Israel
JERUSALEM - Dozens of Jews who claim to be the descendants of a lost biblical Jewish tribe immigrated to Israel on Monday from their village in northeastern India, celebrating their arrival after a five-year struggle to get in.
The Bnei Menashe say they are descended from Jews banished from ancient Israel to India in the eighth century B.C. An Israeli chief rabbi recognized them as a lost tribe in 2005, and about 1,700 moved to Israel over the next two years before the government stopped giving them visas.
Israel recently reversed that policy, agreeing to let the remaining 7,200 Bnei Menashe immigrate. Fifty-three arrived on a flight Monday.
Michael Freund, an Israelbased activist speaking on their behalf, said nearly 300 others will arrive in the coming weeks.
Not all Israelis think Bnei Menashe qualify as Jews, and some suspect they are simply fleeing poverty in India.
Avraham Poraz, a former interior minister, said they were not linked to the Jewish people. He also charged that Israeli settlers were using them to strengthen Israel’s claims to the West Bank.
- The Associated PressU.N. concerned
by Burma clashes
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution late Monday welcoming positive changes in Burma but expressing serious concern at an upsurge of sectarian violence between Muslims and Buddhists in strife-torn Rakhine state.
The resolution adopted by the 193-member world body urges government action to improve the situation of the Rohingya Muslim minority “and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality.”
There is widespread resentment of the Rohingya community, whom many in Burma regard as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh out to steal their land.
The worst communal violence in a generation in June, and again in late October, between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims killed about 200 people and left at least 110,000 displaced, the vast majority of them Muslims.
The General Assembly urged the government “to accelerate its efforts to address discrimination, human rights violations, violence, displacement and economic deprivation affecting various ethnic minorities,” singling out the Rohingyas and Kachin.
- The Associated Press
Texas Court to rule on church land
AUSTIN, Texas - The Texas Supreme Court will decide who owns 52 Fort Worth-area church properties valued at more than $100 million in a case being called by lawyers one of the largest church property disputes in state and U.S. history.
The dispute erupted about five years ago after the Fort Worth Episcopal diocese broke away from the national church in protest of the consecration of a gay bishop, ordination of women and other policies it perceived as too liberal. The Fort Worth diocese claimed it owned the churches and other properties, but in 2009 the national church sued, arguing the breakaway group could not take the buildings and land.
Attorneys believe the Supreme Court’s decision could determine how Texas handles similar disputes in the future, cases that often require a balance between the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion and state laws on property rights and nonprofits.
Religion, Pages 12 on 12/29/2012