‘I thought they would kill us’: Indian Jewish community forced to flee after vicious attacks

DEBORAH STONE talks to members of the Bnei Menashe Jewish community caught up in ethnic violence in the northern Indian state of Manipur.

After 15 years living in Australia, Indian Jewish woman Aya Khongsai returned to India last year, planning to retire close to her brother, sister and their families.

But that plan was devastatingly disrupted by the ethnic violence wrecking her home state of Manipur.

Khongsai, who has fled back to Sydney temporarily, is one of more than 50,000 people who have been forced to leave Manipur as mobs attack with home-made weapons, burn buildings and loot anything they can find. More than 70 people have been killed and at least 1800 buildings destroyed.

The Bnei Menashe Jewish community are among those who have been under attack. On May 4, during a major day of violence, at least one member of the Jewish community was killed and two synagogues destroyed, leaving one Sefer Torah desecrated and a second lost.

The attacks are not specifically aimed at Jews. More than 200 churches have also been targeted. The small Jewish community is a subset of the Kuki tribal community, mostly Christian, which has been attacked by the predominantly Hindu Meitei community, an ethnic conflict founded in the question of which communities should get certain privileges under Indian law.

The community chairman of Beit-el Imphal, Lemuel Haokip, provided a video of the devastation at the synagogue. He told The Jewish Independent that the area is now deserted, with many members of the community sheltering in Aizawl, capital of the adjoining state of Mizoram.

"We don't have any hope of going back, especially to Imphal where I'm having my own house. Going there will be sure of death. We want aliyah to Eretz Israel sooner the better."