Misinai first heard about the “Hebrew origins of Palestinians” theory from his father, Kha’yim Avraham, a German Jew who served in the Royal Artillery in the Second World War. His interest was rekindled after the 1991 Gulf War, when there was talk about a new order in the Middle East. After the failure of the Oslo Accords that led to the commencement of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, he abandoned his career as a Computer scientist and devoted his entire life to investigating the Jewish roots of Palestinians. He now spends his entire time tracking down Palestinians who acknowledge their Jewish heritage, and lobbying ministers, ambassadors, religious leaders and activists in both communities.

Misinai, and his team of Arabs and Jews, have embarked on a mission of trying to bring peace to Israel through a unique and controversial project called “The Engagement”.Hebrew origin

Tsvi Misinai claims that the majority of the Palestinian people including those with Israeli citizenship or residency, known variously as Arab citizens of Israel, Arab Israelis, Israeli Arabs, including the Bedouin Arabs of Israel are descendants of the ancient Hebrews, as most of the world’s Jewish ethnic divisions are. Furthermore, he claims that at least half of them are quietly aware of this fact.

According to Misinai, unlike the ancestors of the modern day Jews who were city dwellers to a large extent, the Hebrew ancestors of the Palestinians were rural dwellers, and were allowed to remain in the land of Israel to work the land and supply Rome with grain and olive oil.

Misinai states the topic of Hebrew origin was spoken of openly by Palestinians until relatively recent history, much as the Egyptians or Lebanese are aware of their origin in the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians respectively, even if the topic arouses the passions of those wishing to stress or de-emphasize it. As with other “Arabs”, the origin of Palestinians also became a relegated issue over time, but for them, the additional emergence of Zionism in the early 19th century presented a competing national interest not similarly encountered by other “Arabs” (although Arab nationalism would serve as a counter-force vis-à-vis Zionism). Thus, the topic of origin became admonished. Then, the establishment of modern Israel by world Jewry (having transpired to the detriment of the Palestinians) transformed the topic of Hebrew origin into a blemish of liability, ultimately becoming the object of outright hostility.

Conversions and acculturation: Arabization, Musta’arabi Jews, and Crypto-Judaism; As a result of remaining in the Land of Israel, the Palestinians partially converted to Christianity during the Byzantine era. Later, with the coming of Islam, they were Islamized through a combination of mainly forced conversions, but also nominal conversions (that is, conversions for forms sake to derive benefits as Muslims, and avoid tributes owed by non-Muslims, in Muslim ruled lands) and others yet out of genuine theological conviction.

Conversion to Islam occurred progressively throughout the successive periods of foreign elite minority rule over Palestine, both on an individual basis and en masse, starting with the conversions during the various dynasties of Arabian Muslim rulers from the initial Muslim conquest of Palestine. Following these came rule by Muslim non-Arab dynasties such as the Ayyubids (Kurdish Muslim), Mameluks (Turkic Muslim) and finally the Ottomans (Turkish Muslim). This continuous phase of elite minority foreign Islamic rule over a local indigenous (now largely Muslim) mass was only briefly interrupted by the elite minority foreign Christian rule by the European Crusaders, which lasted from 1096 until their expulsion by the Mameluks in 1291.

Misinai states that of this gradual process of conversions (often accompanied by Arabization), the majority were forcibly converted during the Fatimid era under the reign of Caliph al-Hakim who was crowned at the age of 11, and reigned from the years 996 to 1021. Due to his young age, in practice, it was his ministers who wielded the actual power behind the throne for some time. They gave the young Caliph power to influence religious matters only, and appointed him as Imam. In 1009, the extremists among his ministers gained the upper hand and brought upon a series of decrees against Christians and Jews.
In 1012, the al-Hakem Edict was issued, under which all Jews and Christians in Palestine were ordered to either convert to Islam or leave. This led to the majority of non-Hebrew origin Christians (i.e., foreign Christians) to leave Palestine, while over 90% of Jews, Samaritans (also of Hebrew origin) and Hebrew-origin Christians converted and became Muslims. They would also become Musta’arabim (Arabized), acculturated into Arab language, custom and culture.

Later, when the edict was finally repealed in 1044 during the reign of Caliph Al-Mustansir of Cairo, only 27 percent of the Jewish converts to Islam returned to Judaism openly, although they too would remain Musta’arabi (culturally and linguistically Arab). The remainder continued to live as Muslim crypto-Jews in order to continue enjoying the economic advantages of Muslims, such as exemption from paying jizya and kharaj, the ability to sell their agricultural products to the foreign authorities, or gain employment in the government machinery. Many younger persons of Hebrew-origin (Jewish, Christian or Samaritan) saw it simultaneously possible to lead dual lives, incorporating their prior faith while being outwardly Muslim, and accruing material benefits. Later, with the advent of Mameluk rule, Judaism had reached a breaking point in Palestine.

Tsvi Misinai validates his theory of the Hebrew origin of Palestinians on the basis of various findings in terms of historic-demographic, historic-geographic, national-territorial, genetic, behavioral-religious, nomenclature and linguistics, and Palestinian cultural and oral traditions. In his book “Brother shall not lift sword against brother”, he details numerous testimonies of their Jewish ancestry by Palestinians and Bedouins, and cites the anthropological studies conducted by Israel Belkind, one of the organizers of the Bilu movement, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (both the first Prime Minister and the second prime minister of Israel, respectively).
Misinai also cites the following three genetic studies as lending credence to his theory. Among the genetic studies referred to by him include recent genetic studies conducted by Professor Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on the male Y chromosome which revealed that the present day Jews and Palestinians represent modern descendants of a core population that lived in the area now constituting the state of Israel and the Palestinian territories, since prehistoric times.

In 2001, the Human Immunology magazine published a genetic study conducted by Prof. Antonio Arnez-Vilna, a Spanish researcher from the University of Complutense in Madrid, who discovered that the immune systems of the Jews and the Palestinians are extremely close to one another in a way that almost absolutely demonstrates a similar genetic identity. Furthermore, a 2002 test by Tel Aviv University researchers, determined that only two groups in the world – Ashkenazi Jews and Palestinians were genetically susceptible to an inherited deafness syndrome.

Tsvi Misinai separates the Palestinian people into three main groups; the “Descendants of Israel”, “Brethren of Israel” and “Palestinians of miscellaneous origins”. He states that until recently, there had been very few inter-marriages between these groups, as Palestinians usually tended to marry within their own clans or related clans.

Descendants of Israel: The “Descendants of Israel”, he claims, comprise descendants of the ancient biblical Hebrews which are native to the land west of the Jordan River (the West Bank, Gaza strip and Israel proper). They are more specifically descended from the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah, as opposed to the Samaritans who are mainly descended from the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Israel.

Misinai claims that the Descendants of Israel had ceased to call themselves Musta’arbim, when the Brethren of Israel returned to their homeland during the 18th and 19th centuries. Despite this, stories about the Jewish origins of the family were passed on among the Descendants of Israel, and a few Jewish customs were preserved. Both groups began seeing themselves as one people, although endogamous marriages with their own clans ensured the purity of their blood lines until very recently.

The Samaritans are distinguished among Descendants of Israel, given that their ancient history serves as an analogous precursor to the present situation that Tsvi Misinai argues exists between world Jewry and the Palestinians — that upon their returns from exile and re-establishments of Israel, world Jewry misidentified as foreigners the descendants of those Israelites who had stayed behind, first in antiquity misidentifying the Samaritans as foreigners, and today in modern times misidentifying the Palestinians (Arabized Hebrews of the Muslim and Christian faiths) as foreigners.

The Samaritans are Descendants of Israel, being descended from farmers among the Israelite Tribes, part of whom were never exiled by the Assyrians or the Babylonians during the period of the destruction of the First Jewish Commonwealth. Their maternal lineages, however, derive from the Small Nations (those who came from Cuthah and others) who were exiled to Samaria by the Assyrians and intermixed with their paternal Israelite ancestors. The alien minority who remained in the land, adopted the Israelite religion (Samaritanism, the sister Israelite religion to Judaism) in the course of time, after the destruction of the First Temple. A portion of the Samaritans exiled by the Assyrians, were later repatriated by the prophet Jeremiah in the days of the Judean king Josiah.

The Babylonians, who followed the Assyrians as the dominant entity in the Fertile Crescent, exiled many Samaritans but skipped over a significant part of the Samaritan population. By the time they arrived in Samaria, the Babylonians found many alien elements in the land of Israel. Consequently, they did not undertake a thorough ethnic cleansing expulsion from Samaria, since the Assyrians had led many areas to be viewed as places whose indigenous population had already been replaced by aliens and needed no further expulsion.

Later, when the exiled Israelites (now known as Jews) returned from the Babylonian exile under prophets Ezra and Nehemiah, they misidentified the Israelites who had stayed behind (now known as Samaritans) as foreigners. The reason for the misidentification was because the deportations had led the exiled Israelites and the Israelites who remained behind to develop in different ways. The Babylonian captivity had a number of serious effects on the exiled Israelites (Jews), their religion (Judaism) and their culture. Included among the most obvious of these changes was replacing the original Paleo-Hebrew alphabet (see also Samaritan script) with what is in fact a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet (now commonly called the “Hebrew alphabet” because it is the normative form in which Hebrew is written due to Jewish numeric superiority), changes in the fundamental practices and customs of the Jewish religion, the culmination of Biblical prophecy (in the Jewish prophet Ezekiel), the compilation of not only of the Talmud and Halakha (Jewish religious law, absent in Samaritanism) but also the incorporation of Nevi’im (Prohpets) and Ketuvim (Writings) as a part of the cannon together with the Torah (in Samaritanism, only the Torah is canonical, see Samaritan Torah), and the emergence of scribes and sages as Jewish leaders (see Ezra and the Pharisees).

These resulting differences in religious practices between returnees and those who remained in Israel led to a schism in the Israelites, and whenceforth the creation of separate Samaritan and Jewish entities. Over the centuries, Judaism and world Jewry have come to the acceptance that the Samaritans are indeed descendants of Israelites.

The Islamic conquest of Palestine in the first half of the 7th century, and the subsequent Arab rule, marked the beginning of the phase of decline and erosion of Samaritan identity, even more detrimentally than the extreme toll on Jewish identity. The passing of the aforementioned al-Hakem Edict in 1021, along with another notable forced conversion to Islam imposed at the hands of the rebel Ibn Firasa, decreased their numbers significantly, such that they decreased from more than a million in Roman times to just 712 people today.

For those who maintained a Samaritan identity and religious association into modern times, they too, like their Palestinian counterparts who had additionally adopted Christianity and later Islam, were nevertheless thoroughly Arabized in language and culture. After the establishment of modern Israel, Samaritans living in what became the State of Israel replaced Palestinian Arabic with modern Hebrew as their day to day language (although Samaritan Hebrew had always been maintained as the liturgical language, along with liturgical Samaritan Aramaic and liturgical Samaritan Arabic).

The “Brethren of Israel”, which is originally native to the land east of the Jordan River (the East Bank, that is, modern-day Jordan) comprise the descendants of the brother nations of the Hebrews, i.e., the ancient Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites who variously converted to Judaism and moved to Israel before the Roman invasion, and were later forcibly converted together with the “Descendants of Israel” first to Christianity and then Islam.

Misinai states that the history of the Brethren of Israel are mostly intertwined with those of the Descendants of Israel. The Moabites, the Ammonites and the Edomites were forcibly converted to Judaism and made an extension of the Israelite nation during the course of King David’s conquests. Despite this, their kings were allowed to continue to directly hold the reins of power, and they were not incorporated into any of the Israelite tribes. In the case of the Edomites, their fierce opposition to Israelite occupation led King David to order the killing of all male Edomites. Thus, the women in Edom had no alternative but to marry members of the Israelite garrison and other Israelites. As a result, the bloodlines of Edomites from that point onwards were partially Hebrew.

After the destruction of the First Jewish Commonwealth by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, a considerable part of the Edomites and Moabites were exiled together with the Israelites. The majority of the Ammonites were exiled and those who remained were assimilated into the Moabite communities. The kinship between the Brethren of Israel, and the Israelites continued throughout the period of the Second Commonwealth and henceforth.

However, after the destruction of the First Commonwealth and the absence of the hegemony of an Israelite regime, the Moabites and Edomites discarded their affiliation to the people of Israel and left Judaism en masse. To bring them back into the fold, the Hasmonean leaders decided to re-convert them a second time. The mass Judaization campaign was started by John Hyrcanus with the conversion of the Moabites and was ended by Alexander Jannaeus who completed the conversion of the Moabites and also the Edomites after he added their territory to his Kingdom. For the next 1,600 years, these Brethren of Israel continued to be an inseparable part of the People of Israel. The Edomites and Moabites (along with the Samaritans) participated in the First Jewish–Roman War and inflicted more damage on their enemies, relative to their small numbers, than the Jews.

Since the Edomites and Moabites ancestral lands were located east of the Jordan River, this made them more close to Arabia and more removed from the Jewish people. As a result, they were more susceptible to conversions to Islam, and hence, subsequently became Musta’arbim. When devastating famines broke out at the beginning of the 16th century, many among these Brethren of Israel emigrated to Persia. As a result of juggling different religious identities to avoid persecution, they eventually forgot their Jewish and Musta’arbi origins and became radicalized, and started considering themselves to be Arabs.

Later, as things improved in the 18th and 19th century, many of those who left returned from Persia, Yemen and Sudan, shifting residences between present day Jordan and Israel, with the former mountain dwellers returning to their ancient homes, and the Edomites, Moabites, etc., settling in the plains. It is these “Brethren of Israel”, Misinai contends, who constitute most of the Palestinian population east of the Jordan river and the Palestinian refugees (both within the Palestinian territories and outside), while the majority of Palestinians who did not flee and remain in Israel proper, West Bank and Gaza area, are “Descendants of Israel”.

Misinai traces the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a Palestinian “Arab” identity to the simultaneous immigration of the Jews from various places and Brethren of Israel (from the east), to the land west of the Jordan river from 1840 to 1947. He states that by 1914 the Brethren of Israel became a very large group among Palestinians there and would remain so, until they were mostly expelled during the Palestinian exodus in 1948. He argues that that these people have now returned to their ancestral homeland east of the Jordan river, and possess no right to the land of Israel.

Misinai states it is this group that are the most anti-semitic and most active in terrorist activities in the intifada, with their objectives being to return to the lands they abandoned in 1948. He claims that the leadership of the Palestinian militant organizations such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah al-Islam, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, etc., are primarily internally supported by over 1,300,000 Brethren of Israel, who all reside west of the Jordan river. The victims of such terrorist acts tend to be the People of Israel, the Descendants of Israel and a small number of others.

According to Misinai, the Brethren of Israel are the smartest group among the Palestinian people and make up the majority of the Palestinian leadership. He states that the early leadership of the various Palestinian nationalist organizations such as Fatah, PLO, PFLP, etc., came primarily from among the Brethren of Israel refugees in the 1948 exodus. While he acknowledges that the Brethren of Israel have suffered more than any other Palestinian, he blames the Brethren of Israel leadership of perpetuating the problem for more than 50 years in order to gain camp followers both among those of their brethren who continue to suffer and among the Arabs and others who feel sorry for them.

In addition to these two main components, there also include a significantly small percentage of Arabs, descendants of the soldiers who served in the occupying Roman army after the destruction of the Second Temple and even some survivors of the ancient Canaanite and Philistine who are idol worshipers that live in Gaza and in the village of Jisr az-Zarka, near Haifa.

A minuscule percentage of Palestinians are also descendants of 500 European Crusaders who stayed behind in Palestine and converted to Islam. These Crusaders, he indicates, are the source of the smatterings of blond haired and blue-eyed Palestinians one witnesses today.
The various entities among the neighboring small nations of gentiles, such as the Philistines, Canaanites, Jebusites, Amorites, Hivites and Perizzites inhabited the remainder of the historical region of Canaan, from which the Hebrews under Joshua had driven them off and carved out a nation for themselves called Israel. These nations were all eventually vanquished by King David and made a part of the Kingdom of Israel.

A large number were later exiled by King Nebuchadnezzar in the course of the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah and the Babylonian exile. A mass Judaization process in Israel in the course of the Hasmonean Period left only a handful of Philistines, Canaanites and other members of the Small Nations.

Since conversion was not imposed on remnants of these Small Nations who had been Hellenized, they continued to worship Greek deities. They were forced to nominally accept Christianity during the Byzantine period, and later finally expelled by Caliph Al-Hakim during the Fatimid rule, together with the majority of the Christian descendants of the Roman Army and almost all the Christian Arabs.

A few hundred, however, remained and their descendants constitute the small numbers of idol worshippers who live in Israel in modern times. These include a few Canaanites that reside in the village of Jisr az-Zarqa near Caesarea, a few thousand Philistines and Canaanites in Gaza, and descendants of the Phoenicians in the form of Maronite Catholics (primarily the refugees from Ikrit and Kafr Bir’im)

Misinai also claims that the Druze of Israel, Syria and Lebanon have mostly Jewish descent, although mixed with the Arabs, Midianites and Egyptians. He further states that there were Jewish villages that became part of the Druze community, mostly to avoid being forced to convert to Islam, such as the residents of the villages of Abu Snein and Yarcha.

Proportion of Hebrew-descended Palestinians

Tsvi Misinai claims that nearly 90% of the Palestinian people living in Israel proper and the occupied territories are of Hebrew descent (with the percentage among the population of the Gaza Strip being higher than 90%), but a greatly reduced percentage among Palestinian refugees living outside those areas.

In his book “Brother shall not lift his sword against Brother”, Misinai puts forward the following statistics pertaining to the proportion of the “Descendants of Israel” and the “Brethren of Israel” populations among the Palestinians and Arab Israelis, as of December 2007. It is detailed as four main areas (Judea and Samaria, Gaza strip, East Jerusalem and Israel proper) and are as follows:

In Judea and Samaria – not counting East Jerusalem, the number of permanent residents was 956,000, of which over 580,000 (61%) were Descendants of Israel. Another 27% were 259,000 Brethren of Israel (of whom were 158,000 descendants of the Edomites and 101,000 descendants of the Moabites). The remainder included 43,000 Arabs (4.5 percent), 44,000 descendants of the Roman Army, 24,000 Christians from Distant Places and 6,000 Kurds.[31]
In the Gaza strip, there were 891,000 permanent residents, including Bedouin. Out of the non-Bedouin, 275,000 were Descendants of Israel, 520,000 were Brethren of Israel (approximately 270,000 descendants of the Moabites and approximately 250,000 descendants of the Edomites), 43,000 descendants of the Roman Army, 4,000 Arabs who live in the Jabali’ya refugee camp; 3,400 Canaanites and 2,700 Philistines all living in Gaza city, and 3,000 Druze that live in the Dir al-Balakh refugee camp. Among the Descendants of Israel in the Gaza Strip, 30,000 are descendants of the Samaritans and 245,000 (27.5%) are descendants of authentic Jews. The population of the Gaza Strip also includes 40,000 Bedouin. The internal distribution of the Gaza Bedouin is 18,000 descendents of Moabites, 14,000 descendants of Edomites and 8,000 Descendents of Israel.

In addition to the Bedouin, the total number of the Descendants of Israel is 283,000 (32 percent), of the Brethren of Israel is 552,000 (62 percent, 288,000 or 32 percent descendants of Moabites and 264,000 or 30 percent descendants of Edomites).
Of the 200,000 non-Jewish residents of East Jerusalem, 82,000 are Descendants of the People of Israel, out of which 2,000 are descendants of Samaritans living in the Samaritan neighborhood, A-Sumera or Al-Abid. Out of this group, 7,000 are Christians. Some 48,000 are descendants of Kurds who came during the reign of Saladin. Over 32,000 are Brethren of Israel (24,000 descendants of the Moabites and 8,000 descendants of the Edomites). Some 27,000 are of Arab origin, and constitute the main concentration of population of Arab origin among Israeli citizens today. This includes 9,000 members of the veteran Arab settlers, and 14,000 descendants of the Arab Army living in the Mount of Olives neighborhood. There are also another 11,000 inhabitants who are recognized as non-Arab citizens: 5,000 Armenians and 6,000 non-Arab Christians from various distant locations.

Within Israel proper, 642,000 (45.5%) out of 1,413,000 non-Jewish residents within the Green Line (not counting East Jerusalem) are Descendants of the People of Israel.

Some 457,000 are Brethren of Israel in the State of Israel (and another 32,000 in Jerusalem), or 36 percent of all the Palestinians there (489,000 or 34.5 percent, including Jerusalem).
A further breakdown of this figure shows that the descendants of the Edomites number 166,000, and constitute 13 percent (of the Palestinians in the State of Israel, or 174,000 or 12.5 percent, with Jerusalem).
The descendants of the Moabites number 291,000, and constitute 23 percent (315,000 or 22 percent with Jerusalem).
The sum total of veteran inhabitants who are neither Palestinian nor Jewish is 140,000 and includes 121,000 Druze and 19,000 foreigners from Distant Places.

The descendants of the Roman Army number 150,000, or 12 percent (10.5 percent with Jerusalem).
The rest, some 16,000, or 1.25 percent, are Arabs, (43,000 or 3 percent with Jerusalem).
The number of Palestinians within the Green Line is 1,273,000. Among the Palestinians (i.e., those without Israeli citizenship) within the Green Line (not including East Jerusalem) the percentage who are Descendants of the People of Israel is close to 50.5 percent.

Views on Palestinian identity and the Arab Israeli conflict: Tsvi Misinai denies the existence of a separate Palestinian people as a historical identity and dismisses it as an utter fabrication. He views the Palestinian nationality as a modern socio-political construct propped up by imperialist Arab Baathist regimes, as a means of claiming rights to the land of Israel and fight the Jews. He also blames them for accentuating hostilities between the Jews and Palestinians.

In his book, Misinai asserts that the Palestinian people are a part and parcel of the people of Israel, and that no other party, including an Arab one, possesses the right to compete with the rights of the People of Israel over western Eretz Yisrael and their historical kinship with most Palestinians.

Misinai claims that the Palestinian national identity is not developed, for most Palestinians think of it in religious terms, not territorial. He states that their identity today is only Islamic and that there is a need for them to obtain a modern identity, which is Israeli. He asserts that this modern identity can never be Palestinian, as the country never had such an historical identity and as most Palestinians are themselves the progeny of the ancient Hebrews. Misinai labels the name “Palestine” as two huge bluffs, both a semantic bluff of the name Palestine and a genetic bluff as Palestine indicates that the modern day Palestinians are scions of the Philistines.

Misinai puts forward widespread ignorance about the true Jewish identity of the Palestinians or attempts to hide it, coupled with terrorism, as the root causes in escalating the conflict. He asserts that this is what prevents their liberation and preserves their enslavement within an occupation by a false Arab identity.

Misinai claims that even though, many Palestinians are aware of their Jewish origins, they rarely speak about this, and their vast majority does nothing to change their status. Those living under a Palestinian terror regime are deterred from speaking on this subject openly, for fear of being harmed.

Many Palestinian parents who aware of their Jewish origins usually don’t tell their children. Furthermore, families suspected of Jewish origins are forced to prove their loyalty as Arabs by aiding terrorists and giving their children patriotic names names such as Jihad. Such behavior deters Jews from establishing ties with such families. Even among Israeli Arabs there is a fear of discussion, primarily due to conventions on both sides and particularly the disbelief they would encounter among Jews. They fear that if they try and promote their claim, the Jews will think they are trying to improve their inferior status under false pretenses.

He believes that both his findings and the genetic evidence gathered by Ariella Oppenheim and others render the Israeli-Palestinian conflict redundant, as it proves that that the whole of Israel and the occupied territories belong to both the so-called “recognized Jews” and “unrecognized Jews”.

Misinai also believes that given the option, most Palestinians would support a one-state solution. He also claims that most Palestinians do not hate Jews and are interested in peace with Israel. He claims that many are opposed to the Jewish presence in the Palestinian territories, because the issue has been hijacked by groups – the leadership of the Arab world, and Palestinians (both the Brethren of Israel and the Descendants of Israel) who have forgotten their Jewish origins.

The primary sin of Zionism, according to Misinai, is the suppression of the historic truth about the Jewish origins of the majority of Palestinians, and ignoring his findings and its ramifications. He asserts that most of the Palestinians who together with the Jews possess historical rights to Israel have become hostages of descendants of foreigners in their own homeland who control their lives, force terrorism upon them and control the cash designated for Palestinians.

Misinai also states that the number of refugees has been deliberately blown out of proportions and that there are far fewer refugees than is widely believed. To this, he attributes the Palestinians’ taking advantage of UNRWA’s largesse, which gives out free food and aid without asking questions and deliberate gross inflation in the number of refugees by Palestinians themselves.

“The Engagement”: A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: In contrast to the two commonly discussed solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a two state solution (i.e., two states for two people) vs. a one state solution (i.e., a binational state, one state for two peoples) — Misinai believes that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a third option: a “one state solution for one people.” This “one state” integrates Israel proper with the West Bank and Gaza Strip as one territorial unit, while the “one people” consists of both groups being bound and re-defined as one united Israeli-Hebrew nation.

To this end, he argues it is imperative that the majority of Palestinians reclaim their ethnic Hebrew heritage, although he states that this does not mean reverting to Judaism (neither de-Islamization for Palestinian Muslims, nor de-Christianization for Palestinian Christians, etc.), nor does it mean cultural de-Arabization.

Instead, it means the adoption of a national consciousness that acknowledges a common Hebrew origin that embraces all those of such a descent, no matter what their current religion, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or Samaritan, and no matter what their culture.

Indeed, already, among the different Jewish ethnic divisions, each has its own traditional community language and distinct traditional culture. It is the amalgam of this diversity that forms Jewish Israeli culture. Likewise, the “Jewish” Israeli culture would continue with this process, but will add the Palestinians’ history, culture and religious diversity, and integrate them as aspects of the Hebrew national consciousness.

In order to do so, he believes that the whole concept of Jewishness as the defining factor in Zionism must be re-framed in terms of ethnicity, as opposed to simply religious. Misinai concedes that “The Engagement” might seem like a surreal project, but so too did Zionism initially. “The Engagement”, he admits, is a process that requires participation by both sides and mutual acknowledgement of the “other” as a part of oneself.

Uni-lateral Engagement: As a prelude to creating conditions to make the re-integration of the majority of Palestinians with the Jews possible, Misinai advocates a “Uni-lateral Engagement” in which autonomy is granted for the Palestinian territories and the present Palestinian leaderships are removed.

He states that Israeli operations in Palestinian areas must be designed not only to ensure the safety of Israeli citizens, but also to liberate the Palestinians from the yoke of the Palestinian leaderships whom he accuses of subjugating them and making their lives wretched, feeding them lies, and leading them from one Nakba catastrophe to another, causing untold damage to the entire region and igniting terrorism around the globe. Their entire terror apparatus must be dismantled, and they must be replaced by a new Palestinian leadership devoted to peace. Should any peace loving Palestinian leadership fail to appear, Israel must enforce its own authority upon all factions in the Palestinian population.

Misinai states that the re-engagement will take one of two forms: Residents without citizenship, or Re-engagement with the People of Israel. The process will be carried out on a family-by-family basis, and in certain instances on an individual basis. In the first stage, which will be carried out gradually among all the Palestinian population, each and every Palestinian (except those suspected of terrorist activity) will have three choices:

Loyal Residency: An oath of allegiance to the State, and declaration of waiver of citizenship rights for oneself (if the individual declines to opt for the second course of action that follows). This is equivalent to the American green card, but where additionally, one’s status is passed to children on the basis of jus sanguinis (by contrast, children of American non-citizens born on US soil are automatically citizens due to jus soli, whatever the status of the parents).

Children of individuals (who are Descendant of Israel) who chose this first option may circumvent status of “loyal residency” passed on by their parents if they themselves opt for the second course of action that follows. This choice is available only for those Palestinians who do not wish to rejoin the People of Israel, or who are not Descendants of Israel.
Re-engagement with the People of Israel: The expressed desire and willingness to rejoin the People of Israel via an oath of allegiance to the State of Israel and its people, the People of Israel, and declaration that one does not belong to the Arab nation.
Emigration: Emigration and purchase of the émigrés’ house by the State at a fair price (in order not to cause injury to émigrés due to fluctuations in market prices, likely to be depressed by an exodus and surplus of real estate). This choice is available for those Palestinians who, if eligible for the first, or both the first and second options, want neither.
In the event of either of the first two options, neither de-Christianization nor de-Islamization, nor cultural de-Arabization are components of The Engagement. Furthermore, if an individual person wanted to revert to Judaism, this is strictly a personal matter which would be done through the relevant religious channels, which The Engagement process is not a part of in any form.

The Engagement is of a national re-unificationist nature. Most importantly, it is thus far the first that is specifically religiously pluralistic (that is, it acknowledges the People of Israel are today of many faiths), an aspect that lends to its very controversy.

Citizenship sought by members of world Jewry would continue to be dealt with by the requirements and specifications of the Law of Return. Persons who are neither Jews nor Palestinians, and are seeking residency or citizenship, would follow naturalization processes and requirements separate from both the Law of Return and The Engagement.

Requirements: Under the scheme while each new member would not be required to convert to Judaism, they would, however, be required to gain mastery of the following:

• The Hebrew language (including reading and writing).
• The culture of the People of Israel.
• The history of the People of Israel, including the forced conversion of their ancestors.
• The history of Eretz-Israel.
• The Bible.
• Jewish religious tradition.

The scope of knowledge or proficiencies required would be equal to that of most secular Jews, and would ensure that the act of re-engagement would have sufficient quality and depth. The scope of knowledge would actually be far greater than that required in conventional conversion to Judaism, and would not exclusively focus on matters of faith and ritual. This is in order to provide a cognitive counterweight to the hostile education and incitement that

Palestinians have been subjected to in the past in regard to Israel. Moreover, it will serve to enhance the level of education of participants to enable them to successfully integrate into Israeli society without being marginalized or becoming second-class citizens. Such education, outlined in Option Two above, will continue for a number of years and will be accomplished in a framework similar to the Hebrew language ulpans (intense six month ‘total immersion’ crash-courses designed to inculcate basic mastery of Hebrew by new immigrants in Israel). The children of such Palestinians will be enrolled in the Israeli school system, compulsory education just as their Israeli counterparts.

The other requirements of enrollees in the scheme are as follows:

• Declare their renunciation of their association to the Arab Nation. This, Misinai asserts, does not mean dis-association from Arab culture.
• Take a short bath in a Mikveh to remove influence of potential intermarriage with people other than the people of Israel during the generations.
• This, Misinai states, has a purely national meaning and does not impose any religious undertaking on the person taking it.
• Take an oath of allegiance to the People of Israel and the State of Israel.
• Palestinians who complete the process of re-joining the People of Israel and are not yet Israeli citizens will receive Israeli citizenship.
• All re-joining Palestinians will be registered with either an Israeli or a Jewish nationality according to their choice.
• Those who choose the first path (loyal residency only) will have the option to choose an Arab Islamic (or Christian) education school track, with an abridged Israeli curriculum.
• The children of those who choose the second path (re-engagement) will be required to enroll in the regular Israeli school system.
• Only those who complete Israel education and belong to the second option (the re-engagement path) can progress to the third step – service in the IDF, taking an oath of allegiance to the Jewish People.

At the beginning, the IDF will establish special units for this population (similar to separate minority units of Bedouin, Druze and Circassians in the formative years of the IDF). Palestinians who are above draft age will undergo abridged military service (current policy for older new Jewish immigrants), then be integrated into the IDF reserve system.

 Only Palestinians who will serve in the IDF will be eligible for Israeli citizenship (except for those with serious health issues or those are too old who receive exemptions).

Only the army will have the prerogative to decide which candidates for military service should do civil service in place of military service. Citizenship will carry eligibility for certain civil rights including the right to vote for the Knesset and benefits such as receipt of better social benefits for veterans including higher children’s allowances.

 A citizen who betrays the state will lose his citizenship and be harshly punished. Similarly, a loyal resident who will abridge his oath of allegiance will lose his or her Residency rights and be deported, in particularly serious cases, after offenders complete their sentence.

Only those considered to be Descendants of Israel would benefit from the scheme. Tsvi Misinai states that only a small minority of the Palestinian who are presently outside of the Land of Israel (i.e., the refugees or diaspora) have significant rights over Western Eretz-Yisrael.

That right belongs to the original Descendants of the People of Israel (i.e., the Jews, a majority of Palestinians presently in the Land of Israel, and a minority of Palestinians presently outside the Land of Israel), and to the Descendants of the Roman Army (whose historic rights in Eretz-Israel are, however, much lesser than those of the Descendants of Israel).

The majority of the Descendants of the Roman Army are presently in Jordan, and despite their long-standing seniority rights in Israel, they must remain there, as most emigrated to Jordan of their own free will after the Six day war of 1967. The only exception to this is specific cases of family reunion.

On the other hand, Brethren of Israel, being native to the land east of the Jordan river, only those who are presently in the Land of Israel will be eligible for “loyal residency”, unless they opt for emigration. Those Brethren of Israel who are presently outside of the Land of Israel (a majority among Palestinian refugees) will not be eligible for “loyal residency”, nor a right of return to the Land of Israel. They possess a right of return to Jordan.

This is because they are not ethnically Jews, and their historic Jewish identity came about by forced conversions to Judaism, as is the case with Islam. Furthermore, their rights to Israel goes back only 170 years, and is superseded by those of the Jews and Descendants of Israel, who have a historic connection to the land, spanning several thousand years.

Tsvi Misinai’s theory does have it’s supporters among some Palestinians, including Suleiman al-Hamri, a Fatah official from Bethlehem, and former Palestinian Authority minister Ziyad Abu Ziyad, who asked Misinai to prepare Arabic language versions of his thesis and the Engagement booklet. He has also gained support among some Jews, including at least one Israeli Government minister who so far has remained unidentified.

Among Bedouins, a key vocal supporter of Misinai’s theory has been Sheikh Salem al-Huzeil, the head of the “Our State” Movement and a prominent leader of the Al-Huzeil tribe from Rahat. In October 2009, with the aim of furthering Jewish and Bedouin ties, Al-Huzeil organized a meeting with Misinai and the religious- Zionist “Hit’habrut” (Joining Together) Movement, in which he maintained that that most his tribal ancestors were Jewish prior to their forced conversion during the Muslim conquest approximately 1,300 years ago.

The Sheikh’s act, however, was not without any repercussions. In the immediate month following the meeting, the Sheikh was the recipient of numerous death threats from Bedouins enraged at his efforts to maintain friendly relations with the Jewish community and to demonstrate for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Posters were distributed calling for the death of Sheikh al-Huzeil. Moreover, several members of his family suffered severe burns after rival Bedouins set his house on fire in Rahat.

Additionally, some Haredi Jewish settler leaders have also welcomed the idea with great enthusiasm, since they believe that once the entire biblical land of Israel is populated with Jews, a new era of peace on Earth will be ushered in. Rabbi Dov Stein, secretary and one of the seven-member leadership council of the current nascent Sanhedrin (a Jewish religious council of 200 rabbis modelled on the biblical Sanhedrin rulers of Jerusalem), also supports the Hebrew origin of most Palestinians.

Stein, however, as an Orthodox Jew, differs with Misinai on its implications, since he sees Jewish nationhood as primarily defined by religious affiliation to Judaism, even where one may not necessarily be of Hebrew ancestral origin, and not defined by Hebrew ancestral origin. Stein asserts that it’s because the Jews uphold the Torah that they have the right to Israel. Therefore, in order to be accepted, Stein argues that the Palestinians must give up Islam and embrace Judaism as a prerequisite for re-joining the Jewish people.

Among Israeli academics and intellectuals, Tsvi Misinai has received the avid support of Mordechai Nisan, a professor and scholar of Middle East Studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Nisan was also asked by the Sanhedrin to serve as it’s professional consultant on this issue, while Elon Yarden, an attorney who has written a series of books about the land of Israel and it’s inhabitants, has also reached the same conclusion as Misinai.

Among the Druze, Druze MK Ayoob Kara of the Likud party agrees with Misinai’s claim that the Druze are actually descended from Jews who were forced to convert to Islam. Kara has even gone as far as saying that he can bring forward genetic evidence to prove it.

Criticism: Misinai’s thesis and work has also garnered controversy, both at home and abroad, among some Palestinians and Jews alike, with the criticisms mostly coming from the Palestinian side.

One Palestinian intellectual, Ismail Al-Shindi, professor of Islamic Jurisprudence at Al-Quds Open University denied that Jews ever maintained a sizable population in the land of Palestine, or that they were forcibly converted by the Ottomans, and he even went as far as to accuse Misinai of “falsifying” history to Hebraize Palestinians.

Another Palestinian, Kamel Katalo, professor of Sociology at Al-Khalil University in Hebron, has stated that he has read Tsvi Misinai’s booklet and come to the conclusion that Misinai makes strident generalizations and reaches spurious and completely erroneous conclusions based on questionable premises, pointing out that there is no such thing as a “Jewish gene”. His most notable Arab Israeli critic is the former Balad MK, Azmi Bishara, who dismissed his thesis as yet another Jewish plot to remove the Palestinians from their land. Tsvi Misinai has accused both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities of being indifferent to his findings.

Druze MK Ayoub Kara (Likud) states members of the Druze communities believe in many of the same things that Jews do. And that’s not surprising, he adds, since the Druze are actually descended from the Jewish people and he states he can bring genetic evidence to prove it. According to Kara, there are many aspects of Druze beliefs that mesh with Judaism: “All our prophets are Jewish ones; Moses, Judah, Jethro, and Zevulun, the son of Jacob.” In fact, he states, the Druze are likely one of the lost tribes of Israel, probably Zevulun, considering his special status among them.

According to Kara, there are no vestigial Jewish practices among the Druze as there are, among some Arabs in the Land of Israel; but one symbol has stuck with the Druze throughout the centuries. “Only among Druze do you find a red Star of David, in homes, cemeteries and places of worship,” Kara states. “This is one sign that has been open and visible for centuries, unlike most of the other ones, yet few have noticed.”

If the Druze dropped most, if not all, Jewish ritual, it’s because they feared the sword of Islam. “Unlike Jews and Christians, who have the status of “people of the Book” among Muslims and are therefore are given some basic rights; Druze are simply heretics to Islam, and such heretics must be either converted or eliminated,” Kara explains. In fact, Druze were massacred by Muslims on several occasions, and “it would have been much worse if they had identified themselves as Jews.”

As a result, the Druze initially converted to Christianity and subsequently took on a Muslim identity, but through it all, they never forgot their Jewish identity. Those roots explain, at least in part, the fierce loyalty the Druze in Israel have to the state. “However, Druze here are too fearful to loudly proclaim their sympathies with Israel, or to convert to Judaism, although some do but because of the fear of what might happen to their brethren in Syria and Lebanon,” Kara stated.

And then there is the genetic study, which shows that Druze display genetic attributes quite similar to those of Jews. “A major genetic test from last year, the first extensive test done of the Druze, proves my contention clearly,” states Kara.

Tsvi MiSinai, an Israeli author who has conducted extensive investigations into the cultural and genetic background of the Arabs living west of the Jordan River, and who has concluded that the vast majority of them are descended from the Jewish nation, believes that more study is necessary. “According to the study, the genetic cluster of Druze coincides closely with those of the Samaritans, and is very close to the genetic clusters of Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Jews from the Caucasus,” states MiSinai, author of an ambitious study on “Jewish nationhood” called “Brother Shall Not Lift Sword Against Brother.”

While the evidence so far is persuasive, MiSinai wants to investigate more. “We know from history that there were definitely Jewish villages that became part of the Druze community, mostly to avoid being forced to convert to Islam, such as the residents of the villages of Abu Snein and Yarcha. If the genetic samples were taken from there, it doesn’t say much about the rest of the Druze. I would want to see more of an in-depth study,” MiSinai stated.

Kara states that his evidence stands on its own merits. “For thousands of years the Druze suffered,” he states, “so it’s understandable that they would be a little hesitant to come forward after only 60 years of Israel’s existence. But when you check our beliefs and our veneration of the great Jewish prophets, the matter should become clear.”

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was born in Baghdad on September 23, 1920, [5681 Tishri 11] exactly 90 years ago on the Hebrew calendar. He came to Israel with his parents at the age of four and settled in Jerusalem. He gained prominence for his Torah scholarship as a teenager, and by the age of 20 was ordained as a rabbi. For two years in the late 1940s he served as the deputy Chief Rabbi of Egypt.
For decades he served as a judge on courts of Torah law (batei din), moving from the Sephardic rabbinic court in Jerusalem to the Jerusalem municipal rabbinic court, and in 1965 to the country’s highest Rabbinate court. He also wrote several books on Torah and Torah law.

In 1968 he became Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. Two years later, at the age of 50, he was awarded the Israel Prize for Torah Culture. In 1973 he became Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, and remained in the position until 1983. In 2005, a group of Palestinian Authority terrorists planned to assassinate him, but were arrested before they could carry out their plans.

The present-day elite Persian community in Beverly Hills, got its start in the early Seventies, when four brothers of the Mahboubi clan who had grown rich at home from their virtual monopoly on chewing gum moved to Los Angeles and sank their money into real estate on Rodeo Drive. One of the brothers, Dar Mahboubi, backed haberdasher Bijan during the Eighties, and younger Mahboubis continue to manage the family’s considerable property holdings. Another group of brothers, the Yadegars, also arrived in Beverly Hills before the revolution and began snapping up real estate. Today so many Persians own stakes in Beverly Hills’ Golden Triangle, the prime streets between Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, that the area is known to some as “Tehrangeles.” (Another Persian shopping district in Westwood has also earned that moniker.)

The area’s attractions were obvious: Beverly Hills was synonymous with wealth and status, plus it delivered a beautiful climate, safe residential neighborhoods and a well-established Jewish community. But perhaps the key asset was the then top-notch school system. Sam Nazarian’s sister-in-law, former psychology professor Angella Nazarian, recalls that her father bought a house here in the early Seventies so her brother could attend Beverly Hills High School. “My father had no plans of coming to the U.S.,” she says over a lunch of tuna tartare in Westwood. “It was more ‘This way my son can go to a really good school.’”

Later in the decade, as Ayatollah Khomeini’s followers denounced the freedoms that had enabled Jewish prosperity, some in Tehran began to worry, says prominent hostess Mahroo Moghavem, whose husband was a successful appliance distributor at that time. “We thought investment in other countries would be good,” she says during a brunch with friends at her home in the hills above Sunset Boulevard. “We were happy, but we thought that one day the Shah would pass away and what would happen then?”

As armed students took to the streets of Tehran in late 1978, the Moghavems whisked their children off to Los Angeles for a vacation. Events unfolding on television made clear that they would not be returning home. The Moghavems were among the lucky ones, however. Thanks to their investments outside of Iran, they were able to buy a house in Beverly Hills from billionaire John Kluge and then sink money into a development project parceling the estate of silent-screen star Harold Lloyd into a 16-home subdivision.

These days Nazarian hardly needs an introduction in Hollywood and Beverly Hills: At 33, he has built an empire that includes trendy nightclubs, an archipelago of restaurants and the flashy SLS Hotel, with further hotels planned for Miami and Las Vegas. His circle, however, extends well beyond the celebutantes courted by his businesses. Nazarian and his family, who like many Iranian Jews left Tehran during the 1979 revolution, are leaders of a powerful Persian Jewish elite in Beverly Hills. One hint of the community’s influence in Los Angeles is a framed commendation on Nazarian’s sitting room wall from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “I was one of his first supporters,” explains Nazarian. “We’re very, very close.”
The interior decor of Sam Nazarian’s $18.9 million mansion high above the Sunset Strip might be described as nightlife moderne. Glossy stone floors and glass walls are set off by glam touches like a Roy Lichtenstein print—This Must Be the Place, cheekily hung in the bathroom and a black crystal chandelier. But what’s inside the Nazarian house is secondary to the view: the city of Los Angeles spread like a vast Persian carpet laid at Nazarian’s feet. It is, in more ways than one, a view from the top.

Not so many years ago, Nazarian, whose family arrived in the U.S. when he was three, was taunted at Beverly Hills High School with insults such as “camel jockey.” “It wasn’t a very welcoming group of people,” he recalls of his schoolmates. Nazarian’s courtly 78-year-old father, Younes, who today sits alongside his youngest son at a table laden with crystal bowls of dates, berries, cucumbers and other refreshments—a typical display of Persian hospitality—was a successful tool-and-dye manufacturer in Iran. But in fleeing his country’s political turmoil, he had to leave most of his assets behind, arriving at a run-down hotel in Santa Monica with, as Younes recalls, “four suitcases and four children.” (The Nazarians are now part owners of the hotel.)

Younes and his brother, Parviz, relied on contacts with other Persian Jewish immigrants, “Our best asset in this country was our few friends,” he notes and established a factory building machine parts for such clients as the Department of Defense. Several years later, the brothers were brought into a fledgling telecom company, Qualcomm, and their millions ballooned into billions. Now Younes, like his son, is leaving footprints all over Los Angeles: He is chairman of his son’s business, SBE, and he serves on boards at the Rand Center for Middle East Policy and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in addition to being a major donor to the University of Southern California. This philanthropic spirit makes Younes something of a pioneer, notes Sam, since the older generation by and large has not adopted the American ethic and tax strategy of giving money to nonprofits.

A different all-American motto, however, has been fully embraced by the Nazarians and many other Persian families who have earned fortunes here: If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Parviz became famous in his community and notorious in Beverly Hills for building a mansion that exemplifies an architectural style known in these parts as Persian Palace. From the street, the Nazarian pile looks like a particularly frothy wedding cake propped up by a forest of fluted columns. The interior, according to visitors, is an extravaganza of polished marble, sweeping staircases and gilt rococo furniture, a nominally French style favored by Iran’s late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. (A famous story recalls Bill Clinton’s visit to the Nazarian home for a fundraiser: He supposedly remarked, “This makes me realize I really do live in government housing.”)

In addition, Persians didn’t understand that American-style membership in a prestigious synagogue like Sinai Temple meant paying annual dues and getting involved with fundraising. “The other members looked at them as freeloaders coming and taking but never contributing,” he explains.

Delshad proved to be a major force in bridging these antipathies when, after 12 years of campaigning, he was elected in 1999 as Sinai’s first Sephardic president. He insists that tensions have since eased and notes that Persians today account for approximately 25 percent of membership. (They constitute 20 percent of the overall population of Beverly Hills.)

In 2003 Delshad took a leave from the technology company he started in 1978 to run for the Beverly Hills City Council. Ironically, he recalls, some of the toughest votes to get were Persian: Iranian Jews had no experience voting under the Shah and were wary of joining any bureaucratic roster, even the Beverly Hills voting rolls. Delshad nonetheless prevailed and in 2007 was elected mayor, despite a major kerfuffle over municipal election ballots printed in English, Spanish and, for the first time, sinuous Farsi script. “I had nothing to do with that,” Delshad insists. (Federal law does require that non-English-speaking voting blocs be provided with ballots in their own language.) “But the way they did it was to put the Persian bigger than the English,” he says. “It looked like a Farsi restaurant menu. Hundreds of people called the city to object.”

The outcry over the ballot which made the front page of The Wall Street Journal was an eruption of tensions that had been simmering for decades. A complaint sounded by Beverly Hills old-timers was that the Persians could be clannish, self-segregating and indifferent to the established norms of the community they were entering. There is some truth to that charge, acknowledges Angella Nazarian. Thanks to their wealth and numbers, Persians didn’t need to adapt. Instead, they developed a self-sufficient Farsi-speaking enclave, complete with grocery stores, restaurants and even taxi services. And rather than courting the local social establishment, rich Persians stuck to their own social world, which revolved around lavish 1,000-person bar mitzvahs and weddings. “My mother really doesn’t need to speak English, although she does,” says Nazarian. “Cultural preservation is one part of the experience of being displaced, and as with any immigrant community, we naturally want to associate with one another. Middle Eastern countries also tend to be very tribal.”

Today many younger members of the Persian community favor a less ornate style and in this as well as in many more-important matters—they represent a generational pivot between the Persian Jewish community’s past in Tehran and its future in Los Angeles. Thirty-six-year-old Natasha Baradaran, an L.A.-born and -bred interior designer whose husband, Bob, is the only Persian partner at white-shoe law firm Greenberg Glusker, is a prime example. “Especially for women, the revolution was the best thing that could have happened,” says Natasha, who earned a master’s degree in international relations at Columbia University before choosing a more creative career path. “It was hard for a lot of people who lost everything. But their kids—we learned that the sky is the limit.” Less insular and more civic-minded than their elders, these young parents, professionals and entrepreneurs represent some of America’s wealthiest and most educated immigrant offspring. The time has clearly come—as politicians, savvy businesspeople and charity fundraisers have realized to meet the neighbors in Beverly Hills.

In his office above Wilshire Boulevard, architect Hamid Gabbay, 66, traces the dazzling success of the Persian community in Beverly Hills back to Tehran before the revolution. The Sixties and Seventies saw a full-tilt economic expansion, fueled by the Shah’s dream of westernization and financed by vast oil reserves. “The real-estate boom was incredible,” explains Gabbay, who founded an architecture firm with his brother in Tehran. “We got to design a city projects I can’t even dream of now.”

The country’s Jewish minority thrived, at least in Tehran’s educated quarters, thanks to the Shah’s official policy of religious tolerance and cultural openness. But radical Muslim clerics gained strength during the late Seventies, and in January 1979 they overthrew the ailing monarch. Gabbay left in November 1978, landing a job with an L.A. firm that he had been interviewing to work for him just four months earlier. “I went to the firm,” he recalls, “and said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hire you. But would you hire me?’”

Even before the revolution, a few Iranian Jews had already decamped to California. Jimmy Delshad, who made local history in 2007 by becoming the first Iranian-American mayor of Beverly Hills, left modest origins in Shiraz in 1959 and attended California State University at Northridge with his brothers. “I don’t think there were more than 10 or 12 [Persian] families we knew in Los Angeles,” he says.

The present-day elite Persian community in Beverly Hills, though, really got its start in the early Seventies, when four brothers of the Mahboubi clan, who had grown rich at home from their virtual monopoly on chewing gum moved to Los Angeles and sank their money into real estate on Rodeo Drive.

One of the brothers, Dar Mahboubi, backed haberdasher Bijan during the Eighties, and younger Mahboubis continue to manage the family’s considerable property holdings. Another group of brothers, the Yadegars, also arrived in Beverly Hills before the revolution and began snapping up real estate. Today so many Persians own stakes in Beverly Hills’ Golden Triangle, the prime streets between Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, that the area is known to some as “Tehrangeles.” (Another Persian shopping district in Westwood has also earned that moniker.)

The area’s attractions were obvious: Beverly Hills was synonymous with wealth and status, plus it delivered a beautiful climate, safe residential neighborhoods and a well-established Jewish community. But perhaps the key asset was the then top-notch school system. Sam Nazarian’s sister-in-law, former psychology professor Angella Nazarian, recalls that her father bought a house here in the early Seventies so her brother could attend Beverly Hills High School. “My father had no plans of coming to the U.S.,” she says over a lunch of tuna tartare in Westwood. “It was more ‘This way my son can go to a really good school.’”

Later in the decade, as Ayatollah Khomeini’s followers denounced the freedoms that had enabled Jewish prosperity, some in Tehran began to worry, says prominent hostess Mahroo Moghavem, whose husband was a successful appliance distributor at that time. “We thought investment in other countries would be good,” she says during a brunch with friends at her home in the hills above Sunset Boulevard. “We were happy, but we thought that one day the Shah would pass away and what would happen then?”

As armed students took to the streets of Tehran in late 1978, the Moghavems whisked their children off to Los Angeles for a vacation. Events unfolding on television made clear that they would not be returning home. The Moghavems were among the lucky ones, however. Thanks to their investments outside of Iran, they were able to buy a house in Beverly Hills from billionaire John Kluge and then sink money into a development project parceling the estate of silent-screen star Harold Lloyd into a 16-home subdivision.

Generational shift, slow though it may be, has pushed the Persian community toward the American mainstream or at least the Beverly Hills version of it. Still, the community clings tightly to its core values of respect for family, faith, education and success, and some age-old customs remain. Friday-night Shabbat dinners are sacrosanct, and the meal can easily include 60 people. (Persians often cite such gatherings as a reason they need large houses.) Likewise, a majority in the younger generation choose to marry fellow Persians, much to their parents’ relief. “They don’t have to marry Persian,” says Jasmine Yadegar, in a tone suggesting that she hopes her two twentysomething daughters—both of whom still live at home, eventually will. “All I want for them is to be happy and find people with the same background.”

“For me,” says daughter Sabrina, an aspiring fashion designer, “I think it’s a lot easier to fall in love with someone who has the same ideas and experiences.”

“I need to love their family, and they need to love mine,” adds older sister Jessica, a documentary filmmaker. “Some of my American friends have told me that you’re not dating the parents. They say you don’t need to meet the parents on the first, second or third date. That’s not my view. I think the longer you postpone the introduction to the family, the longer it takes you to get to know if this is someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

Among much older women, the Iranian custom of the doreh—a semiformal circle of women who meet to eat home-cooked Persian fare, play cards and gossip in Farsi has also proved resilient enough to make it to the 21st century. But whether the tradition survives two generations in America is an open question as women’s roles change. “The younger generation works more,” says grandmother Jacqueline Moradi during the brunch gathering at Moghavem’s house. “In our generation in Iran, that was unheard of.”

The Baradarans represent this new face of the Persian upper-middle class. Natasha, who has a busy career, doesn’t attend a doreh, and Bob shares the job of raising their two young daughters. The Baradarans’ circle not only includes Persian friends but also his colleagues, her clients and other parents from the girls’ prestigious private schools. “I am raising kids in a city in which I was raised,” says Natasha. “This is my home. I don’t feel like a transplant.” And why should she? After 30 years in Beverly Hills, few, if any, Persians still hope to return to Tehran. “It’s a reality,” says Gabbay of his community’s new life in California, as he gazes out his office window at the Golden Triangle. “We are a reality.”

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Shiloh is believed by researchers to have fallen into ruin after the Israelites’ unsuccessful war with the Philistines, in which the enemy took the Holy Ark captive. The Ark was soon returned to Israel, but was never brought back to Shiloh. Instead, it was taken to Kiryat Yearim until King David had it delivered to Jerusalem.

Archaeological findings indicate that a Jewish presence continued at Shiloh until the year 722 BCE, when the Kingdom of Israel was defeated by Assyria. According to the Book of Judges and the Mishna, unwed Jewish women traditionally went to the vineyards of Shiloh to dance on Tu B’Av.

Shiloh is north of Beit El, Israel, where the excavations are currently being carried out under the auspices of the Archaeological Staff Officer for Judea and Samaria in the IDF Civilian Administration Antiquities Unit and the Binyamin local authority.

The following photos reveal the artefacts discovered and the archaelogists at work in Shiloh.

Shilo artifacts (Picture 1)

Shilo artifacts (Picture 2)

Shilo artifacts (Picture 3)

Shilo artifacts (Picture 4)

Shilo artifacts (Picture 5)

The term Israelite is derived from Israel (Yisrael meaning “persevere with God”), the name given to Jacob after wrestling with an angel on the shores of the Jabbok. (Genesis 32:28-29). The verse explains the name as a combination of the Hebrew “yisra,” to prevail, over “ayl,” the divine, hence “Yisrael” or “Israel.” His descendants are called the House of Jacob, the Children of Israel, the nation of Israel, or the Israelites.

The Hebrew Bible is mainly concerned with the Israelites. According to it, the Land of Israel was promised to them by God. Jerusalem was their capital and the site of the temple at the center of their religion.

The Israelites became a local political power with the United Monarchy of Kings Saul, David and Solomon, from c. 1025 BCE. Zedekiah, king of Judah (597-586 BCE), is considered the last king from the House of David.

In modern Hebrew Bnei Yisrael can denote the Israelite people at any time in history and is typically used to emphasize Judaism religious identity.

From the period of Mishna (but probably used before that period) the term Yisraeli acquired an additional narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth other than Levites and Aaronite priests (kohanim). In modern usage, the term Yisrael (“an Israel”) is used in a non-adjectival form to refer to such a person. In modern Hebrew, the term Yisraeli is used to refer to a citizen of the modern State of Israel, regardless of religion or ethnicity and is translated into English as “Israeli”.

—————————

In the Hebrew Bible the Israelites are referred to as the children of Israel, and by other, similar expressions. The Hebrew Bible traces the historic and spiritual progress of this family. The family’s forefather was Israel, whose name originally was Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons and an unknown number of daughters.

His twelve sons were:

• Reuben (Genesis 29:32), Rəʾuven
• Simeon (Genesis 29:33), Šimʿon
• Levi (Genesis 29:34), Levi; Levi did not share in the apportionment of the Land
• Judah (Genesis 29:35), Yəhuda
• Dan (Genesis 30:5), Dan
• Naphtali (Genesis 30:7), Naftali
• Gad (Genesis 30:10), Gad
• Asher (Genesis 30:12), Ašer
• Issachar (Genesis 30:17), Yissaḫar
• Zebulun (Genesis 30:19), Zəvúlun
• Joseph (Genesis 30:23), Yosef; Joseph contains the tribes
• Manasseh (Mənašše); Ephraim (Efráyim)
• Benjamin (Genesis 35:18). Binyamin

The first eleven of Jacob’s sons were born in Haran before the return of the family to Canaan, where Benjamin was born. When Joseph was 17 years old, some of his brothers sold him into slavery, and he ended up being viceroy of Egypt. Then, some 20 years later, when famine had ravaged Canaan, Joseph persuaded his father, Jacob, to come with his entire family, which then numbered 70, and settle in Egypt.
The Tribes of Israel: In Egypt, the children of Israel (or Hebrews, as the Egyptians called them) prospered and grew in numbers. They maintained strong family and clan affiliations, described as “houses”. These family affiliations were traced to one of the sons of Israel. These “houses” are translated into English as “tribes”, although the divisions were not small isolated distinct ethnic groups in the modern sense of the term. In Hebrew, they are called a shevet or a mateh, meaning literally a “staff” or “rod”.

Although the popular convention is to refer to the Israelites as comprising twelve tribes, by reference to Jacob’s twelve sons, in fact the number of tribes was thirteen. This is because the two children of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, were adopted by Jacob (Israel) as his own, and their descendants are counted as separate tribes. (Genesis 48:5-6)

Some English-speaking Jewish groups regard the pronunciation, English transcription and Hebrew spelling of the tribal names as extremely important. The transcriptions and spellings are as follows:

Following the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were divided into thirteen camps (Hebrew: machanot).  Thus additionally Aaron and his descendants although descended from Levi were appointed as priests (kohanim) and came to be considered a separate division to the Levites.

According to importance with Levi in the center of the encampment around the Tabernacle and its furnishings surrounded by other tribes arranged in four groups:

1. Judah, Issachar and Zebulun;
2. Reuben, Simeon and Gad;
3. Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin;
4. Dan, Asher and Naphtali.

During this period, the Kenizzites (thought by some to be identical to the Edomite clan of Kenaz) are seen to form part of Judah. The Kenites (the Midianite clan headed by Moses’ father in law, Jethro) also joined the Israelites.

Following the conquest of Canaan by Moses and Joshua, the Israelite tribes were allotted tribal territories. Moses allotted territories on land east of the Jordan to the tribes of Reuben, Gad and a portion of Manasseh, which they had requested. (Numbers 32:5) As the conquest continued, Joshua allotted territories to the tribes of Judah, Ephraim and the rest of Manasseh on land west of the Jordan, which they had conquered.

The tribe of Manasseh was considered as two half-tribes, separated by the Jordan River, with the part laying east of the Jordan being referred to as the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead. [The Jordanian Kingdom today are likely Manasseh]

After the conquest of the remainder of Canaan, Joshua assigned territories to the tribes of Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Issacher, Naphtali, Simeon and Zebulun. The land of Judah was considered too large for that tribe alone and Simeon was assigned a portion within the land of Judah instead of its own territory in the newly conquered land. The Kenites also settled in the territory of Judah and their descendants were subsequently incorporated into that tribe.

Because the Levites, and kohanim (descendants of Aaron) played a special religious role of service at the Tabernacle to the people, they were not given territories, but were instead assigned cities within the other territories.

Joshua had made a pact with the Canaanite inhabitants of Gibeon who instead of being conquered in battle became a separate ethnic group called the Nethinim, being given the role of maintenance of the tabernacle and in later centuries the Temple.

The tribes of Dan had originally been assigned territory laying between the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh but during the period of the Judges they were displaced by a war with the Amorites and subsequently settled in territory to the north of the tribes of Naphtali.

Israelite confederation: From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Israelite tribes formed a loose confederation. No central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges.

With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a strong centralised monarchy to meet the challenge. The first king of this new entity was Saul, who came from the Tribe of Benjamin, (1 Samuel 9:1-2) which at the time was the smallest of the tribes.

United monarchy: The Israelites united in about 1050 BCE to form the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul. At this time the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh in Gilead expanded their territory eastwards, conquering and absorbing the Hagrites (the people of Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab who were an offshoot of the Ishmaelites). Under Solomon the remaining Canaanites in the land became the division known as the Avdei Shlomo (Servants of Solomon) and were counted as part of the Nethinim.

During David’s and Solomon’s reigns, the Kingdom of Israel is considered to have reached the limits of the borders of the Land of Israel promised to Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s descendants in Genesis; however, David and Solomon maintained actual government jurisdiction only over the Israelite tribes, although they received tribute from the vaster region defined by these borders.

Northern and southern kingdoms

The Kingdom of Israel split in c. 930 BCE to form the southern Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of Israel:

The southern Kingdom of Judah comprised the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin together with the Aaronite kohanim, Levites and Nethinim who lived amongst them.

The northern Kingdom of Israel comprised the tribes of Reuben, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, both divisions of Manasseh and the remainder of the Levites.
The territory of Simeon had from the start fallen within the territory of Judah (see above) and with inclusion of Benjamin in the southern kingdom the designation “Judah” came to include Benjamin as well.

As the Levites and kohanim did not have their own territories, the Book of Kings describes the southern kingdom as consisting of one tribe (i.e. Judah, but including Simeon and Benjamin) and the northern kingdom as consisting of ten tribes (i.e. Reuben, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, (western) Manasseh and (eastern) Manasseh in Gilead).

Later after Jeroboam attempted to establish rival centers of worship to Jerusalem with lay priests, the Levites of the northern kingdom abandoned the northern kingdom and came to Judah (2 Chronicles 11:14 ).

Fall of Northern kingdom: The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilesar attacked the northern kingdom of Israel, driving the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh in Gilead out of the desert outposts of Jetur, Naphish and Nodab and conquering their territories. People from these tribes, including the Reubenite leader, were taken captive and resettled in the region of the Habor river system. Tiglath-Pilesar also captured the territory of Naphtali and the city of Janoah in Ephraim, and an Assyrian governor was placed over the region of Naphtali.

The remainder of the northern kingdom was conquered by Sargon II, who captured the capital city Samaria in the territory of Ephraim. He took 27,290 people captive from the city of Samaria resettling some with the Israelites in the Habor region and the rest in the land of the Medes thus establishing Israelite communities in Ecbatana and Rages.

The Book of Tobit additionally records that Sargon had taken other captives from the northern kingdom to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, in particular Tobit from the town of Thisbe in Naphtali.

In medieval Rabbinic stories, the concept of the ten tribes who were taken away from the House of David (who continued the rule of the southern kingdom of Judah) becomes confounded with accounts of the Assyrian deportations, leading to the teaching of the “Ten Lost Tribes”. The recorded history differs from this teaching: No record exists of the Assyrians having exiled people from Dan, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, or western Manasseh.

Descriptions of the deportation of people from Reuben, Gad, Manasseh in Gilead, Ephraim, and Naphtali indicate that only a portion of these tribes were deported, and the places to which they were deported are known locations given in the accounts. The deported communities are mentioned as still existing at the time of the composition of the books of Kings and Chronicles and did not disappear by assimilation.

2 Chr 30:1-11 explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the Assyrians, in particular the people of Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher, and Zebulun, and how members of the latter three tribes returned to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah.

With the Kingdom of Judah remaining as the sole Israelite kingdom, the term Yehudi (Jew), originally the adjective of the name Yehudah (Judah), came to include all the Israelite people.

Southern kingdom: In 597 BCE the Babylonian king Nebuchanezzar sacked Jerusalem and exiled 3,023 Jews to Babylon (Jeremiah 52:28). He additionally exiled many (non-Jewish) workers, taking a total of around 10,000 people captive (2 Kings 24:14).

In 586 BCE he conquered the southern kingdom, deposing the king, destroyed the Temple and left Jerusalem in ruins. He took a further 832 Jews captive from Jerusalem (Jeremiah 52:29). Although ending the kingdom he allowed Judah a measure of self rule, appointing Gedaliah as Jewish governor of the region.

Gedaliah was later assassinated by members of the royal family who saw him as a usurper, which resulted in punitive action by Nebuchadnezzar in which a further 745 Jews were exiled to Babylon. In total 4600 Jews had been exiled to Babylon (Jeremiah 52:30).

Towns in Judah from which people had fled or been taken captive during the invasions of the Babylonians were resettled by Jews from the former northern kingdom of Israel, as well as Levites, Aaronite kohanim and Nethinim (1 Chronicles 9:2).

Jerusalem was resettled by members of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh (1 Chronicles 9:3).

Second Temple period: The exiles were allowed to return in 538 BCE, after the fall of Babylon to the Persians and Medes. Substantial returns of descendants of exiles took place in 444 BCE under Nehemiah and in c. 400 BCE under Ezra.

Genealogy after the exile: As a result of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions most Israelites lost written records tracing their ancestry. Those who could still prove their ancestry included Levites, Aaronite kohanim, Nethinim including Avdei Shlomo and members of clans that had been part of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. With time, knowledge of descent from these clans of Judah and Benjamin was also lost although there are descendants of the royal House of David (part of Judah) who have maintained knowledge of their ancestry to modern times.

The Israelite community following the Babylonian captivity was divided into ten lineages and Ezra established strict rules concerning permissible marriages between the lineages:

• Kohanim the descendants of Aaron who formed the priesthood
• Levites the tribe of Levi (other than the Aaronite priests)
• Israelites used here in a narrower sense to mean the Israelite tribes other than the Levites and kohanim
• Chalalim children of a kohen and woman that a kohen was forbidden to marry
• Proselytes converts to Judaism
• Freedmen bondmen of Jews who had been freed
• Mamzerim descendants of forbidden marriages other than Chalalim
• Nethinim descendants of the Canaanites who were the Temple servants
• Shetukim those whose mother was known but whose father was unknown
• Foundlings those whose parents were unknown

The assumption is Kohanim, were not allowed to intermarry. Levites, Israelites, chalalim, proselytes and freedmen were allowed to intermarry. Mamzerim, Nethinim, shetukim and foundlings were allowed to intermarry. In the case of intermarriage between Levites and Israelites, the children took the father’s lineage, more complex rules governed the lineage of other intermarriages. With time some of these lineages disappeared: for example the descendants of the original freedmen became part of the other lineages according to the rules of intermarriage; the Nethinim are no longer found after the persecutions and massacres carried out by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Loss of proof of descent also affected neighbouring peoples, such as the Moabites and Ammonites, and resulted in renunciation of the ancient prohibitions on the conversions of these people to Judaism as well as of the Edomites.

It is alleged that under the Hasmonean dynasty all were forcibly converted to Judaism. Arabian (Nabatean) groups, such as the Zabadeans and Itureans, were also conquered and forcefully converted, as were the mixed peoples of the former Philistine cities. Under the Hasmonean kings, the Israelites were reunited with their closest relatives, the remnants of the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites after thousands of years of separation. This would mean that the aforementioned and Arabs were converts to Judaism.

The large proselyte groups were assimilated into the Israelite lineage by the second half of the second century CE. The chalalim, mamzerim, shetukim, and foundlings were by their nature small groups of people. The major divisions thus became:

Kohanim
Levites
Israelites
This threefold division of the Jewish people persists to this day. To avoid confusion with the broader use of the term Israelite or the modern term Israeli, a member of the Israelite, as opposed to Levite or Aaronite, lineage is usually referred to as a Yisrael (an Israel) and not a Yisraeli (which could mean Israelite in the broader sense or in modern Hebrew, an Israeli).

None of these practices are common among the peoples of Zimbabwe or South Africa. The Lemba are also divided into 12 tribes, and among the Buba, the priestly class, was found the exact same DNA element as among those Jews of the priestly class elsewhere around the world.

A number of genetic studies have confirmed the findings. Initial research in 1996 indicated that more than half of the Lemba Y chromosomes (the male chromosome) are Semitic in origin. That study was followed by another in 2000, that reported more specifically that a significant group of Lemba males carry the “Cohen [Kohen] modal haplotype” (CHM) on the Y chromosome, which indicates the Y-DNA Haplogroup J found among Jews and some other populations across the Middle East.

The Buba clan carried most of the CMH markers among the Lemba, similar to other Jewish groups around the world where the males of the priestly class, the Kohenim, carry the CHM marker. Lemba tradition states that it was the Buba clan that had a “leadership role in bringing the Lemba out of Israel” and into southern Africa.

The oral tradition handed down among the Yemenite Jews is similar, stating that after the expulsion following the destruction of the First Temple, the Levi’im (assistant priests) and Kohenim fled towards Yemen; the group then split, with some continuing on towards the south, in the direction of Africa.

The University of London’s Professor Tudor Parfitt , who spent six months living with the tribe, and 20 years researching their people, expressed his amazement in an interview this week with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Parfitt stated that it appears that the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in the same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba. They have a common ancestor who geneticists state lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron, when the Jewish priesthood started.

The Lemba tradition states that their ancestors fled the Holy Land some 2,500 years ago, traveling first to “Sen’a” and then south to Africa. Their sacred prayer language is comprised of a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic. The tribe, approximately 80,000 strong, lives in central Zimbabwe and the northern part of South Africa, and prizes above all its holiest object: the ngoma lungundu, “the drum that thunders.” According to tribal leaders, it is this, a wooden replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant, that connects the Lemba to their Jewish ancestry.

The oral traditions regarding the ngoma lungundu said it had been used in battles, and thus was rebuilt several times, possibly from original remnants, Parfitt explained. He added that the replica that recently went on display at the Harare museum, about 700 years old, is “the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of.”

The Lemba people of today, however, are Christians and Muslims, although many define their ties to Judaism as their “culture.”

With the aid of this fortress, Yannai thus blocked all Nabataean activity along the Incense Road, and in effect forced them out of the Negev. Erickson-Gini, who serves as scientific editor of the excavation stated this revolutionary discovery will redraw the maps of the region which describe that era and greatly increase the territory governed by the Hasmoneans. “Despite the evidence of the historial Josephus, according to which King Alexander Jannaeus conquered the southern coast of the Land of Israel and the harbor in Gaza, which was of paramount importance to the Nabataeans; and even further south, no clear archaeological proof had been found in the field because historians were inclined to dismiss the possibility that the Hasmoneans did indeed control the Negev.

IAA researchers are currently processing finds from archaeological excavations at sites located along the Incense Road that were previously exacavated by the late Dr. Rudolph Cohen of the Department of Antiquities. One such site is Horvat Ma’agurah, located on a ridge 3.4 kilometers west of Sde Boker. The site is situated at a strategic point overlooking Nahal Besor, where the Incense Road was located, connecting Petra with Gaza.

It is now clear that the Hasmoneans kept hold of the fortress located on the Incense Road, the principal trade route of their Nabataean enemies until the year 66 BCE, thus blocking any enemy movement along the road between Halutza and the Northern Sinai. This cut off trade between Petra and the ports, dealing a death blow to trade throughout the Negev for decades.

The discovery also validates the claim that another Nabataean site — Nessana, where a multitude of coins of Alexander Jannaeus were discovered — was actually ruled by the Hasmonean king. “Another interesting fact is that the army that Alexander Jannaeus engaged was for the most part a mercenary force composed of non-Jewish soldiers, which was confirmed based on the imported vessels that were found alongside the Jewish vessels there, and from the wine that was brought there from abroad.

Shavei Israel works in nine countries to bring back to Judaism “hidden Jews,” who themselves or their parents or ancestors were forced to practice the religion secretly. Its founder Michael Freund stated that iIn recent years, an increasing number of Poles have rediscovered their Jewish ancestry, seeking to reclaim the precious heritage that was so brutally taken from them and their forebears. It is our hope that this book will…enable a new generation of Polish Jews to celebrate Chanukah with joy, as well as gain a better understanding of our eternal faith, its principles and beliefs.

Approximately 4,000 Jews are officially registered as living in Poland, but according to various estimates, there are tens of thousands of others who have concealed their true identity, or are simply unaware of it.

Many of the “hidden Jews” in Poland lost all contact with Judaism due to extreme anti-Semitism after the Holocaust, and some of them even converted. Others concealed their Jewishness from the Communist authorities and now feel free to resume their true identity.

Another phenomenon pertains to Jewish young people who were adopted by Catholic families and institutions during the Holocaust. They were told nothing of their Jewish identity, and only in recent years have they or their descendants gradually begun to rediscover it.

Shavei Israel also provides assistance to different communities, such as the Bnei Menashe of India, the Bnei Anousim in Spain, Portugal and South America, the Subbotnik Jews of Russia, the Jewish community of Kaifeng in China as well as the “hidden Jews” of Poland.

Its emissaries in Poland conduct seminars in Poland and provide assistance for the process of conversion to those who choose to immigrate to Israel.

Shavei Israel also helps people whose Judaism was lost through cultural assimilation, to reconnect with or return to Judaism. Shavei Israel insists that it is not a missionary organization, but simply a group trying to reconnect people to their Jewish roots. Shavei Israel is largely responsible for the Israeli government’s recognition of the Bnei Menashe as Jews in March 2005.

Shavei Israel sponsors rabbis and teachers to work with various groups of “lost Jews” in places as far afield as India and the Iberian Peninsula. Shavei Israel rabbis are currently posted in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Oporto in northern Portugal, Brazil, and at the Shavei Israel Hebrew Centers in Mizoram and Manipur, North-East India.

It offers various educational options in Israel, including Machon Miriam, the only Spanish-language conversion and return institute in Jerusalem. Dozens of Spanish and Portuguese crypto-Jews graduate from Machon Miriam each year, and proceed to undergo formal conversion by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.

It also helps people who have converted to Judaism make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel) The organization has also published a series of books on Judaism in a dozen languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Mizo, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian and German. Plans are also underway to send rabbis to the remaining Subbotnik communities in Russia.

Many groups claim descent from specific Lost Tribes but preliminary scientific evidence such as Y-DNA testing, specifically Haplogroup J would exclude many of them. Some of these groups include:

Bene Ephraim (from southern India) – claim descent from the Tribe of Ephraim
Bnei Menashe (from northeast India) – claim descent from the lost Tribe of Manasseh
Beta Israel, also known as Falashas – Ethiopian Jews some of whom claim descent from the lost Tribe of Dan
Persian Jews (especially the Bukharan Jews) claim descent from the Tribe of Ephraim
Igbo Jews of Nigeria claim descent variously from the tribes of Ephraim, Menasseh, Levi, Zebulun and Gad
The Nasranis of Malabar, India are of Hebrew or Israelite heritage but not much is known of their past, making it difficult to be certain that they are also descended from the ‘Lost Tribes’. (Ref. Dr. Asahel Grant’s ‘The Nestorians or the Lost Tribes of Israel’ for more about the Nazarenes and Nestorians).

Bene Israel of South Asia:
The Bene Israel (Hebrew: “Sons of Israel”) are a group of Jews who live in various Indian cities, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmadabad, and in Pakistan such as in Karachi, Peshawer and Multan. Prior to their waves of emigration to Israel and still to this day, the Bene Israel form the largest sector of the subcontinent’s Jewish population, and constitute the bulk of those sometimes referred to as Pakistani Jews. The native language of the Bene Israel is Judæo-Marathi, a form of Marathi. Most Bene Israel have now emigrated to Israel. Some researchers believe that the Bene Israel are descended from the Ten Tribes.

Bnei Menashe of India
The Bnei Menashe (from northeast India) claim descent from the lost Tribe of Manasseh. Their oral traditions depict them as originally going from the Persian Empire into Afghanistan. (They may have been in the Persian Empire because it occupied the lands of Assyria when it conquered Babylonia.) According to their traditions, they then went to China, where they encountered persecution, then pressed on to India and Southern Asia.

Beta Israel of Ethiopia

The Beta Israel (also known as Falashas) are Ethiopian Jews. Some members of the Beta Israel as well as several Jewish scholars believe that they are descended from the lost Tribe of Dan, as opposed to the traditional story of their descent from the Queen of Sheba.

Persian Jews
Persian Jews (especially the Bukharan Jews) claim descent from the Tribe of Ephraim. Persian Jews (also called Iranian Jews) are members of Jewish communities living in Iran and throughout the former greatest extents of the Persian Empire.

Igbo Jews of Africa
The Igbo Jews of Nigeria claim descent variously from the tribes of Ephraim, Naphtali, Menasseh, Levi, Zebulun and Gad.

Samaritans
All Samaritans, in one form or another, see themselves as descendants of the original Hebrews. The Samaritan community in Israel and the Palestinian territories numbers about 600. These people, who still struggle to keep their ancient traditions, live in what was the capital of Samaria – Nablus and the town of Holon. They claim to be authentic descendants of the Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh who were not exiled. On Passover the whole community sacrifices on Mount Gerizim.

Groups claiming descent from a non-specific Lost Tribe
Some groups believe that they are descended from one of the Lost Tribes, but don’t know which one. These include:

The Lemba tribe (from Southern Africa) claims to be descended from a lost tribe which fled from modern Yemen and journeyed south.
The House of Israel in Ghana claims to be one of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Pashtun people, ethnic Afghans traditionally claim descent from the Lost Tribes.
Chiang Min people (from northwestern China) claim to be descendants of Abraham.
British Israelism (sometimes called Anglo-Israelism) claims that the British are the direct lineal descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
British Israelism believes that parallels between ancient Japanese culture and Biblical practice indicate a Lost Tribes origin for many aspects of Japanese religion and culture.

Lemba people of Africa
The Lemba people (Vhalemba) from Southern Africa claim to be descendants of a lost tribe which fled from what is now Yemen and journeyed south. DNA testing has genetically linked the Lemba with modern Jews. They have specific religious practices similar to those in Judaism and a tradition of being a migrant people with clues pointing to an origin in West Asia or North Africa. According to the oral history of the Lemba, their ancestors were Jews who came from a place called Sena several hundred years ago and settled in East Africa. Some research suggests that “Sena” may refer to Wadi Masilah (near Sayhut) in Yemen, often called Sena, or alternatively to the city of Sanaa, also located in Yemen.

Pashtuns of the Afghan region: Is One of the Lost Tribes the Taliban?

The Pashtuns are a predominantly Muslim people, native to Afghanistan and Pakistan, who adhere to their pre-Islamic indigenous religious code of honour and culture Pashtunwali. They traditionally claim descent from the Lost Tribes. The Yousafzai (Yusafzai) are a large group of Pashtun tribes. Their name means “Sons of Joseph”. There are also similar names in other areas of the region, such as the disputed land of Kashmir. There are a variety of cultural and ethnic similarities between Jews and Pashtuns. A visit by a Western journalist in 2007 revealed that many currently active Pashtun traditions may have parallels with Jewish traditions. The code of Pashtunwali is strikingly similar in content and subject matter to the Mosaic law.

A book which corresponds to Pashtun historical records, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the 7th century a people called the Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat, Afghanistan, and then migrated south and east. These Bani Israel references are in line with the commonly held view by Pashtuns that when the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed, the tribe of Joseph, among other Hebrew tribes, settled in the region. Hence the tribal name ‘Yusef Zai in Pashto translates to the ‘sons of Joseph’. This is also described extensively in great detail by Makhzan-i-Afghani, a historical work from the 17th Century by Nehamtullah, an official in the royal court of Mughal Emperor Jehangir. A similar story is told by Iranian historian Ferishta.

This account is also substantiated by the fact that the Bnei Menashe of India also have traditions which trace their wanderings as going originally from the Persian Empire to Afghanistan. In their case, they then went to China, where they encountered persecution, then pressed on to India and Southern Asia.

The Bani-Israelite theory about the origin of the Pashtun is based on Pashtun traditions; the tradition itself is documented in a source titled Makhzan-i-Afghani, the only written source addressing Pashtun origins. It was written in 1612, by Nematullah Harvi, a scribe at the court of Mughal Emperor Jehangir of Hindustan. Nematullah compiled his book on the order of Khan Jehan Lodhi of the Lodhi dynasty, a Pashtun noble and a courtier of the Emperor Jehangir. Some sources state that the Makhzan-i-Afghani has been discredited by historical and linguistic inconsistencies. The oral tradition is believed to be a myth that grew out of a political and cultural struggle between Pashtuns and the Mughals, which explains the historical backdrop for the creation of the myth, the inconsistencies of the mythology, and the linguistic research that refutes any Semitic origins. There are also other sources which disagree strongly with the hypothesis that the Pashtuns have Israelite origins.

Chiang Min people of China
The Chiang Min people of northwest China claim to be descendents of Abraham. Tradition holds that their forefather had 12 descendents.

The Jews of Kaifeng, China
According to historical records, a Jewish community with a synagogue built in 1163 existed at Kaifeng from at least the Southern Song Dynasty until the late nineteenth century. A stone monument in the city suggests that they were there since at least 231 BC.

For the first time, a group of seven descendants of the Jewish community of Kaifeng, China has moved to Israel.The new arrivals, who were brought here by the Shavei Israel organization, arrived at Ben-Gurion airport late Tuesday night.
The city of their birth, Kaifeng, sits on the banks of the Yellow River and was home to a flourishing Jewish community for more than a millennium. “I am very excited to be here in the Holy Land,” said Yaakov Wang, one of the new immigrants. “This is something that my ancestors dreamed about for generations, and now thank G-d I have finally made it.”

Wang said that he eventually hopes to become a rabbi, so that one day he can help other Kaifeng Jewish descendants to learn more about their heritage. “We received special permits from the Interior Ministry to bring them here for a year on tourist visas, during which time they will prepare for conversion. Once they complete the conversion, they will then receive Israeli citizenship and be considered new olim,” Shavei Israel chairman Michael Freund told Israel National News. “The group will be staying at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, near Beit Shean, where they will study in the Hebrew ulpan.”

From the airport, the group went straight to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where they recited the “Shehecheyanu” blessing, and then burst into a chorus of traditional Hebrew songs. “It took us more than two years to get the requisite permits from Israel’s Interior Ministry to bring them over, but it was worth the wait,” said Freund. “This is an historic event,” he said, adding that, “Kaifeng’s Jewish descendants are a living link between China and the Jewish people, and it is very moving to see the remnants of this community returning to their roots”.

At its peak, during the Middle Ages, Kaifeng Jewry numbered about 5,000 people. But widespread intermarriage and assimilation, as well as the death of the community’s last rabbi, brought about its demise by the middle of the 19th century. Scholars say there are still hundreds of people in Kaifeng who cling to their identity as descendants of the city’s Jewish community. In recent years, a growing number have begun to express an interest in studying Jewish history and culture.

Bedul, Petra
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Bedouin tribe of “Bedul”, living in the caves of Petra, Jordan, captured the imagination of Zionist pioneers. Among them was the historian, explorer and second president of Israel, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. Ben Zvi discovered traces of ancient Hebrew customs in the lifestyles of some Palestinian villagers and Bedouin tribes. He speculated that the inhabitants on both sides of the Jordan river may be descendants of the original Hebrew population which never left the area, despite the numerous exiles. Although 100 years ago they presented themselves to British historians as the “Sons of Israel”, the Bedul of today deny the legend concerning their Hebrew origin and claim that they are descendants of the Nabateans who built Petra.

Scythian / Cimmerian Theories
Several theories claim that the Scythians and / or Cimmerians were in whole or in part the Lost Tribes of Israel. The theories are generally based on the belief that the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which had been deported by the Assyrians, became known in history as the Scythians and / or Cimmerians. Various points of view exist as to which modern nations these people became.

The Behistun Inscription is often cited as a link between the deported Israelites, the Cimmerians and the Scythians (Saka). George Rawlinson wrote: We have reasonable grounds for regarding the Gimirri, or Cimmerians, who first appeared on the confines of Assyria and Media in the seventh century B.C., and the Sacae of the Behistun Rock, nearly two centuries later, as identical with the Beth-Khumree of Samaria, or the Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.

Adherents often believe that the Behistun Inscription connects the people known in Old Persian and Elamite as Saka, Sacae or Scythian with the people known in Babylonian as Gimirri or Cimmerian. It should be made clear from the start that the terms ‘Cimmerian’ and ‘Scythian’ were interchangeable: in Akkadian the name Iskuzai (Asguzai) occurs only exceptionally. Gimirrai (Gamir) was the normal designation for ‘Cimmerians’ as well as ‘Scythians’ in Akkadian.

The archeologist and British Israelite, E. Raymond Capt, claimed similarities between King Jehu’s pointed headdress and that of the captive Saka king seen to the far right on the Behistun Inscription. He also posited that the Assyrian word for the House of Israel, “Khumri”, which was named after Israel’s King Omri of the 8th century BCE, is phonetically similar to “Gimirri.” (Cimmerian)

Critics of the Israel / Scythian theory argue that the customs of the Scythians and Cimmerians contrast those of the Ancient Israelites and that the similarities and theories proposed by adherents stand in contradiction to the greater body of research on the history of ancient populations, which does not provide support for the purported links between these ancient populations

British Israelism variant

British Israelism (also known as ‘Anglo-Israelism’) is the theory that people of Western European descent, especially Britain and the United States, are descended from the ‘Lost Tribes’ of Israel. Adherents believe that the deported Israelites became Scythians / Cimmerians who are then alleged to have become the Celts / Anglo-Saxons of Western Europe.The theory arose in England, from where it spread to the United States. During the 20th Century, British Israelism was aggressively promoted by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God. Armstrong believed that this theory provided a ‘key’ to understanding biblical prophecy, and that he was specially called by God to proclaim these prophecies to the ‘lost tribes’ of Israel before the coming of the ‘end-times’. The Worldwide Church of God no longer teaches the theory, but some offshoot churches such as the Philadelphia Church of God and the United Church of God continue to teach it even though British Israelism is inconsistent with the findings of modern genetic.

Brit-Am variant
Brit-Am, sometimes confused with British Israelism, is an organization centered in Jerusalem, and composed of Jews and non-Jews. Brit-Am, like British Israel, identifies the Lost Ten Tribes with peoples of West European descent, but does so from a Jewish perspective quoting both Biblical and Rabbinical sources. The evidence that Brit-Am relies upon is Biblical in the light of Rabbinical Commentary but is supplemented by secular theories which posit the Lost Tribes / Scythian / Cimmerian connection which they then believe to have become various Western European nations. An example of Brit-Am scholarship may be seen from its treatment of Obadiah 1:20 where the original Hebrew as understood by Rabbinical Commentators such as Rashi and Abarbanel is referring to the Lost Ten Tribes in France and England. Brit-Am also believes that “Other Israelite Tribes gave rise to elements within Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Wales, France, Holland, and Belgium” and that “The Tribe of Dan is to be found amongst part of the Danish, Irish, and Welsh.” Brit-Am also believes that the Khazars were descended from the Ten Tribes and quotes Jewish and non-Jewish sources that were contemporaneous with them.

Other variants
Other organizations teach other variants of the theory, such as that the Scythians / Cimmerians consisted in whole or in part the Lost Ten Tribes. One such theory posits that the lost Israelites can be defined by the Y-DNA haplogroup R, which consists of much of Europe and Russia, which is in contrast to British Israelism and Brit-Am which believe that the Israelites became only Western Europeans. It should be noted that the genetic findings postulated by this and other theories are typically inconsistent with the findings of generally accepted research in archeology, anthropology and population genetics.

The Kurds
Some have promoted the notion that the Kurds represent a Lost Tribe. Some claims have been made regarding a genetic relationship between the Kurds and the Jews on the basis of a similarity between Kurdish Y-DNA and a Y haplotype that is associated with the Jewish priesthood. However, in genetic testing of the Y chromosome of 95 Muslim Kurds, only one sample (1.05% of the Kurds tested) matched the so-called Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), consisting of six specific Y-STR values. Various misleading statements have associated typical Kurdish Y-DNA with that of the Jews. However, these attempts are based on several sources of confusion:

(1) The Cohen Modal Haplotype in its original form includes only six Y-STR markers, which with the scientific advances since that time, are now understood to be far too few to adequately identify a unique, closely related group that shares common descent from one relatively recent paternal ancestor. The same six marker values can be found by random mutations in other populations that are only remotely related. They are thus identical by state, but not Identical by descent. The 6-marker CMH cannot be used as a clear indicator of Cohen genetic ancestry, without additional data. Thus its presence should not be used as grounds for probable Jewish ancestry in a population.

(2) It is touted as a fact of great significance that the most common (modal) 6-marker haplotype of the Kurds is only one step from the CMH, but in fact, these same six marker values that were found to be the “Kurdish modal haplotype” can be seen in the data, in numerous sources, to be the most common haplotype amongst a wide variety of J2 Y chromosomes, wherever they may be found, in ethnic groups of the Middle East or in Europe — thus, it is hardly an indication of a close relationship with the Cohanim priesthood, or with the Jews.

(3) The fact that the 2001 paper by Nebel found a somewhat greater similarity between the Y-DNA of the Kurds and the Jews than between the Jews and the Palestinians does not point to a uniquely close relationship between the Jews and the Kurds. This study did not compare Jews with other non-Kurdish Iraqis, or with the people of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, or other nearby lands. The available data indicates that these peoples are all closely related, with the Jews and Kurds making up just two per cent of a diverse family of Middle Eastern peoples in this region.

The Japanese
Some writers have speculated that the Japanese people themselves may be direct descendants of part of the Ten Lost Tribes. There are some parallels between Japanese and Israelite rituals, culture, traditions, and language, which provide some evidence for this possibility. An article that has been widely circulated and published, entitled “Mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes: Japan” by Arimasa Kubo (a Japanese writer living in Japan who studied the Hebrew Bible), concludes that many traditional customs and ceremonies in Japan are very similar to the ones of ancient Israel and that perhaps these rituals came from the religion and customs of the Jews and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who might have come to ancient Japan.

Joseph Eidelberg’s “The Biblical Hebrew Origin of the Japanese People” makes a similar case: Late in his life, Joseph Eidelberg began analyzing ancient traditions, religious ceremonies, historical names, haiku poems, Kana writings and Japanese folk songs, discovering thousands of words with similar pronunciations, sounds and translations between Hebrew and Japanese. These discoveries are history in the making, giving credible new information on the meanings of many unknown Japanese words, numbers, songs and cultural traditions – and this book is the first time that these remarkable similarities are combined into a single consistent theory.

The Irish
There is a theory that the Irish, or that Insular Celts as a whole, are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. Proponents of this theory state that there is evidence that the prophet Jeremiah came to Ireland with Princess Tea Tephi, a member of the Israelite royal family. Proponents of this theory point to various parallels between Irish and ancient Hebrew culture. For example, they note that the harp, the symbol of Ireland, also plays a role in Jewish history, as the musical instrument of King David. Some maintain that the Tribe of Dan conducted sea voyages to Ireland and colonized it as early as the period of the Judges under the name Tuatha Dé Danann.

Aspects of this theory are also sometimes cited by adherents of British Israelism, as one possible explanation of how the Ten Lost Tribes might have reached the British Isles. However, British Israelism takes many forms, and does not always use this hypothesis as its main narrative.

Native Americans
Several explorers, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, claimed to have collected evidence that some of the Native American tribes might be descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. Several recent books and articles have focused on these theories.

The belief that some Native Americans were a Lost tribe of Israel goes back centuries and includes individuals like the 1782 President of the Continental Congress Elias Boudinot and Mordecai Noah, the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th Century. Some sources such as Howshua Amariel and various researchers assert that there is DNA evidence, linguistic research and other research which indicates links between the Cherokee Nation and the Jewish people.

General dispersions, via Media region

This theory begins with the notion that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are the sons of Joseph, who had been in captivity (Genesis 37 through 45) and bore them with the daughter of the Pharaoh’s Priest, Asenath (Genesis 41:45-52). The Tribe of Levi was set apart to serve in the Holy Temple (Numbers 1:47-54 2:33 3:6-7). The arrangement of the Tribes was given in Numbers 2.

It is now believed by many that the exiled tribes, who were, according to the Second Book of Kings, transported to the region of Media in what is now northwestern Iran, most likely assimilated into the population of the area, losing any special sense of Israelite identity. There is also Biblical and Talmudic testimony that much of the population of the “lost” tribes was simply reunited with the rest of the Israelites when they, too, were exiled and, later, returned to the Land of Israel. However, many over the years, in order to hide their Jewish or Israelite identities during tribulations, crusades and continual exiles, have scattered around the whole earth and are believed to have assimilated into the much larger non-Jewish population.

There is now genetic testing being done to representatives of at least two groups – the Lemba in Africa and the Bnei Menashe in India – in attempts to verify claims of descent from the “lost ten tribes”. So far, there is nothing conclusive, though in the case of the Lemba, there is a definite link to Levite Hebrew ancestry, specifically Kohen.

Nathan Ausubel’s list
Nathan Ausubel wrote:There are quite a number of peoples today who cling to the ancient tradition that they are descended from the Jewish Lost Tribes: the tribesmen of Afghanistan, the Mohammedan Berbers of West Africa, and the six million Christian Igbo people of Nigeria. Unquestionably, they all practice certain ancient Hebraic customs and beliefs, which lends some credibility to their fantastic-sounding claims.

In his 1953 work Pictorial History of the Jewish People, Nathan Ausubel compiled the following list of peoples connected in one way or another to this legend:

Baghdad
Iran
Kurdistan
Yemen
Georgia
Bokhara
Hadhramaut
Mountain Jews
Afghanistan
Bene-Israel
Cochin Jews
China
Egypt
Algeria
Morocco
Libya
Tunisia
Djerba
The Sahara
Cave Dwellers = Atlas Mountains south of Tripolitania and Tunisia. Closely related to the Jews of the Sahara, they believe that their ancestors were brought as captives from Judea by Titus after 70 AD. They cut out tiny paper boats which decorate their synagogues where they pray: May a boat soon come and carry us to Jerusalem.
The Falashas = Lake Tana, Ethiopia. Claim to have come with the Queen of Sheba to visit King Solomon.
The Samaritans = Nablus (Shechem). Claim to be from the tribes of Ephraim, Menashe, and Levi, and built a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim in the days of Ezra.