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Who are the Ten Lost Tribes? When did they get lost? How? Do they think they are goyim today, unaware of their Jewish heritage? Are the intermarrying with goyim, and thus permanently lost to Judaism? What did they do wrong do deserved this fate?
Are they on the other side of the “Sambatyan” river, that throws rocks up to shamayim six days a week?
Most of them are lost for ever due to intermarriage.
According to the gemara, Yirmiyahu went and brought at least some of them back, so they probably at least know they’re Jewish and some of them probably are in the ever-shrinking majority that aren’t intermarried.
thanx so much for starting this thread!! we just learned in Historia about it and I had so many questions that my teacher was unablw to answer. She told us that someone im not sure which tzaddik but he said they were in Ashur wich is now Assyria…Please tell me more about them…
It refers to the ten northern tribes that were conquered and forced to migrate by the Assyrians. Most likely, there were survivors who rejoined the other Jews who eventually ended up in the same area, when a short time after the rest of Jews started getting forced out of Israel. It’s unlikely any ended up in exotic locations (regardless of assertions that some ended up in India or Ethiopia). Anyone claiming to have found a missing tribe is pulling your leg, and if he asks for money, he’s probably trying to rip you off.
What do you make of all the various pseudo-claims by goyim claiming to descend from various “tribes” (i.e. Dan). Goyim in India, Ehtiopia, China, etc.
“Ashur which is now Assyria.”
Excuse me for laughing, but Assyria hasn’t existed for about 2600 years. Ashur is simply Hebrew for Assyria.
This is a pretty simple question – the answer is in Tanach (or Wikipedia if you prefer). After Shlomo, there was a split into two kingdoms: Yehudah (which included Binyamin) and the Northern Kingdom of Yisrael (other 10 tribes). In about 722 BC the Kingdom of Ashur conquered the Kingdom of Yisrael and exiled the people. (This was late in the time of the Bayit Rishon). For the most part the exiled people were lost i.e. assimilated.
A number of years later Ashur fell to Bavel, who later conquered Yehudah and destroyed the Bet Hamikdash.
See Sefer Malachim (or Wikipedia) for more details.
Go to seforimonline.org and look for the sefer “mikveh yisroel” by R’ Menashe ben Israel about 350-400 years ago written at the height of the exploration of the “new world” where he addresses the claim that some Inca Indians found in Peru are from the “lost tribes”. Is a fascinating read.
It’s unlikely any ended up in exotic locations (regardless of assertions that some ended up in India or Ethiopia).
At the time India and Ethiopia weren’t exotic locations.
he addresses the claim that some Inca Indians found in Peru are from the “lost tribes”.
It was Ecuador, not Peru (and not all natives of South America were Inca).
Do Yisroelim today know what Shevet they descend from? (Obviously Kohanim and Levyim do.)
And does anyone today know they descend from a shevet other than Levi, Yehuda, or Binyomin?
722 BC
You should use CE and BCE, not BC and AD, as the latter two have Christian religious meaning.
The Wolf
And does anyone today know they descend from a shevet other than Levi, Yehuda, or Binyomin?
I feel sorry for any shevet that is forced to claim me as a member.
The Wolf
“It was Ecuador, not Peru (and not all natives of South America were Inca).”
I remember him discussing the country named “peru” which with hindsite would be the incas. Perhaps you have read it more recently that I, and remember ecuador. I don’t recall stating that all natives of SA are Incas, but if you inferred that, I’ll try to be more careful next time.
I read an interesting book by a journalist who went to visit the Mizorams. He ended up being pretty convinced. They had old, corrupted heritages that resembles Jewish themes very much. They referred to themselves as children of Minmasse. They mourn what is to them the worst event in their history, when their last Sefer Torah was lost.
The Gemara says that if a woman gets Kidduushin from a goy she doesn’t have to consider the possibility of him being from the lost tribes. From here it seem that they lost their Jewish identity. But there are many groups. Yirmiyahu hanavi brought back some, B’nei Moshe were taken to a remote location, others became lost, and others yet are secluded.
How does the river Sambatyan figure into this issue?
The various claims of exotic groups probably have nothing to do with the “ten tribes.” Some of them are people in primitive areas who were converted by Christian missionaries, studies the Bible, and decided some of their pagan tribal customs were similar to what they read about (e.g. circumcision, taharas ha-mishpacha). Unless a group has distinctly middle eastern female DNA they are unlikely to be Jewish, but often consider converting.
To likely be of Jewish descent, one should look for separation of meat from milk, Shabbos, knowledge of which animals are forbidden – and most importantly, a credible explanation of how they get to a strange place. Knowledge of Hebrew helps. The Ethiopians pass. THe Lemba probably are related. The Bnei Menashe are a stretch. Groups in the Americas (other than possible descendants of marranos) or places such as New Guinea are clearly not related. Except for the Ethiopians, who were never really lost since there were contacts with Yemenite and Egyptian Jews over the years, all the others are highly unlikely to be Jews according to halacha.
Conversion is controversial since the Israeli government isn’t thrilled about converts who are non-white, and are likely to become strictly Orthodox (as opposed to secular East Europeans, who if “converted” will be good hilonim).
The yalkut says that they were exiled to three places, the sambatyon, a place further away then the sambatyon and another place, I don’t remember where.
I once heard a speech a long time ago from a person who was trying to track down the shevatim. He said that they triangulated a certain place somewhere in yehupitzville (I don’t remember where) and he tried getting there three times, but each time he had to stop for some crazy reason like his house burning down.
akuperma: The Ethiopians were practicing Christians, and certainly not Jewish.
Where is the Sambatyon? Does it still shoot rocks up 6 days a week?
Many afghans believe they are descended from the the lost tribes
and will even claim to know which shevet. they are nominally moslems, though.
Its possible the “Lost tribes” in the new world are actually conversos (Jews who were forced to convert to christianity in Spain)
And these people are decendents of such people except over time the marrano idea has been lost.
They are not the lost tribes of Dan, but rather the lost tribes of “Sepharad”
I heard a lot of rumor stories about it…
I believe I am descended (on one side) from the Khazars. The eyes never lie.
The galut of the ten tribes was not absolute, there were remainders.
It is plausible that the galut of the capital city included many visitors or migrants from the outer areas and that samples of the 10 tribes went to Bavel, and came back with Ezra, or stayed whioh became the eastern diaspora that became the Mizrachim when Spain emptied out. One can also try to make sense of the end of Ovadyah, which speaks of two galuyot, beni yisral , and yerushaliyim. Survival was the aim of the remnants and tribe in galut was immaterial. The close gene pool of the Ashkenazim indicate that it may have been a small remnant indeed that became the Roman driven nucleus of Ashkenaz. In the future, the tribes must be accounted for to have shmitta and yovel, and a reapportionment of the whole land.
Dear Twisted:
Virtually every Jew is probably descended from the Khazars. We know that while most of the Jews in Khazaria came from the Byzantine (Roman Empire, then centered in Turkey and Balkans), when it split up most of them probably went to Babel (Iraq) and Spain, but some ended up in other places in Europe. Of the course of 50 generations, given that we have a small population, everyone is a cousin to everyone else. It is highly likely that unless you are a recent convert, you are related to every Jew alive in the 9th century.
Linguistic and DNA evidence though, suggests, that the Khazar contribution to the Jewish gene pool was very slight. Jews are quite dissimilar from the Central Asian Turkish tribes, and languages such as Yiddish have very words of Turkish origin. The reason much fuss is made of the Khazars as some frei Jews desperately wanted to be of non-Jewish descent so they could: 1) tell the Czar they shouldn’t be persecuted for killing his diety; 2) tell Hitler they were really Aryans; 3) find a secular excuse for not supporting zionism
Dr. Seuss:
There was always a Jewish community living in Ethiopia that was in always contact with the Jews in Yemen and Egypt. Occasionally there were issues whether their gittim were valid. Given that a large part of the Ethiopian population are descended from migrants from Yemen, it isn’t surprising some Jews were included since Yemen at the time has Jews. They may have picked up a fair number of gerim at an early date from Christians who realized their religion was a fraud, but there clearly was an initial Jewish core. That is why the gedolim with the most contact with them (Sefardi rabbanim, such as R. Yosef) have not had a problem with their Jewish origins.
akuperma: Recent contact with them doesn’t prove much. And in any event, even R. Yosef said they need to convert to be Jewish. No one said otherwise. And other gedolim said they are totally non-Jewish.
Dr. Seuss and akuperma: What you have here is a failure to communicate. There was an Ethiopian Jewish community called ??? ????? which is known to be Jewish for centuries and were only deemed sfekos in recent times. There is also the Falash Murah, who are descended from the main Ethiopian Jewish community but converted a couple centuries ago and lost their chazaka due to intermarriage.
I’d suggest two pieces of research. For the science, read Jon Entine’s Abraham’s Children, which looks at the DNA of Jewish populations and presents some startling information, and some that we already knew, just confirmed. FOr a look at possibilities rather than certainties, I’d suggest Simcha Jacobovici’s film Quest for the Lost Tribes. Simcha is a good filmmaker, and is also Observant – I’d say on the liberal side of Orthodox.
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