A planned airlift of Indian Jews to Israel was canceled out of concern that diplomatic relations between India and Israel could be harmed.

A group of 218 members of the Bnei Menashe, a community from northeastern India that claims descent from the tribe of Menashe, will still be immigrating to Israel but in smaller, staggered groups, immigration officials told JTA.

The officials said the Indian government had been wary of a major media focus on the previously scheduled airlift for Nov. 21.

The group was converted last year by rabbinical judges sent to India by Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.

Amar has declared Bnei Menashe “descendants of the Jewish people” and has been working to help facilitate the aliyah of those who want to live in Israel.

Many of the some 1,000 members of the community who arrived in the country as tourists and later converted to Judaism live in Israel today as citizens.

JTA