In honor of Chanukah, the Jerusalem-based nonprofit Shavei Israel has produced dreidels (holiday spinners) with Mandarin lettering for the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, China.

The post WATCH: A Chanukah miracle – Dreidels for China’s Jewish community appeared first on World Israel News.

After visiting Jewish Igbo community, the three were detained for nearly three weeks for allegedly supporting a general Igbo separatist movement.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Jewish documentary team landed back in Israel Thursday morning after being released by the Nigerian government, which held them for nearly three weeks for allegedly supporting a violent rebel group in the country.

Upon gaining their freedom Wednesday, Rudy Rochman, a prominent pro-Israel social media influencer, filmmaker Andrew (Noam) Leibman, and reporter Edouard David Benaym described their ordeal in a press statement.

They had been “wrongfully taken” early in the morning on July 9th by “over a dozen” agents of the Nigerian internal security service “with black ski mask at gun point,” they said.

They were then “caged and held for 20 days in horrendous conditions, locked into a small cell, sleeping on the floor with no access to showers or clean clothes. They were interrogated and mistreated without ever officially being arrested or accused of anything.”

The Nigerian authorities allowed the men to receive kosher food through the local Chabad center and took Benaym to the French embassy at one point to receive some medical treatment.

The trio had traveled to the western African state in early July as part of their documentary series on emerging Jewish communities on the continent. The Igbo tribe in Nigeria claim to be descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who were exiled by the Assyrian Empire years before the First Temple was destroyed.

Although they have taken on many Jewish practices over recent years and have the support of the Shavei Israel organization that reaches out to “lost” or “hidden” Jews throughout the world, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has yet to recognize their claim to be Jewish and they cannot immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.

Rochman and his crew brought a Torah scroll among other Judaica items to the community in the Biafran region when they arrived to record their religious and cultural Jewish way of life. After two days of filming, the statement said, “Nigerian bloggers started hijacking images” from the documentary’s website “and fabricated an association between the Israeli crew to separatist movements in Southern Nigeria, likely in order to gain more publicity.”

After the team’s arrest, the men’s families charged that “members of non-state political groups” were trying to twist the gift-giving into being a sign of support for the region’s long-standing separatist movement.

“There are no political overtones” to their trip, the families said, and hoped that the Nigerian authorities would soon be convinced of their innocence.

As Rochman and Leibman are Israeli-American and Benaym is French-Israeli, all three embassies worked on their case, ultimately succeeding in obtaining the documentary team’s release. The trio’s statement thanked the diplomats “and many caring individuals who helped in the process” of clearing the men “of any and all suspicion.”

After breaking diplomatic relations with Israel following the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Abuja renewed its ties with Jerusalem in 1992. The two countries cooperate in the fight against Islamic terrorism, which in Nigeria manifests itself in the Boko Haram radical group. Israel also helps Nigeria in the fields of agriculture, technological innovation and medicine, among others.

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The Bnei Menashe (“sons of Manassah”) are considered descendants of the Tribe of Manassah, which was cut off from the Jewish people following the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in 721 BCE.

The post WATCH: Hundreds of Lost Tribe Jews from India arrive in Israel appeared first on World Israel News.

Eyewitness says two people were arrested for “wearing Kippah and Magen [Star of David].”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Soldiers destroyed six synagogues of the Igbo Jewish community in Nigeria last week during a siege of several areas in the country’s Rivers State, while killing at least 50 people and arresting two, 9Africa reports.

Violence broke out in the separatist region after a youth protest against police brutality, said the report. An eyewitness said that the two who were arrested for “wearing Kippah and Magen” (Jewish skullcap and Star of David) last Saturday were in a synagogue at the time.

The Nigerian government considers the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which agitates for secession from the state, a terrorist group. The state governor, Nyesom Wike, had ordered a crackdown on the organization, said the news site.

The IPOB is led by Nnamdi Kanu, who self-identifies as a Jew.

In reaction to the attack, Kanu tweeted, “Our Synagogue, ‘Beth Knesset Amud ha’Emet (Pillar of Truth Synagogue) in Obigbo has been brought down with bulldozer. The very biggest synagogue in Biafra. Very sad indeed. The consequences for persecution of Biafran Jews will be dire & swift. Enough said!”

The Igbo indigenous people are mostly Christian, but there are reportedly a few thousand who practice a form of Judaism that predates the Talmud. They claim descent from the Ten Tribes who were the first to be exiled by Assyria from Israel’s northern kingdom, decades before the First Temple was destroyed.

Some of their recognizable Jewish customs are circumcising their sons at eight days old, observing certain dietary laws, and marking central holidays such as Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Passover and Sukkot.

However, unlike the Ethiopian community, the Igbo have not been recognized by Israel’s chief rabbinate as members of the Lost Tribes, although some individuals who have undergone full conversion now live in Israel.

According to the Shavei Israel organization that helps find lost Jewish communities, there are 26 synagogues in the region. Some of them were built and are supported by Jewish communities in the United States. Western rabbis and educators have also sent books on Judaism and religious articles to the Igbo, who profess a desire to integrate into the modern Jewish world.

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