Israeli General Election 2013

[BigSkyBob]

Political ads are on TV now, and the one making the biggest noise is this one from Shas, which drew wide ranging condemnation for its perceived  anti Russian racism.

http://youtu.be/A-auotGWUeM

Wow, that is racist.

If you are willing to move to a tribal state, you should be expecting that your tribal membership might be questioned. I would have been enraged if this were happening in any civilized country, but here it seems hilariously appropriate.

Then again, there are these folks:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/24/bnei-menashe-move-to-israel-indian-jews-from-lost-tribe-arrive-in-holy-land-photos_n_2359086.html

Compared to these folks the Russian emigrants are more Semitic by blood, and have practitioners of Judaism much further down the family tree. Seems the Shas stood in the government that admitted them.

[BigSkyBob]

Wait... I'm aware of a rather divergent but nonetheless clearly "Jewish" people in India... the opposite end of India.

These people are news to me.

Funny story... I once dated a Bnei Menashe Jew, a Chin. His family must have been close to the only Bnei Menashe in the United States. He was from Burma, not India, though. He was nonreligious, essentially atheist, but his family were deeply religious. They're clearly not of Jewish descent, but there's a sizeable Jewish community anyway. I think there's a similar group somewhere in central Africa that claims Jewish ancestry but is clearly not ancestrally Jewish.

.

Genetic tests suggest otherwise.