Seventy-eight members of India's Bnei Menashe community entered Israel by bus from Jordan on Thursday and 40 more were scheduled to arrive at Ben-Gurion Airport early Friday morning on an El Al flight from Mumbai (Bombay), according to Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund, whose organization organized the operation.

Freund said that the "Aliyah" (Jewish immigration to Israel) operation had been coordinated with all relevant government authorities. The Bnei Menashe entered Israel on tourist visas and will undergo conversion to Judaism in Israel. Then they will receive permanent status as citizens. These details were worked out in an agreement with the former Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, who is now Minister of Construction and Housing.

Yigal Henshin, the Bnei Menashe community's president, said Friday: "This is a historical day for us. We have come home."

The Bnei Menashe claim descent from the tribe of Menashe, one of the ten tribes exiled from the Land of Israel by the Assyrian empire over 2,700 years ago. They reside primarily in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, along the border with Burma and Bangladesh. In recent years alone, over 800 members of the community have made Aliyah, thanks largely to the efforts of Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based group that reaches out and assists “lost Jews” seeking to return to the Jewish people. They reside mainly in Kiryat Arba, south of Jerusalem, and Beit El and Ofrah, north of Jerusalem.

Shavei Israel locates and identifies long-lost Jewish communities. A total of more than 1,700 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to Israel and about 5,000 are still in India, waiting to come...