The primitive nomads of Kyrgyzstan don’t know any Torah, but some of their practices are eerily like those of the Jews of yore. Could they hold the secret to the whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes?
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e’d heard about an old local shofar-maker in the remote Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan — a talk-show host who was killed by Muslims for expressing his belief in his Jewish roots — and how some ancient Jewish customs are still practiced by the nomads of the region. Could this information help us in our own long-standing quest into the fate of the Ten Tribes, an enigma that has enchanted so many Jewish merchant adventurers and explorers over the centuries? True, so many have gone before us and come away disappointed; but still, we never like to pass up a lead. Maybe this time, Kyrgyzstan — a mountainous, landlocked former Soviet republic, bordered by Uzbekistan on the west, Tajikistan on the south, and China on the east — would give a clue to solve the Jewish world’s greatest mystery.
The Ten Tribes, exiled from the Northern Kingdom of Eretz Yisrael close to 2,700 years ago, about 150 years before the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash, are one of the world’s greatest bafflements. What happened to this majority of the Jewish population at the time? Did they simply disappear, or have they left some tracks waiting to be uncovered after more than two millennia? Seven hundred years after that exile, Josephus wrote, “The Ten Tribes are beyond the Euphrates until now and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated in numbers.” The search for them has fascinated scholars and laypeople alike, and when we heard rumors of a people with Jewish customs who have never been studied living in distant Kyrgyzstan, we felt compelled to investigate.
Our contact person was a man named Avraham Israel, who, we were told, accepted traditional Judaism upon himself and kept the mitzvos as best he could — quite an impressive feat in this backwater Muslim country. Mr. Israel agreed to meet us in an Asian restaurant he frequents, so there we were — on low seats in a curtain-secluded booth with richly and colorfully embroidered pillows to lean on, which felt a bit like a Seder — discussing Jewish life and what he believes to be the secret Jews of Kyrgyzstan. Avraham took his name by choice and legally changed his family’s first and last names. His son is called Menashe, hearkening back to the local belief that this nation’s forefather Manas is linked to the tribe of Menashe.
Avraham is convinced that the Bnei Manas of Kyrgyzstan come from one of the Tribes of Israel. In fact, it’s a family thing. His brother was a well-known local television personality and talk-show host, who began to publicly praise Israel and discuss his belief in a shared heritage. Muslim extremists demanded that he discontinue that line, but he refused to back down and was then murdered.
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