Quest For The Lost Tribes

I was reluctant to watch this movie due to the fact that most of what I have previously seen or read about the Lost Tribes has presented implausible stories that just pretend to support the writer's own religious views. This was better than that. The director/producer/narrator visited many places in Asia and North Africa where there was some evidence that the local people were descendants of the nine tribes of Israel which were captured by Assyria. While these were plausible anecdotes, the presentation was far from a proof, and the consensus of historians (which was cited in the film), that the Lost Tribes were assimilated into the many peoples of the Middle East remains the most likely explanation of what happened. Some of the obvious flaws in making the narrator's argument convincing include that Jews were dispersed after 70AD, so we should expect Jewish communities in many remote parts of the world. Many of the customs which the film labels as Jewish are equally Muslim. Other places in Central Asia have names which sound similar to the names of Israeli tribes, even though those names can be traced to other origins. The author also relies on the oral traditions of the people he is observing, but the rule-of-thumb for oral traditions is that they lose 50% of their validity each generation. Traditions that purport to go back to 800BC would have a value of approximately zero with that rate of loss. People are likely claim that an unwritten story is thousands of years old when it is only 300 years old. Most significantly, the film presents no DNA evidence. Even at the time that this was made, DNA testing was available, and it could have been used to augment or disprove Israeli ancestry where the narrator said that it existed. The narrator had an obvious economic incentive to make the argument that he had found the Lost Tribes (since otherwise no one would have wanted to watch his film), and many of the people in the film who claimed Israeli ancestry also had an economic incentive (since that could enable immigration to Israel which has much higher incomes than Central Asia). For these and other reasons, the narrator's arguments should be taken with a big grain of salt. Nonetheless, I gave this film 4 stars since it was much better than I had expected.

Simcha Jacobovici takes us on a fascinating journey along the most treacherous road on the planet to uncover remnants of Jewish tribes that many historians, both Jewish and non-Jewish, had thought have completely assimilated into their surrounding cultures. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians ca. 722 BCE and the people from those tribes were dispersed throughout Asia; i.e., the tribes settled along the Silk Road from what is now the Afghanistan and Pakistan border to the eastern border between India and Burma. The exile of these tribes is captured on Assyrian stone reliefs. What Jacobovici discovers is astonishing. I was fascinated that the physical features of these widely dispersed people is identical to the features of the population among whom they dwell, whether they be Indian, Arab, Chinese (or in the case of the Ethiopian Jews, apparently descended from the tribe of Dan, African). Jacobovici's first stop is in Manipur, India. He meets with Indians who claim descent from the tribe of Menasseh and who are persecuted by their neighbors. The Menasseh, however, greatly admire the Israelis, and have acquired a sense of pride and a willingness to actively fight their enemies in self-defense. Many have undergone conversion and are now Orthodox Jews. Some of them have made Aliyah to Israel. Jacobovici then travels back along the Silk Road and meets with descendants of the tribes of Issachar and Naphthali who still observe ancient Jewish practices in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Continuing his journey further to the most dangerous region, he learns that the Pathan (or Pashtun) Muslim tribes that live along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border are outwardly strict and zealous Muslims (the treatment of Muslim men toward their women is very disturbing) but still observe many Jewish rituals, such as wearing tallesim (prayer shawls) and lighting oil lamps (not Shabbat candles) before sundown on Fridays. Moses is a revered figure among them. He finds Pathan sub-tribes with names such as "Rubeni", "Gadi", "Simoni" and "Ephremi". Returning to India and the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), he discovers remnants of the tribe of Zevulun. The only tribe Jacobovici cannot locate is Asher. The question Jacobovici raises is whether all of these dispersed peoples will return to the land of Israel at some point and thus usher in the Messianic age, in accordance with statements of various Jewish prophets. According to Biblical prophecy, the Messiah is supposed to be an offshoot from the seed of King David. I wouldn't worry about it. The Talmud says that if a man is planting a tree and someone comes up to him and announces, "The Messiah is here!", the man should just continue planting the tree. So to all who have read my review, just keep your day job. :-)

Very interesting premise, although not so surprising. It is said that Jesus lost years were spent in India, so why not the Jews. We know there were Jews in western Arabia in ancient times and in Yemen from ancient until modern times. Jews were in Alexandria in both times and the Jews in Europe were late arrivals compared to their ancestors.A Very thought provoking investigation.

An interesting factual DVD

This video is very, very insightful, concerning the "lost" tribes of Israel. There has been much speculation that they went to Africa, or Europe, or even England (and thus the teaching about "British Israelism"). This documentary instead, using a lot of painstaking research, and documented findings, paints a very believable and validated scenario that the "lost" tribes traveled East and North East into Asia. This documentary is insightful, well researched, well presented, and includes many interviews with people tracing their lineage back to the "lost tribes". Well worth watching.