Breaking Israel News - At a landmark conference on Thursday, experts will gather in Jerusalem to discuss the status of the Pashtun, tribal people of tens of millions of Afghan and Pakistani Muslims who believe they are descendants of Israel's ten lost tribes. The experts will discuss how the reunification of Israel with the Pashtuns will have colossal consequences and, above all, their predicted return.
“Take ten pieces,” he said to Erovam. “For thus said Hashem, the God of Israel: I am going to snatch the kingdom from Shlomo's hands, and I will give you ten tribes.” I Kings 11:31 (The Israel Bible ™)
Sideways Pashtun (Photo courtesy of Rabbi Harry Rosenberg).
“For their part, every Pashtun knows their roots are in Israel,” Nadav Sophie, a spokesman for the Bani Israel Association of Afghanistan, told Breaking Israel News. "For now, we're just trying to raise this awareness among the Jews and build bridges."
Sophie's organization, which is coordinating the conference, is a newly formed working group for the reunification of Israel and Pashtun.
The Pashtuns, an Iranian ethnic group of 50 million Muslims, call themselves Bani Israel, phonetically very similar to the Hebrew term for "children of Israel," Bnei Yisrael.
“Pashtuns have a complex and strong tribal system, and are meticulous in family genealogy (Shijra), but within this tribal system there is a strong oral tradition that they are descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel,” Sophie explained to Breaking Israel News.
“Many Pashtuns have family traditions of identifying with specific tribes. For example, from the Yusufzai tribe they believe that they descended from Joseph, Leani from Levi, Rebbani from Reuven, Afridi from Ephraim, Gaghai from Gad, and Benjamin from Benjamin."
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Sophie described a surprisingly long list of customs among the Pashtuns that are also observed by Jews. Pashtun men wear fringed quadrangular pieces of cloth similar, though not entirely, to Jewish prayer shawls.
Pashtuns are Muslim and therefore observe Saturdays on Friday. However, many Pashtun families light Shabbat candles in their homes on Friday nights, as does the Jewish world in general, which celebrates Shabbat from Friday night to Saturday night.
Many of the Pashtuns hold weddings, as is customary among Jews. However, while at Jewish weddings the groom traditionally breaks a glass in memory of the destruction of the Temple, at a Pashtun wedding, the bride breaks glass.
Pashtuns also circumcise male infants on the eighth day after birth, as the Jews do.
Pashtun fabric depicting the Star of David, a motif common in Pashtun culture. (Photo courtesy of Rabbi Harry Rosenberg).
Jews and Muslims have many of the same dietary laws, including ritual slaughter, and some Pashtuns have a tradition of covering the blood from slaughter with sand, as the Jews do. Islam prohibits pork products, and Pashtuns refrain from eating the meat or milk of camels, popular among Muslims in the region. They also refrain from eating crustaceans, a restriction that is unknown among Muslims. Moreover, many Pashtuns do not eat milk and meat together.
The question of whether Pashtuns marry non-Jews, which would undermine any claims of their genetic link to the rest of the Jewish people, is less problematic than in other countries claiming such a link. Sophie explained that Pashtuns do not marry other Muslims and that it is strongly discouraged to marry outside of their tribe.
Rabbi Harry Rosenberg, a longtime advocate of reunification with the Pashtuns, will speak at the conference on the practical implications of this link.
“When you think about the Middle East, Israel seems lonely,” Rabbi Rosenberg explained. “Reuniting with the Pashtuns will change that. It will connect Israel with tens of millions of Pashtuns, creating a bridge across the region and creating a barrier against Iran. This will help connect Israel with other countries that can now resist this connection."
Rabbi Rosenberg provided a religious basis in favor of reuniting the Pashtun with Israel, citing a section of the blessing traditionally read before the Shema (Jewish prayer declaring God's Oneness).
"Israel will be crowned in the covenant of Israel, and our people will be like Judah, and Israel will be exalted, and God will lead us holy armies."
“Jews from the tribe of the Jews,” said the rabbi. "In order for us to ascend, as the prophets said, we must, before the gyula (redemption), contact Israel."
Nadav Sophie suggested that current events show that the time for the conference is indeed auspicious, citing a verse from Isaiah.
“And on that day the horn of the great ram will be heard; And those who have gone astray, who are in the land of Assyria, and those who are driven out, who are in the land of Egypt, will come and worship Hashem on the Holy Mountain in Jerusalem.”Isaiah 27:13
“The verse indicates that the exiles will worship on the mountain; not in the Temple,”Sophie said. “The exiles will arrive first, and then the Temple will be built. The Jewish connection with the Temple Mount is increasing every day, so it's time to bring back the exiles."
