(Removes reference to Gaza Strip in fourth paragraph) By Krittivas Mukherjee MUMBAI, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Dozens of Indians who profess Jewish ancestry were headed for Israel on Monday, the first such group to migrate after rabbinical leaders accepted them as descendants of one of the lost Biblical tribes of Israel. The emigrants are members of the "Bnei Menashe" community in India's remote northeastern states of Mizoram and Manipur, who trace their lineage to one of the 10 "lost tribes" of Israel exiled by an Assyrian empire 27 centuries ago. Last year, rabbinical leaders converted them to Judaism and agreed to bring them back to Israel. There are some 800 Menashe in Israel, most in the West Bank, and 7,000 more in Mizoram and Manipur hoping for their chance to join them. "Altogether, 218 people are coming. The first group is leaving on Monday," Yarban Vatikay, spokesman of the Jewish Agency, an Israel-based group coordinating the migration, told Reuters from Jerusalem. "The remaining will be brought in batches." The migrants will move to the northern Israeli towns of Karmiel and Upper Nazareth, areas which were hit hard by rockets fired by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah this summer during a conflict with Israel. "We are returning to the land of our forefathers. I am very happy," said Eleazor Sela, a Bnei Menashe leaving for Israel with his wife. The migrants left Mizoram last week and stayed at a hotel in Mumbai while they waited for their visas and tickets. In the past, Bnei Menashe members have gone to Israel in small groups on tourist visas, converted to Judaism and stayed on in a deal reached by Jewish supporters and the country's interior ministry. The tale of how the community's ancestors supposedly came to India's northeast -- sandwiched between Bangladesh and Myanmar -- is grand in its historical sweep but short on scientific support. Exiled from ancient Israel by the Assyrian empire around 730 BC, the tribe was apparently forced east and travelled through Afghanistan and China before settling in what is now India's northeast. On the way, they forgot their language, their history and most of their traditions. Their genes were so mixed up they looked like their Mongol neighbours, their memories so faded they spoke a Tibeto-Burmese language and ate pork. Almost all that was left was a name -- Manasseh, Menasia or Manmase, an ancient spirit the community invokes to ward off evil. In 1950, a holy man from a remote village of Mizoram said the Holy Spirit had appeared to him in a vision, to explain the tribe were actually the children of Menashe, a son of the Biblical Joseph. An Indian forensic science laboratory found no trace of a typical Jewish gene in the male Y chromosomes of the Kuki, Chin and Mizo people who inhabit the area, but found some evidence of a possible, but diluted, maternal link to the Near East. Some researchers say certain practices involving animal sacrifice were similar to ancient Hebrew traditions, while an ancient song among one tribe talked of "crossing the Red Sea" with enemies in chariots at their heels.
