Numbers

The Ten Lost Tribes

• Reuben
• Simeon
• Issachar
• Zebulun
• Dan
• Naphtali
• Gad
• Asher
• Ephraim
• Manasseh

In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth.—Isaiah 11:11-12.

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.—James 1:1.

In 722 B.C.E., King Sargon II of Assyria conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and deported most of the population, which were the Ten Tribes. The two remaining tribes, Judah and Benjamin, plus the priestly tribe, Levi, continued to live in the southern Kingdom of Judah.

There are various groups that claim to descended from one of the lost tribes. This is only a partial list:

• the Bene Ephraim of India (claim descent from the Tribe of Ephraim)
• the Bene Israel of Afghanistan (claim descent from
• the Bnei Menashe of India (claim descent form the Tribe of Manasseh)
• the Bukharan Jews of Central Asia (claim descent from the Tribes of Naphtali and Issachar)
• the Ethiopian Jews, also known as Beta Israel or Falasha (claim descent from the Tribe of Dan)
• the Igbo Jews of Nigeria (claim descent from the Tribes of Ephraim, Naphtali, Menasseh, Levi, Zebulun, and Gad)
• the Lemba of southern Africa
• the Samaritans of Israel (claim descent from the Tribes of Ephraim and Menasseh)
• the Yemenite Jews

Over the years, historians at one time or another have tried to link various groups with the Ten Lost Tribes. These groups include:

• The inhabitants of pre-Roman Britain
• Native Americans
• The Shindai class of Japan
• The Tatars

How It's Used

"Finally, at last, came the restoration of our national sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael, and the homecoming of Jews from more than 100 lands speaking many more than that number of dialects, which in many instances did not include Hebrew, and bearing even more than that many styles of life, dress, eating, prayer, etc. Now, all at once, questions were raised about the Jewishness of some communities, heretofore regarded longingly from afar as some of 'the Ten Lost Tribes.' Now all at once the variation of liturgies developed in the Diaspora is no longer the private concern of the respective congregations and communities, but is a focus of institutional power play."

"No point dispelling myths until we know what they are. So Feigon begins with a glorious rundown on Western misapprehensions. In the middle ages, Tibetan Buddhists were reckoned to be Christians whose religion had turned peculiar. Later scholars decided they were actually one of the lost tribes of Israel, which is why Hitler sent agents to measure their heads."

"About 1,100 years ago, a Hebrew-speaking man named Eldad Ha-Dani appeared before the Jewish community of Tunisia and gave it the remarkable news that he belonged to the biblical tribe of Dan, one of the fabled 10 lost tribes of Israel. He lived, he said, in 'the fertile and gem-rich "land of Havilah" near "the seven kings of Cush" -- the biblical name for Ethiopia' -- alongside three other lost tribes, Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

"For Hillel Halkin, author of Across the Sabbath River, which is also an amazing tale of a lost tribe, Ha-Dani was the first to give the lost tribes a geographical identity, even if he himself was probably an impostor and the tribes he claimed to live among did not exist. In the centuries that followed, as Mr. Halkin shows in some fascinating background chapters, the lost tribes generated an enormous wealth of claims and speculation. But near the end of the 19th century, critical scholarship put to rest the notion that any of the tribes -- sent into exile by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser in the eighth century B.C. -- still existed."

"There is no Chinese documentation of this alleged circumnavigation -- since the records were destroyed by the anti-maritime lobby of Zhu Di's successors -- so Menzies has had to cast far and wide for hard or soft evidence. The European maps, if one can believe their dating and authenticity, suggest earlier exploration; but there is no hard evidence that it was Ming admirals who provided them. In fact, the roster of possible early visitors to the Americas is dizzying -- Vikings, Romans, Egyptians, Brendan, the Lost Tribes of Israel, Orcadians, Polynesians, Japanese, Indians, Burmese, Koreans, earlier waves of Chinese, even extra-terrestrials -- and most of their visits would have predated Zheng He's colleagues by centuries, if not millennia."

"But although the man described by Francis is finely portrayed, he never sheds the intellectual apparel of his age. His abolitionist views were so aberrant that they lacked any echo for another century. His stance toward America's Indians -- whom he suspected to be one of Israel's lost tribes -- looked to the future only in the sense that he believed their conversion would herald Christ's rule on Earth. As for the dislike of hairpieces, could anything be more Puritanical -- and less evocative of the American dream -- than a mistrust of makeovers?"

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