government in 1917 , raised the possibility of a return of the tribes not simply to
the Jewish people, but specifically to a Jewish polity.
It is here that the long history told in this book reaches its culminating
point. Kook returns us to the prophet Isaiah’s first call, from millennia before,
for the ten tribes’ return—a call issued, like Kook’s, in Jerusalem. Kook’s call for
the restoration of the ten tribes to Palestine is directly linked to Isaiah’s original
prophecy of their ultimate return to the Holy Land and rests also on the
millennia-long history of theological and geographical searchings for the ten
tribes. All previous strands of pursuit—theological, geographical, scholarly,
and imperial—converge in Kook’s simple analysis of the history of his time.
Isaiah spoke of a highway that would bring the ten tribes from Assyria back to
the Holy Land. That highway initially stood outside history and outside geog-
raphy. But on its way to Kook’s vision, that highway was, as it were, paved—
brought into real history and geography—by the numerous seekers and
searches recounted here.
And indeed, most of this has come to pass. With the creation of the state of
Israel in 1948 , the world saw the establishment of the first and sole institution
in history vested with the political power to declare certain groups to be of the
ten lost tribes. Through formal, state-dictated processes, Israel, whenever it
wants to, can now overcome loss.
New Study Shows: Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Western Europe in
Late Antiquity Was More Dramatic than the Loss of the Ten Tribes
—Headline inHaaretz(February 11 , 2007 )
On January 11 , 2000 , the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) convened for the
gathering of the Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and the Diaspora
(‘Aliyah, Klitah,andTefutsot). On the agenda was “the bringing [to Israel] of the
groups of the Benei Menasseh who are living as Jews in India.”^73 The people in
question, the Mizu, are a group from southeastern India. In addition to the
chair, Naomi Blumenthal, and three other parliamentarians, there was a large
group present, among them several officials from various relevant ministries.
Also in attendance were several officials from the Jewish agency which over-
sees Jewish immigration to Israel. So too was Hillel Halkin, a prominent
Israeli-American writer and translator, author ofAcross the Sabbath River: In
Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel,which recounts his journeys to the remote
corners of southwest China and northern Thailand in the company of the
Jerusalem rabbi Eliyahu Avichail.^74 Avichail, founder and leader of Amishav
(My People Return), a society dedicated to the finding and bringing back of the
lost tribes, was also present. Indeed, the meeting had been convened after