“I grew up in New York in a nice Jewish bubble, where everyone around me who was Jewish looked the same as me. If you grow up in that environment that is what you assume Jews look like and act like. But then you come to Israel and walk the streets of Jerusalem and you see that they come in all different shapes, colors and sizes. To say that someone looks Jewish doesn’t make sense anymore.”
He added, “Yemenite Jews and American Jews do not look anything alike, but we are both Jews. We both belong to the same religion, nation and family. The same applies to Ethiopian Jews and Bnei Menashe Jews. Some people I think find it difficult to break out of that narrow confine of making certain assumptions of what Jews ought to look like.”
So how many of the tribes have been located?
Michael says there is definite knowledge that four out of the twelve have been identified. Most Jews currently assume that they are from the tribe of Judah.
It is also believed that the tribes of Benjamin and Simeon due to their small size according to certain sources assimilated into Judah.
After Judah, then there are the Kohanim/Leviim, the Jewish priests that have been identified, then Ethiopians which have a tradition that they are from the tribe of Dan, and now the Bnei Menashe.
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