Michael Freund (activist)

Freund is a native New Yorker. He graduated from Princeton University and subsequently earned an MBA in Finance from Columbia University.[1] He also received rabbinical ordination and authored two books. In 1995, he made aliyah and settled in Israel.[1]

After immigrating to Israel, Freund worked in the Communications Department of the Prime Minister's Office and served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[1] A letter from the Bnei Menashe community in northeastern India, addressed to Netanyahu, reached his desk.[2] Freund recalled that he initially found the idea of a lost Israelite tribe in India strange, but sensed something genuine in the letter. He responded on Prime Minister's Office stationery by requesting further information and later joked, "They just didn't know how little authority I actually possessed."[2]

Freund began working with the Bnei Menashe in 1997 and reached an arrangement permitting 100 community members to immigrate each year under the auspices of Amishav. After Netanyahu left office in 1999, Freund joined Amishav and soon ran its operations.[4] Published accounts disagree on when he founded Shavei Israel: Ynet reported 2001, while Echoes & Reflections reported 2002.[2][5] The Times of Israel reported 2004.[4] Freund serves as chairman in a volunteer capacity and forgoes a salary.[2]

Parallel to his organizational work, Freund has written for The Jerusalem Post as a correspondent and syndicated columnist for more than twenty years.[1] He has also contributed essays on Jewish identity and advocacy, including an article urging readers to challenge antisemitism and anti-Jewish bigotry publicly.[6] His awards include the Jerusalem Prize and the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism.[1]

Shavei Israel is a Jerusalem-based nonprofit that works with communities around the world that have Jewish roots or ancestry.[1][2] Its activities have included work with Bnei Anousim in Spain, Portugal, and South America, descendants of the Kaifeng Jewish community in China, and communities in India.[7] It supports Jewish education and assists people who choose formal conversion and aliyah.[2][7] A 2022 report placed its annual financial activity at about NIS 5 million, including approximately NIS 500,000 in annual government support.[8]

In Jerusalem, Freund established the Machon Miriam Jerusalem Seminary, named in honor of his late grandmother, Dr. Miriam Freund-Rosenthal. The institute has assisted descendants of Jews from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal with reconnecting to their roots.[7] Freund has said that Shavei Israel does not seek to convert everyone with Jewish ancestry. Instead, it helps people pursue cultural, national, or spiritual connections with the Jewish people and assists those who independently choose conversion and aliyah.[2]

Beginning in late 2008, Shavei Israel sought to involve Bnei Anousim in the Iberian Peninsula in advocacy for Israel. Freund estimated that tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of people in Spain and Portugal knew of their Jewish heritage and felt a connection to the Jewish people, even without having formally converted.[9] He called their willingness to advocate for Israel an "exciting historical development" and said they could serve as goodwill ambassadors in Iberia and elsewhere.[9]

Freund has also proposed a Birthright-style Israel program for influential visitors, including "clergymen and jurists, prominent doctors, lawyers and scientists, and even sports stars."[10]

The most prominent dimension of Freund's career has been his role in facilitating the immigration of the Bnei Menashe, a community from Manipur and Mizoram in northeastern India. The community claims descent from the ancient Israelite tribe of Manasseh and had written to Israeli prime ministers from David Ben-Gurion onward without receiving a response before a letter reached Freund's office.[7]

After studying the community and meeting its members, Freund arranged with the Interior Ministry for 100 Bnei Menashe a year to come to Israel, undergo formal conversion, and receive citizenship. Shavei Israel subsequently built educational centers for the community in India.[7] In March 2005, following a two-year investigation, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar recognized the community's Jewish roots. Approximately 1,700 Bnei Menashe had made aliyah by the time of the cited report, while 7,232 remained in India awaiting permission to move.[7]

By 2015, the Israeli government had permitted Shavei Israel to bring approximately 900 Bnei Menashe to Israel.[3] Freund has expressed the hope that all remaining members will eventually make aliyah, describing the community's multigenerational connection to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel as "powerful and inspiring."[11] He also described their journey as "the return of the Lost Tribe of Bnei Menashe to Zion after 2,700 years of exile" and called it a "modern-day miracle."[3]

Freund's work has extended to descendants of the Kaifeng Jewish community in China. Shavei Israel assisted seven young men from Kaifeng in coming to Israel in October 2009 and later assisted five women who arrived to study and prepare for formal conversion. The latter group's arrival brought the reported total assisted by the organization to 19.[3] Freund described the women's arrival as "Jewish history in the making" and cited Isaiah 49:12, including the phrase "and these from the land of the Sinim," as a prophetic interpretation of their journey.[3]

Through Shavei Israel, Freund has helped thousands of descendants of Jewish communities reconnect with their roots.[7] The organization has also assisted members of the Bnei Menashe and Kaifeng communities with aliyah and conversion processes.[7][3] Its reach spans several continents, while its Jerusalem institute has served descendants of Jews from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Freund has received the Jerusalem Prize and the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism in recognition of his work.[1]

As a journalist, Freund has used his platform to advocate against antisemitism and for public expressions of Jewish pride. Writing that "seventy years after Auschwitz it should not need to be said, but apparently it still does: Jewish lives matter too," he called on readers to raise their voices against ignorance and anti-Jewish bigotry.[6]

The Bnei Menashe's claimed descent from the ancient Israelite tribe of Manasseh rests on community tradition and remains disputed. The Jewish Virtual Library says that the claim has received little support among scholars, while a Ynet profile presents divided views among historians and anthropologists without reaching a definitive historical conclusion.[11][2] Although Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar recognized the community's Jewish roots in 2005, members entering Israel through Freund's program underwent formal conversion before receiving citizenship.[7]

The placement of early Bnei Menashe arrivals in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — prompted allegations that their immigration was connected to a political agenda. Freund rejected that interpretation, explaining that religious communities there were initially the only communities willing to receive the immigrants during their first year of conversion, when government support was unavailable. He said later groups were directed to communities in northern and southern Israel.[7]

In 2022, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled in a case brought by Sarah Green against Shavei Israel that Green had not signed disputed association documents and that Freund had signed them himself. Judge Naftali Shilo accepted expert handwriting evidence, declared that Green had never been a member or board member of the association, and ordered the Registrar of Associations to correct its records. Shavei Israel called the lawsuit vindictive and connected it to a separate divorce dispute. Green's demand for NIS 50 million from Freund was part of another case and was not an award made in this ruling.[8]