New Delhi: An 18-year-old Indian-Jewish immigrant was stabbed to death in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona after a fight broke out during a birthday party. Yoel Lehingahel, had recently immigrated to Israel from India less than a year ago. He belonged to the northeastern Indian Jewish community of Bnei Menashe. He had travelled north from his home in Nof Hagalil to visit a friend and fellow immigrant from India.
Meir Paltiel, who works with Indian-Jewish immigrants told the news portal Ynet that a brawl broke out between 20 teenagers during the birthday party, PTI reported.
“Lehingahel was supposed to come home for Shabbat, but in the morning [Friday] at 7 am, a friend called [the family] and told them there had been a fight last night and that he was injured and in hospital,” Paltiel was quoted by the news portal.
“The family didn’t even manage to leave for the hospital in Safed before they were told he had died,” he added.
Those detained on Friday included teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15, the police told the media according to PTI. The police arrested a 15-year-old from the town of Chatzor Haglilit under the suspicion of being involved in the incident.
In a social media post the mayor of Nof Hagalil, Ronen Plot, expressed his grief over the “town’s loss”. He described Lehingahel as a “happy” boy who wanted to join the combat unit of the Israeli army.
“A whole life cut short because of an act of violence, which in my eyes was an act of terror in every way”, Plot said, as per PTI.
A social worker identified as Shlomo, who had helped Lehingahel to settle within the community in Israel said, “he had acclimatised amazingly and was loved by all his friends”. Shlomo added that Lehingahel had never gotten into arguments or fights.
Lehingahel was a member of the Bnei Menashe Jewish community that has been immigrating to Israel over the past two decades from the northeastern Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, PTI reported.
The Bnei Menashe are believed to be descendants of the biblical tribe of Manasseh, one of the Ten Lost Tribes exiled from the Land of Israel more than 2,700 years ago.
(With PTI inputs)