AVI BINUR: MERCY GATE בָּרוּךְ הַשֵׁם

Elisheva: Although few know it, Indonesia has a buried Jewish heritage, dating back 400 years. Both Rabbis Singer and Gutnik believe the Jewish prophecy, regarding the return of the lost tribes, Israelites who disappeared millennia ago, may come to pass in the form of converts like us. Who knows; maybe our recent conversions is really its fulfillment!

||Elisheva Wiriaatmadja at the Western Wall in Jerusalem||
Sumatra: Benjamin Verbrugge (left) teaches his sons how to read a torah scroll, in 2012. Written in Hebrew, the Torah is the foundational text of the Jewish faith. (Benjamin Verbrugge/PoliCu)

Walang ligaya sa lupa na hindi dinilig ng luha.

Filipino Proverb: There is no earthly bliss not watered by tears.

Bnei Lot are of an ancient origin. In the migratory tradition of Ruth begun more than two millennia ago, a remnant of David and Solomon migrated into Maritime Southeast Asia which comprises what is now Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, and Singapore, as well as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, with a sizeable minority of Malays migrating back to their tribal allotments in Sephardic Judah, besides Terrestrial and Figurative Jordan.