New Delhi  - A group of 200 Indian Jews are set to emigrate to Israel in January after the Israeli government approved their request, news reports said Monday.

The newly recognized Jews belong to the Bnei Menashe tribe of India's north-east and live in Mizoram and Manipur states, IANS news agency reported.

Rabbinical leaders in Jerusalem said the Israeli government approved the request for 200 people to emigrate from the states of Mizoram and Manipur, IANS quoted community members as saying.

"Many people are waiting to go to their promised land. We are yet to get the details of who would actually go," Jeremia Hnamte, administrator of the Mizoram chapter of the Shavei Israel Organisation (SIO), said.

He said a communique from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said the Indian Jews were expected in January by a special flight and would be met by Olmert at the Ben-Gurion Airport in Jerusalem.

The SIO is a group headquartered in Jerusalem which searches for "lost tribes" of Israel and helps them return to their "promised land."

Rabbinical leaders announced in 2006 that some 6,000 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe were descendants of ancient Israelites, or one of the Biblical 10 lost tribes.

The recognition came after tribe members sent scores of applications seeking to migrate to Israel.

According to Israeli law, every Jew enjoys the right to return to Israel.

After the tribe was recognized as Jews, a group of rabbis visited Mizoram in 2006 and converted the first batch of 218 Mizo tribal people to Judaism.

Over the next six months, the rabbi gave the new converts lessons in Hebrew and Judaism.

At least 1,000 people from Mizoram and Manipur have migrated to Israel since 1994. The last group of 208 Mizo Jews left for Israel in 2006.

Mizoram is a predominantly Christian state, while Manipuris largely follow Hinduism. Most Jews in the two states were Christian by birth.

The converts share many practices in common with traditional Jews, Hnamte said. They keep mezuzahs or parchment inscribed with verses of the Torah at the entrance to their homes and men wear a kippah or headgear during prayers. (dpa)