Nyanza Orthodox Jewish community -Uganda

A Tale of Jewish Reconciliation in Uganda

In a world where conflicts dominate headlines, it is refreshing to share a story of hope and reconciliation, in this case, two Jewish communities in Uganda, one Orthodox the other Conservative, who have been in tension for a generation now, recently buried the hatchet and have come together to plan our futures creatively. As a rabbi of one of the Orthodox communities, it was a moving experience.

For those of you who didn’t even know that there was an indigenous Jewish community in Uganda, let me give you crash course. The Abayudaya—Luganda for “Jewish People”—are a small Jewish community, about 3,000 strong, located in Eastern Uganda. We are spread throughout various communities/villages surrounding the slopes of Mt Elgon, including: Nabugoya, Namanyonyi, Nyanza, Nasenyi, Putti, Namutumba, Nangolo and Nalubembe.

The origins of our community go back to the 19th century, when British Missionaries introduced Semei Kakungulu, a local military leader and mercenary—just being truthful—to the Bible in the 1880s, leading to Kakungulu’s conversion to Protestantism.

Promised support and territorial control by British authorities, Kakungulu conquered areas of eastern Uganda, bringing them under British influence. But the British promises to Kakungulu did not match the reality when they confined his rule to a small area in what is now the city of Mbale, and he began to feel disillusioned, first with them, then with their reading of the Bible.

At first, Kakungulu was drawn to the newly formed Society of the One Almighty God, a unique blend of Christianity, Judaism, and Christian Science, founded in 1914 by Musajjakawa Malaki (hence, it is known as the Malakite Church and its members as Bamalaki). But he soon realized that he was not drawn to the New Testament and the teachings about Jesus, but only to the Old Testament, i.e., the Hebrew Bible.

To strike out on his own, Kakungulu moved his family and followers to an area a few miles north of Mbale, in the shadow of extinct volcano Mount Elgon, where he founded the Kibina Kya Bayudaya Absesiga Katonda, “The Community of Jews who trust in the Lord,” where the group dedicated itself to the study of Hebrew Scripture in Swahili translation. By the end of the 1910s, Kakungulu circumcised himself and his sons, and demanded his followers do the same. From that point on, this community considered itself Jewish, though they had yet to make contact with the larger Jewish world. The community was also sadly lacking in the mechanics of Jewish practice.

Fortuitously, this changed in the early 1920s, when a foreign Jew called Yosef visited the fledging community. We do not have good information on this person, though it is widely believed that he was Ashkenazi. Yosef taught Kakungulu and his followers about the rules of Kashrut, the basics of Hebrew, Jewish holidays, and gave them a copy of the full Hebrew Tanach with English translation.

At this point, Abayudaya practice became much more classically “Jewish,” though we still had yet to make contact with the larger Jewish community. When Kakungulu died in 1928, Samson Mugombe Israeli, the next leader of the community—now over 3000 strong—continued his practice of self-isolating for protection.

The community hit a major crisis point during the Idi Amin administration (1971–1979), due to this president’s blatant antisemitism. (An entertaining irony is that in the 1976 film, Raid on Entebbe, Amin’s character is played by the Jewish actor, Yaphet Kotto.) Amin issued several edicts making things difficult for Jews, thereby reducing the community’s number to a mere handful of adherents. Synagogues were forcibly closed and Jewish rituals and holidays declared illegal.

With Amin’s overthrow, synagogues and schools were reopened, and the Abayudaya began its slow recovery. The Abayudaya continued in its isolation from the Jewish community until 2002, when a group of five Conservative rabbis from the United States converted 400 members of the community. The next year, Gershom Sizomu of Nabagogye, whose father had been arrested for building a sukkah in the Amin years, travelled to the US and studied for ordination at AJU’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. Graduating in 2008, he returned to become the first native-born sub-saharan rabbi in Africa and eventually became the Chief Rabbi of Uganda and a member of Parliament. But this represents only one part of the Abayudaya community.

The Putti community, and some neighboring villages, had a more traditional bent. Eventually, they were in touch with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, who, in 2016, led a Beit Din that performed an Orthodox conversion for this part of the community, who were more comfortable with this movement than the Conservative movement. Some of us then went to Efrat to study for ordination, such as Enosh K. Mainah, now rabbi of Putti, and the author, now rabbi of Kehilat Shalom- Nyanza Orthodox Jewish community.

From even before this, and certainly from this point on, the various leaders of Abayudaya competed for influence on the remaining undecided community members, which brought about some tension. Especially tricky was (and is!) the problem of recognition by the State of Israel, which would enable members to study in Israel or even make Aliyah without trouble. Each group claimed that being part of it’s community would be more beneficial in this regard.

Sadly, this conflict resulted in loss of mutual communication, understanding, interactions and social ties between the two factions, and no individuals would attend their rival’s social events. This went on for close to two decades, but now, finally, reconciliation has begun, following a series of initiatives led by Community elders who suggested there was still no room for continued fight amongst brethren.

We recently established the Abayudaya Rabbinical Union which brought together Spiritual leaders from all communities, which has helped to unite people and bring them together for social events.

In the past few months, a series of functions such as bar/bat mitzvah, brit milah, and funerals have been conducted jointly. In my own community in Nyanza Parish, over 400 people from all communities attended a Bat Mitzvah function at Nasenyi Synagogue.

We have not (yet) come to resource sharing or economic cooperation—each community struggles to supply its one needs independently. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that there is room to grow here too. In fact, we have begun to plan for the construction of a new yeshivah in my village that will serve members of all other Abayudaya communities. With all members cooperating with each other and accepting our similarities and differences, who knows what we can accomplish.