AFRICAN JEWISH COMMUNITIES

As we stood to sing the Uganda National Anthem and Hatikvah, I looked around me at the 180 Abayudaya youth, ages 12-30, standing under the three open-sided tents, protected from the mid-day sun. They sang the words to both national anthems with pride, excited to be together participating in the opening of the first Abayudaya Youth Association (AYA) convention.
I was fortunate to be among the guests at the convention which took place from Friday, January 15 to Tuesday, January 19. In late November, I had contacted Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, spiritual leader of the Abayudaya community, expressing my desire to volunteer in the community. Based on my experience working with youth and my professional background with the Masorti Movement, Rabbi Gershom suggested that I work together with the youth leaders to help organize this first Abayudaya youth convention... More.

The Abayudaya Jewish Community is a 100-year-old community of nearly 2,000 Jews who live among their Christian and Muslim neighbors in scattered villages in the fertile green hills of Eastern Uganda. The Abayudaya, whose tribal name means "People of Judah," trace their Jewish origins to the turn of the twentieth century... More.

In 1917, a sect led by Semei Kakungulu, a Ugandan military general, developed a religious belief that included practice close to Judaism. The genesis of Kakungulu’s transformation is complex, coming as a result of political struggles between the British administration of the time and African tribes that had been converted to various forms of Christianity... More.

The Abayudaya Jewish Community is a 100-year-old community of nearly 2,000 Jews who live among their Christian and Muslim neighbors in scattered villages in the fertile green hills of Eastern Uganda. The Abayudaya, whose tribal name means "People of Judah," trace their Jewish origins to the turn of the twentieth century... More.

The village of Putti in Uganda finally has an eruv – a series of strings hung between polls that surround a town. An eruv is a legal device is used by Orthodox Jews to allow them to carry objects outside on Shabbat, an otherwise forbidden activity. However, the Abayudaya tribe of Putti, which professes to live an Orthodox lifestyle, is not, strictly speaking, Jewish. Orthodox Rabbi Seth Mandel returned from Uganda on Wednesday, where he helped the Putti villagers build their first eruv. He said More.

Children wave their hands in the air in response to the question: "Who here is Jewish?" Pupils are taught to chant the Hebrew alphabet and can sing the Israeli national anthem. "We teach them that because all Jewish people are connected to the land of Israel," Headmaster Aerron Kintu Moses explains. More.

Boston based Photographer Richard Sobol has focused on the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda, wildlife, endangered species and the construction, design and ... More.

People don’t usually connect the dots between Africa and Judaism. In popular imagination, the Jews that do exist in Africa are often pictured as trying to escape. The vast majority of the Beta Israel, Ethiopians claiming to be descendants and cultural companions of the Biblical King Solomon, has migrated to Israel. Despite the exodus of Ethiopian Jews, however, there are small pockets of Judaism popping into view throughout Africa. One group in particular, the Abayudaya in Uganda, has overcome substantial hardship to shape international perceptions of what it means to be a Jew. The Abayudaya are unique among Jewish communities in that they do not claim to be descendants from any lost tribes, but instead have created their own unique indigenous culture. They straddle the line between cultures, viscerally connecting the multiple millennia-old traditions. As it turns out, mixing two really old cultures makes powerful new ones.
The origins of the Abayudaya, or “People of Judah,” read like a novel. Samei Kakungulu, a Gandan noble with ties to the British, conquered large territories for the kingdom of Buganda in the late 19th Century. In the beginning of the 20th Century, as his conquests began to form what is modern-day Uganda, Kakungulu began to take more faith in the Old Testament and believed less and less in the New Testament. Kakungulu and his followers decided that this meant that they were Jewish, and formed a small community which is thriving with a population of approximately 1,300 today... More.