African Synagogues

A SYNOPSIS OF THE JEWS OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Laikipia District, Kenya
Jews in the Laikipia District of in eastern Kenya.(Jay A. Waronker, Artist)

This website sets out to be the first-ever comprehensive survey of the extant functioning and former synagogues found in sub-Saharan Africa. These are buildings constructed by white European and Middle Eastern Jews who began settling in central and southern Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This project also includes the synagogues realized by a variety of ethnically-diverse black African communities who either lay claim as descendants of ancient lost Jewish tribes or, as Christians previously, have at their own volition come to freely embrace Judaism in recent years.

The synagogues included in this website can be found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Whereas Jews may have lived or currently reside in others areas of some of the above-mentioned countries or in other sub-Saharan African nations, no Jewish architecture was ever realized or has yet to be built.

A very diverse group of white Jews from throughout the width and breadth of Europe, including both Ashkenazim and Sephardim, along with Jews from Palestine and North Africa came to settle in the sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial period. Whereas there may have been small enclaves of Jews who chose to live (and still do) in an assortment of countries in the region (such as Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, and Madagascar), the Jewish communities only became large and sustainable enough to organize and build synagogues in select nations. These include, as an example, literally hundreds in South Africa not only in the country’s larger cities but in mid-sized ones along with smaller towns. Alongside the synagogues built in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest Jewish base, a handful were also constructed in Mozambique, Zimbabwe (then known as Southern Rhodesia), Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia), Kenya, Namibia (once called South West Africa), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo and later Zaire) and the island of Mauritius.

In the 19th and early 20th century, Aden in Yemen as a British colony was home to a substantial number of Jews. By the early 1930s, the situation of Jewish community among the wider population had deteriorated, and many Jews left at that time. This pattern continued in the 1940s, with some Jews immigrating to Israel, and into the 1950s and 60s. In 1966, the British finally surrendered Aden, and the remaining Jews left with them, moving mostly to Israel or Great Britain. A small contingency of Adenite Jews wanted to remain in the region, however, and they came to settle in Eritrea, Djibouti, or Ethiopia.

Once in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Adenites never fully assimilated with the broader community made up of native Africans who were mostly Christian yet also sometimes Muslim. The Jews, who tended to speak Italian, Arabic, and English versus the indigenous languages, congregated with each other and with European expatriates, especially Italians. They generally did not marry Ethiopians, and the Ethiopians in turn never fully integrated them. The community grew in the 1960s and early 1970s, as relations warmed between Israel and Ethiopia. Hundreds of Israelis moved to Ethiopia to work and advise the government. For the first time, the Addis Ababa synagogue was able to have a rabbi. Yet this golden period did not last long. When the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1974, most of the Israelis went home and many of the Addis Ababa Jews followed. When the communists toppled the emperor in the mid-1970s and installed a dictatorship, even more Jews emigrated, and synagogue services ended. Since that period, with some positive social and political changes in the country, the Adenite Jewish community in Addis Ababa, albeit minute, stabilized. The Succat Rahamim Synagogue has managed to remain operational, yet marginally so for the handful of long-standing and newer-arrival Jews. There has not been a rabbi at this synagogue for more than thirty years, and for a long time it has been difficult to gather a minyan (quorum) for prayer services. The other intact Adenite synagogue, built in 1906 in Asmara Eritrea, likewise remains open yet so marginally so since only one long-standing Jew remains in town to maintain the Greek-revival building.

Sub-Saharan Africa is today home to a number of independent and distinct black Jewish communities scattered around the vast region. The Igbo Jews of Nigeria, named after a region in the southern part of the western African nation, are made up of dozens of enclaves scattered around this area or now living in Abuja, the national capital. The Igbo Jewish population now numbering some tens of thousands is served by many small synagogues. Due to the instability of the Igboland due in part to Muslim Boko Haram fundamentalist terrorism and threats of violence and kidnapping, traveling to this region is currently dangerous, so only the Igbo synagogues located around Abuja are included in this website at this time.

No doubt the most well-known of the black sub-Saharan Jews are the Beta Israel, a black group more commonly known by the pejorative term Falasha (“foreigners” or “exiles”). The Beta Israel once lived in north and northwestern Ethiopia in hundreds of villages and small towns spread over a wide territory. Claimed by some to have an ancient Jewish origin that has never been altogether authenticated despite rounds of DNA testing, for centuries the Beta Israel lived among predominantly Muslim and Christian populations. As a small majority without regular contact with other Jewish communities, for years they managed to maintain a distinct Jewish identity that included the practice of traditional religious customs and long-established lifecycle practices.

Igbo Jews in Abuja, Nigeria.(Jay A. Waronker, Artist)

Beginning in the 1970s and continuing the next two decades, tens of thousands of Beta Israel were evacuated either through Sudan or directly from Ethiopia to Israel through the careful and quiet planning and support of the Israeli and American governments. The Jews left Ethiopia due to the less-than-ideal conditions of a war-torn or depressed country, which included the right to practice their religious freely and live safe and secure lives. Israel also embraced the immigration of Jews, although the settlement of the Beta Israel to the Jewish state did not always go smoothly and without protest. While the majority of the Beta Israel Jews are now citizens of Israel, a few thousand remain in Ethiopia, either ones who chose not to earlier emigrate or who now claim to be Jewish or have come to embrace Judaism in recent years. They too are awaiting relocation once complicated arrangements are finalized. In the meantime, a couple of Beta Israel synagogues are still operational: one in Addis Ababa and another in Gondar. Other synagogues buildings in Wolleka and Ambober still stand, but they have closed as a result of the community’s emigration.

Along with the Beta Israel are the Beta Abraham Jews, another black African enclave living in Ethiopia. This small community maintains one house of prayer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A black African community made of some fifty people practicing Judaism yet not formally converted can be found in village of Sa’a in the West African nation of Cameroon. Collectively known as the Beth Yeshourun, they were former Christians who came on their own to recently embrace Judaism. To date, they have not built a synagogue, although they have begun to collect building materials to do so. A second and more recent Cameroon black Jewish community exists in the coastal city of Doula, yet they likewise do not have a synagogue. Just across the border in Gabon in the towns of Oyem and Bitam are two small black African Jewish communities made up of former Christians who have recently come to adopt Judaism. To date they have not built a synagogue.

Uganda is home to the Abayudaya (from the Lugandan word for “Jewish People” or “People of Judah”) community of Jews, a group made up of the large Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within the country. The black Abayudaya Jews live not at a single place in this region but in a string of unassuming and peaceful villages in the eastern part of Uganda not far from the Kenyan border. There a collection of modest synagogues building over fairly recent years can today be found. These Jewish houses of prayer are located to the east of Mbale, Uganda’s seventh largest city and the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Mbale District and the surrounding sub-region. Mbale, which can be reached by frequent buses from the capital city of Kampala, can serve as the best base for visiting the Abayudayan synagogues.

Christian and Muslim neighbors once looked on the Abayudaya with contempt, but inter-faith relations in recent times have improved, and some now view members of the Abayudaya with respect and admiration. Whereas the Abayudaya Jewish population was estimated at three hundred individuals at the time of the fall of Idi Amin in 1979, the community is said to now number up to two thousand people. Besides the five synagogues located in the towns of Namutumba, Nabugoye, Putti, Namanyonyi, and Nasenyi, Abayudaya Jewish schools have been established in recent years with outside help from individuals and international organizations such as Kulanu. As the Abayudaya community has increased its interactions with outside Jews, mainly those from the United States and Israel, over the past dozen or so years, its religious ideology and customs has shifted towards more mainstream and normative Judaism.

White European Jew in Copper Belt, Zambia. (Jay A. Waronker, Artist)

Since the turn of the 21st century, a relatively small emergent community of black Jews has been forming in Kasuku in the Laikipia District of Kenya. Kasuku is located in the Rift Valley near Ol Kalou, the capital of Nyandurua County, in a green and mountainous area of western Kenya some three and one-half hours from Nairobi. The Jewish community of Kasuku is made up of a few dozen members who on their own volition abandoned their Christian beliefs to methodical embrace Judaism. Although at first Messianic, they came to believe that their religious beliefs were incompatible with Christianity, and it was then that they began their journey towards Judaism. At first they had some contact with the white Jewish community in Nairobi, but they provided them little substantive guidance and assistance. When they learned about the black Abayudaya Jews of neighboring Uganda, they reached out to them. Foreign Jews, included those associated with the international organization KULANU, have stepped in to help the Kasuku Jews as they are now waiting to be instructed in traditional Judaism and formally converted.

The Mwenya, more commonly known as the Lemba, are a southern African ethnic group based mostly in South Africa and Zimbabwe, yet they extend in smaller numbers in Mozambique and Malawi. Numbering the tens of thousands if not 50,000 people, some Lemba may claim to partial common descent to the Jewish people. Today, many Lemba are Christians, Messianic Jews, or Muslims, maintaining several Jewish practices. Genetic analyzes in the 2000s have established a partially Middle-Eastern origin for a portion of the male Lemba population. For years the Lemba Jews did not have a single synagogue, managing by conducting prayer services out of private homes and temporary facilities. Recently the first Lemba synagogue was opened in the village of Mapakomhere in the Masvingo District of Zimbabwe, and more are expected to follow in the near future.

1. Kleiman, Yaakov (2004). DNA and Tradition – Hc: The Genetic Link to the Ancient Hebrews.
Devora Publishing. p. 81.
2. Tudor Parfitt' Remarkable Quest, NOVA, PBS, 22 February 2000, accessed 10 May 2013
3. Shimona, Gideon (2003). Community and Conscience: the Jews in Apartheid South Africa.
Brandeis University Press. p. 178.

Abayudaya Jews in Eastern Uganda(Jay A. Waronker, Artist)

All text and watercolors by Jay. A Waronker.