Although Nairobi has always been home to most of Kenya’s Jews, other towns throughout the country also had small European Jewish communities formed as a result of immigration during World War II:  in and around Nakuru, Kitale and adjacent Eldoret, Gilgil, as well as at Mombasa.  Of the four, only Nakuru ever had a synagogue proper.  In the other places, the Jews prayed in private homes, and they relied on the Nairobi Jewish community to loan them a Sefer Torah and other liturgical objects.   As a consequence of the independence movement and socio-political changes in Kenya, by the early 1960s most of the Jews had left these areas.   By the late 1960s, Jewish life had essentially ceased in these smaller cities and towns.

Nakuru, in central Kenya some 125 miles (two and a quarter hours driving time along a well-paved highway) to the northwest of Nairobi, became home to a relatively sizeable Jewish population by beginning of World War II.  This community was made up of German Jews settling in the area that, due to war-time restrictions was prohibited from living in Nairobi.  It was also comprised of South African Jewish soldiers stationed in and around Nakuru.  Initially the Jews in the area held their Shabbat and holiday prayer services in the Freemasons Lodge, yet around 1941 a donation by Baron Rothschild’s daughter, who was farming in the area, allowed the congregation to purchase a plot of land with a wooden garage.  This building was then converted into a rudimentary sanctuary.   One soldier based in the area, the senior Jewish chaplain of the Union Forces by the name of Captain Menachemson, organized the first prayer service in Nakuru in this converted space in April 1941. 

By 1947, the Nakuru synagogue had acquired its own hazan (cantor), Reverend F. Lichtenstein from Germany, who was a survivor of the Holocaust.  Hazan Lichtenstein had led the first service in Berlin after the city had been liberated by the Russian army in 1945.  For Nakuru’s congregation numbering some one hundred twenty people, a proper synagogue was built in the center of town near Government Road and West Road in 1956.   It was built on a parcel of land to the west (left) side of the main road when arriving from Nairobi.  The synagogue’s foundation stone was laid by the mayor of Nakuru, Councilor Gustav Kramer on April 29, 1956.  This small, architectural modest building, featuring a mixture of stone and exterior plaster walls, large windows along its sides, gabled galvanized metal roof, and a blank façade except for a rounded-arch opening with a Star of David window above, served the community for a few decades until its decline.  

By 1947, the Nakuru synagogue had acquired its own hazan (cantor), Reverend F. Lichtenstein from Germany, who was a survivor of the Holocaust.  Hazan Lichtenstein had led the first service in Berlin after the city had been liberated by the Russian army in 1945.  For Nakuru’s congregation numbering some one hundred twenty people, a proper synagogue was built in the center of town near Government Road and West Road in 1956.   It was built on a parcel of land to the west (left) side of the main road when arriving from Nairobi.  The synagogue’s foundation stone was laid by the mayor of Nakuru, Councilor Gustav Kramer on April 29, 1956.  This small, architectural modest building, featuring a mixture of stone and exterior plaster walls, large windows along its sides, gabled galvanized metal roof, and a blank façade except for a rounded-arch opening with a Star of David window above, served the community for a few decades until its decline.