Reunited with Our Ancient Faith: Practicing Judaism in Uganda.

SCHULTZ, KENNETH ; MEYER, MATTHEW

SEVERAL YEARS AGO MATTHEW MEYER WENT TO TOM Kippur services at Nairobi Hebrew Congregation in Nairobi, Kenya. He sat next to the lone black man in the congregation, made up of about 25 European, American, and Israeli Jews. Meyer asked the young man if he was from Ethiopia. Gershom Sizomu, prepared to explain himself, was equipped with a Ugandan passport with the name "Rabbi Gershom Sizomu" and articles about his community of black Jews, unrelated to the Ethiopians, who daven in mud hut synagogues. While they called themselves Jews and observed laws of the Torah, they neither claimed to be descendants of Abraham nor had they ever been converted. One month later, Meyer visited the community.

The following year I heard about the Abayudaya [1] when the Director of my study abroad program in Kenya informed me of the community's existence. Because of the relatively short distance from the Kenyan border to Mbale, Uganda, I was able to spend three weeks living with congregants. After my first Shabbat on Nabugoye (NAB-uh-GOY-ya) Hill, I remember sitting with Bayudaya elders and feeling confounded by their questions that easily conveyed their eagerness to learn and embrace whatever they could get their hands on to make their Jewish practice more devout. While I had no trouble admitting that I did not have the answers, many seemed to overlook this and continued to bombard me with religious inquiries, such as, "How can we keep our food warm on Shabbat without lighting a match? We do not want to break Jewish law but many of us, mostly the children, get sick from eating cold food." More concerned with the health of the community than their religious observance, I rationalized, "Isn't it better to avoid gett ing sick even if it means breaking the Shabbat rule?" Nobody responded. The community considers breaking the laws of Shabbat, written in the Torah, a capital offense, punishable by God. In fact, they believe that every human act is scrutinized or rewarded through the eyes of God.

When queried about the Holocaust, one member replied, "Jews in Germany might have sinned and therefore God was punishing his people. I am not sure of this because what happened is so bad, but God tests his people. It says so in the Torah." [2] When asked about the miraculous recovery of Israeli hostages at Entebbe airport in 1976, another responded, "Ah, God protects the jewish people. We can only look to God." [3]

A more vivid example they discussed concerned the day an Abayudaya leader, Aaron Kintu Moses, forgot Shabbat about 25 years ago. [4] There was a drought and a famine throughout the region, and, in exchange for some bread, the ten-year-old boy and his siblings Zechariah, Joab, and Miriam delivered mud to make bricks to his neighbor's home. After sunset, the four returned to their home, filthy from their work. Though carrying the mud exhausted the children's energy, Aaron recalled climbing up the hill to his own mud hut home, satisfied and happy. The children clenched the bread; during such a time of dire need, even the youngest children knew the tremendous value of the food. They also knew their father would be pleased for their contribution.

But it was Friday, and they had reached home after the sun had set, after the start of Shabbat. They stepped into their home. Their father looked down at them and said, "Ah, have you forgotten it is Shabbat? If I do not punish you, I know God will, and you are going to die. So if I punish you, I know I am saving you from Shabbat. But I cannot punish you until after Shabbat."

The children did not eat dinner and went straight to bed. The next morning, their father reminded them of their grave sin and their forthcoming punishment as they went for prayers. Miriam and Aaron were the most terrified of the group. They knew from past mistakes that their father would lash each of them four times with a wooden stick. After prayers, the two children hid in the bushes.

"We knew we had to escape," Aaron recalls. "We hid in the bushes. We found a spot where there were many, many tomatoes, so we ate them all night." The whole neighborhood learned the two children were missing, and the following morning, a woman found them while picking tomatoes. Quickly, they created a story.

"We're picking them to please our parents," the two guilty children told the woman. She brought Aaron and Miriam back to their home. Their father threw away all the tomatoes and demanded they lie down. He lashed each child four times. "'You are now saved from the trouble that would befall you,"' Aaron remembered his father telling him. "I knew that respecting Shabbat was very important," Aaron concluded.

Initially, it was difficult to understand how the fear of God could penetrate every aspect of their lives. How could anyone blame Jews for the atrocities committed during the Holocaust? Moreover, how could anyone conceive of God emerging on the scene to punish a young boy who innocently breaks Shabbat?

Nevertheless, for Meyer and myself, it was a breakthrough of sorts: we saw how religion, our religion, could play such a commanding role in a person's life. Witnessing a community's embrace of Jewish rituals as if the consequence of not adhering to them was tangible, as if God's scorn would suddenly appear from the skies and descend upon the entire congregation--stood in direct contrast to our liberal American Jewish upbringing, one which we often took for granted.

Perhaps the Abayudaya community resembles the Judaism that was once observed. Professor Israel Shahak notes that, prior to 1780, "the precepts of religion governed the details of daily behavior in all aspects of life, both social and private, among Jews themselves as well as in their relation to non-Jews. It was then literally true that a Jew could not even drink a glass of water in the home of a non-Jew." [5] In fact, the Community's approach to religion, which is firmly grounded in their awe of God, evokes images of the Ancient Israelites who lived by an absolute faith in Yahweh. [6]

While the Bayudaya story has recently stimulated interest from a growing number of Jews--nearly a hundred visitors to the Community in the past five years and thousands of visitors to the Community's web site--there are few published materials on the Community except for brief synopses of personal experiences and past works that delve into the Abayudaya's early history. Biographies of Kakungulu, articles by missionaries H. B. Thomas and Sir John Gray, as well as a recently published study by Michael Twaddle of the University of London, [7] chronicle his creation of a new religious community. Arye Oded, a former Israeli Ambassador in East Africa, has produced a study of the Abayudaya that focused on the years after Kakungulu. Oded's book, [8] based upon field visits and the oral testimony of Abayudaya elder Samson Mugumbe, described the Judaic practices of the community that he labeled "an unusual phenomenon in Jewish history."[5] While Oded's work is a valuable one in understanding the Abayudaya's Jewish cla im, it does not attempt to describe current community practice. Recent articles by Irwin Berg and Meyer and Schultz [10] depict Shabbat visits to the community. But the Abayudaya lack an extensive written account of their existence, of their founding and of their unique practices, relying instead on oral culture to teach younger generations.

The Abayudaya story [11] begins in 1919 with a man named Semei Lwakilenzi Kakungulu. Kakungulu was a brilliant military leader, growing up during a time when the British moved inland from the East African Coast, looking to expand their empire. Knowing that they would be unable to create a colony or a protectorate without the aid of Ugandans, the British solicited the services of Kakungulu, a renowned elephant hunter who had the reputation of being both wild and fearless. He did not disappoint. In addition to conquering lands in Eastern and Central Uganda, he helped the British establish and disseminate Christianity. In fact, many of Kakungulu's battles were against Muslims who also wished to increase their riches while spreading the word of Allah. [12]

Kakungulu performed these functions in hopes that one day the British would make him a king over one of Uganda's ethnic kingdoms. Despite overtures from the British, Kakungulu was just another pawn, albeit an important one. After fruitless attempts to move up the political hierarchy, Kakungulu finally gave up. Truly disgusted with politics, he distanced himself completely from the British and immersed himself in religious study.

At the time, Kakungulu called himself a Protestant, but his practice was more an amalgamation of Jewish, Christian, and traditional Abaganda belief. [13] That soon changed as he committed himself day and night to reading a Bible that had been translated into his local Luganda language. Kakungulu discovered what he called "errors" in the British practice of Christianity. He thought that the Sabbath should be observed on Saturday instead of Sunday. He also rebuked the British reliance on western medicine to cure illness. Semei thought the medicines brought by the British were an affront to God's power to heal the sick. His new belief led him to join an African Christian sect, the Malakites, who followed more closely the written word of both the Old and New Testament. Again, however, he uncovered "errors," none larger than the exclusion of circumcision from their religious practice.

Like Abraham, Kakungulu made the covenant of circumcision and then proceeded to perform the ritual on all his sons. Though some African groups practiced circumcision, the rite of passage for males occurred between the ages of 13 and 18. The Malakites protested Kakungulu's practices, claiming, "only the Jews circumcise their newborn." As oral tradition recounts, Kakungulu replied, "Then from this day on, I am a Jew." [14]

Kakungulu instructed his believers to follow both the Old and New Testament until a man named only as Yusufu-according to Abayudaya folklore--came to visit. Samson Mugumbe, a 94-year-old elder recalls, "Nobody knew why he came to Kampala. We just knew he was a Jew from the Middle East." [15] There, Yusufu coincidentally met Kakungulu, who invited him to see the Abayudaya congregation. Fascinated by the Abayudaya's commitment to practice Judaism without ever reading or hearing about the religion, Yusufu became the community's first instructor, teaching the Abayudaya the fundamentals of Judaism. He taught the community that Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, which led members to carefully tear out the New Testament from every Bible they owned.

Yusufu further suggested that the community use Biblical names for children. According to Mugumbe, "Yusufu came in 1926, and said everyone should have a Hebrew name, so many Bayudaya added a name from the Bible." [16] Finally, the Jewish visitor taught the laws of Kashrut. A form of Judaism was finally emerging. In 1928, Kakungulu completed a book about his new faith that was as important to the community as the Old Testament itself. Essentially, it served as a guide to understanding and practicing his version of Jewish belief. In that same year, however, Kakungulu became very ill. He refused to take medication because he still considered synthetic cures an affront to God, he died shortly thereafter-leaving thousands of followers to the group that would later call itself "The Society for the Propagation of Judaism in Uganda."

While the community experienced periods of growth and stagnation that included sporadic contact with Israel, their greatest test for survival came when Idi Amin began his reign of terror in 1971. From the words of Joab Keki, a former chairman of the community, "When Amin took over he was a friend of the Jews, the Israelis, but then later he changed when he went to Libya. Qadaffi was the great enemy of Israel. So Qadaffi told Amin that you are now an Islam man. He also said, 'I understand that you are working with the Israelites but it is against Islamic law to be a friend of the Jews.' That was in 1972. When Amin came back from Libya, he changed." [17]

A subsequent trip to Jerusalem only added to Amin's growing hatred of Jews. The Israeli government snubbed an Amin aid proposal to assist him in invading Tanzania. In September 1972, in a letter to Golda Meir, Amin defended Hitler's mass murders of Jews; shortly thereafter, the US Embassy recommended that all Jewish personnel leave the country. By 1974, Israel had severed all relations with Uganda. All Israeli contacts with the Abayudaya were broken. [18]

Amin placed restrictions on religious practice and began to dismantle the Abayudaya community. In 1974, the Ugandan leader declared his nation an Islamic state. [19] He wanted to eliminate all small religions in favor of three major ones, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. According to many Abayudaya members, the Government would shower those who converted to Islam with gifts of food, an Islamic robe, and for a few, even a trip to Mecca. Further, Amin ordered that people work on Saturday, while Friday and Sunday became days for worship. Synagogues were torn down; others collapsed from weathering and vandalism. Government decrees outlawed most Abayudaya practices and community gatherings. Though many Bayudaya converted to Islam for the security and benefits offered by local Islamic leaders, a small contingent remained observant. They said prayers and lit candles in their homes and in caves at night. Services were kept short, and Shabbat was no longer a day of rest. For Joab Keki, who was a young boy at th e time, his father continually reminded him of the importance of Judaism. He once told Joab, "Judaism is like a big, wide oak tree. It is nearly impossible to climb and we will struggle with every step we take and every branch we touch. But it is very special and only for us to climb." [20]

It was not until June of 1976 that the fragile community saw and felt the familiar yet tangible presence of God. When Israel successfully performed the undercover mission to rescue the hostages at Entebbe airport, one only had to travel to several small village homes in eastern Uganda to understand the import and magnitude of the event. According to Joab, the miraculous preservation of life was a testament to God's covenant with the Jews. Following the downfall of Amin's regime, the community rejoiced, and there was a sub sequent renaissance of Judaic practices in Eastern Uganda.

However, the hostility toward the community remained for some time. Many Christians and Muslims resented, in particular, the community's property claim to Nabagoye Hill. The contention escalated to the point that Muslim squatters, carrying guns, invaded the community as they slept outside beneath a Sukkah. They threatened to kill one Abayudaya leader. Fortunately, the leader was celebrating Sukkot at another synagogue. The issue was not resolved until several years later, when an Mbale court finally held in favor of the community, acknowledging that Semei Kakungulu had indeed passed title to the land to the Abayudaya. While no incidents have occurred recently, many of the Abayudaya children are still taunted at school for their alleged participation in "killing Jesus Christ."

Around Mbale, Uganda there are five synagogues, four of which use the structure outlined by Semei Kakungulu, following their own unique calendar and practicing their traditions. The other house of worship, however, continually alters its practice to conform more closely to world Judaism. In this way, there is a fascinating interplay between modern Judaic practice, reformed over the centuries by societal influences, and traditional Ugandan culture. On the surface, there is little difference between the structure of Shabbat service atop Nabugoye Hill in Mbale, Uganda, and a typical conservative service in the United States; the Siddurim have been donated by conservative American congregations. Prayers, such as Adon Olam, Aleinu, and the Ashrei, are sung in Hebrew with melodies familiar to me from my own childhood. Moreover, there is a lengthy Torah service that follows the traditional format of seven Aliyot interspersed with readings from the Torah. The Community, in fact, now has three Torahs that sit in an " ark." There is separate seating for men and women, and it is only recently that women have begun to recite prayers from the bima.

But the similarities should not be mistaken to extend beyond these imitative approaches. While the community keeps an open mind to frequent suggestions from Jewish visitors from abroad, the underlying belief system remains intact. And this system is essentially uniform throughout the villages of Uganda.

For instance, while Christians show their reverence to Jesus and Muslims to Allah, the Abayudaya share a feeling of devotion toward the Torah. One song the community made up is entitled "I love the Torah," with one line reading: "I love the Torah, the Torah is my life." When visitors come, typically Rachel Namudosi, a 14-year-old girl, will lead the community in a riveting and spiritual rendition of the song. The passion and sincerity reveals the dominant role Judaism plays in their lives. This emotional height which transcends all aspects of life exists in other religious communities of the region as well. As one Christian elder offered, "We are all trying to get inside the house of God. Whether it be through the window or the door, it is the mission of all of us." [21] Their expressions of belief systems are also similar. In fact one of the favorite sayings among the Abayudaya is Arabic, "En cha la," meaning 'if God wishes.' Following a funeral that was attended by friends, relatives, and passers-by, the l eader of the Abayudaya community shared, "Here, everyone attends a funeral. It is a sign of disrespect if you go by when a funeral is taking place. You must stop to show respect. Though this was an Islamic funeral, ours is not very different. Only the prayers are." [22]

At the center of this communal approach is the belief that God has a hand in every aspect of life. Whether a famine lasts for a long period of time or an infant dies from disease, the respected Creator has rendered a challenge to that community or family.

Perhaps it is merely an ancient faith embedded within a community that is hard for us to see as anything more than very poor. Seeing their homes, dilapidated mud huts with collapsing and rusted iron sheet roofs with little light and dirt floors, suggests that this is a community facing ultimate poverty. Very few members of the community have electricity, and not a single member has a phone or running water. Toilets are holes in the ground shaded by thick banana leaves. Children, who often sleep on mats on the dirt floors, may eat only once a day, while spending much of each day carrying water or working on the family's subsistence farm. Children wear torn and tattered second hand American clothing. Most families own few possessions, perhaps a radio that may sit idly until enough money is raised to buy batteries. Some families may go weeks without any money. An intense reliance on agriculture breeds an intense dependence on nature. Regular drought and floods, and ensuing famine, leave the entire region at the mercy of Mother Nature. Civil wars, that continued sporadically for 25 years through 1986, and the recent spread of the AIDS virus, where the death rates in Uganda are among the highest on the planet, further threaten the community, as does a health care system inadequately prepared to treat frequent cases of malaria. And recently, it has gotten worse. Between 1980 and 1994, the life expectancy in Uganda dropped from 52 years to 42 years.

Yet their apparent poverty does not seem to interfere with their ability to live what they consider to be full and Jewish lives. Their condition, relative to their neighbors, is not an impoverished one. For thousands of years, communities in this region of the world have been at the mercy of nature, in birth, death, and basic survival, just as was true for the Ancient Israelites. In many respects, their environment guides them to practice the Biblical forms of Judaism they so eagerly seek. A festival such as Sukkot, the Jewish feast to sanctify the fruits of the harvest, observed symbolically through much of the Western world, has literal and especially significant meaning when celebrated on subsistence farms.

What makes the Abayudaya unique compared to other communities that identify themselves as Jewish is that the members readily admit that they are not Jewish according to Jewish law. They do not claim an ancestral heritage nor has any Jewish visitor performed a mass conversion. On the one hand, their non-affiliation to a Jewish tribe makes their genuine commitment all the more impressive. They practice Judaism because they have chosen this way of life regardless of the difficulties of fitting into Ugandan society. For instance, their practice of circumcision after eight days contrasts sharply with traditional circumcision of teenage males. One Abayudaya offered, "Growing up I was constantly harassed for being circumcised so young. People called me a coward. Often I would want to participate in their celebrations which includes eating and dancing in the streets, but I was kicked and told to go home. These were people my age who I went to school with. It was very hard." When Jewish visitors hear these type of st ories and observe the Bayudaya's Jewish practices, an instant respect emerges, one that frequently leads to donations in terms of money, Jewish learning materials, and religious symbols.

On the other hand, the non-connection to Jewish lineage poses a significant hindrance; religious, and especially Israeli, Jews who have not visited the community often question the Bayudaya's genuineness. In a 1995 interview, Yitzhack Ozeri, Second Secretary of the Israeli Embassy in Nairobi, stated, "They're Africans who call themselves Jews. Do you have any idea what would happen if we convert all these people? We will have millions of people converting to Judaism just to receive the benefits offered to any Jew living in Israel." [23] Ozeri said he received too many groups like the Abayudaya to consider their case seriously. He cited one instance when two Kenyan women who prayed on Saturday came to his office claiming to be Jews. After two or three questions, Ozeri discovered the group believed in Jesus and were clearly Christians. He said he has no reason to believe the Abayudaya are different.

This response to the community practically assures that the Abayudaya will never be accepted by Israeli orthodoxy, a dream of many members. For many groups with a Judaic claim, such as the Lemba of Zimbabwe, their acceptance hinges on proof of lineage to the ancient Israelites. The recent DNA research by Tudor Parfitt has proved invaluable in substantiating such claims. [24] The Abayudaya, as asserted above, make no such claim. Thus, while the community does not have to experience the arguably degrading process of proving their lineage like the Lemba, their fate remains forever bound to the rural hills of Mbale, Uganda, with whatever twists and turns the politics of the day may dictate.

Such Judaic practitioners, observing the laws of Torah with no claim of Jewish lineage, are uncommon throughout history, though not unheard of. Perhaps the best known and most disputed are the Khazars, who some historians claim turned to Judaism over one thousand years ago to preserve their political fortunes. [25] If such a claim is true, some have argued that most of today's Ashkenazim descend not from Abraham but from a group that converted and, over time, embraced Judaic practice. More recently, a group from San Nicando, Italy in 1948 and a group of Inca Indians from Trujillo, Peru in the 1980's both were converted by an orthodox bet din. Both the Indian and Italian groups embraced Judaism far from any other Jewish community. Virtually all members of both communities later immigrated to Israel.

Even though the Abayudaya are not recognized as a Jewish community, they have been visited by a growing number of Jews from the United States, Europe, and Israel. In the last five years, the number of people to visit and celebrate a Shabbat with their Ugandan brothers and sisters has increased dramatically. When we first visited the community six years ago, there had been no other visitors in over one year. Three years ago, during a two week visit, the community hosted six other visitors, from Israel, Europe, and the United States. One was a Hasidic rabbi who had returned to Nabugoye Hill not only to participate in Abayudaya prayer but also to teach the community how to build a Mikveh and to lay the foundations for building a Yeshiva atop Semei Kakungulu's most treasured hill. Are these visitors merely fascinated by the Abayudaya's practice, or does the interest run deeper, touching a chord that resurrects an important aspect of religion that only shows up in pockets of religious orthodoxy in the United Stat es?

For us, the answer is clear. When we hear the Lecha Dodi sung to a beautiful native Buganda rhythm, echoing through the open windows of the community's only permanent synagogue, one with no doors or windows, and women methodically preparing for Shabbat, hiking up hills carrying 10 gallon jugs of water on their heads, there is a certain degree of comfort and belonging. They look nothing like us, but behave in a way that shows great reverence for the Torah that ancestors of our people have lived and died for. They feel more reverent in fact than many of us, descendants of those ancestors, ever show. For us, an understanding of the multiple layers of Judaism, and even some of its ancient history, shines with each passing word and song of a far-away community, only recently turned on to the Torah.

KENNETH SCHULTZ studies law and social work at Washington University. He wrote a thesis on the Abayudaya in 1994. MATTHEW MEYER studies law at the University of Michigan, is a certified elementary school teacher, and has made annual visits to the Abayudaya since 1992. They originally met each other on Nabugoye Hill and have made extended visits over the past eight years to live, collaborate on development projects, and research the Abayudaya's history.

FROM ALL THEIR HABITATIONS takes its title from Ezekiel 37:23 and features reports of Jewish religious, intellectual, and communal life in various parts of the world.

NOTES

(1.) The prefix "Aba" in the Lugandan language means "the people of." "Abayudaya" is translated as "the people of Yudaya" or "the people of Judah." The prefix "Mu" signifies a single person. "Muyudaya" is translated as "a member of the Abayudaya community." The prefix "Ba" is the plural form, so "Bayudaya" signifies "many Muyudaya." Luganda, Lugwere, and Lugisu are the three most commmon languages spoken by the Abayudaya community.

(2.) Interview with Aaron Kintu Moses (1994).

(3.) Interview with Mishael Mofet Bisja (1994).

(4.) Interview with Anton Kintu Moses (1994).

(5.) Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (Boulder, CO: Pluto Press, 1994).

(6.) T. Vriezen, The Religion of Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1963), P. 80.

(7.) H. B. Thomas, "Capax Imperii: The Story of Semei Kakungulu," Uganda Journal 6 (1938). Sir John Gray, "Kakungulu in Bukedi," Uganda Journal 27 (1963). M. Twaddle, Kakungulu and the Creation of Uganda (London: James Currey, 1993).

(8.) A. Oded, Religion and Politics in Uganda (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1995).

(9.) Oded, P. 111.

(10.) Irwin Berg, "Among the Abayudaya," Commentary (January 1997), http:// www.commentarymagazine.com/9701/janobs1.html. K. Schultz and M. Meyer, "Among the Abayudaya," Forward, June 6,1997, p. 1.

(11.) See Thomas, Gray, Twaddle, and Oded.

(12.) Twaddle, p. 37.

(13.) The Abaganda are the most populous ethnic group in Uganda and Kakungulu was thought to be a Muganda. Modern scholars dispute whether he actually was a Muganda. See Twaddle, pp. 1-27.

(14.) Oded, pp. 283-284.

(15.) Interview with Samson Mugumbe (1997).

(16.) Intervieew with Samson Mugombe (1997).

(17.) Interview with Joab Keki (1993).

(18.) T. Melady and M. Melady, Idi Amin Dada: Hitler in Africa (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMee, 1977).

(19.) Melady and Melady.

(20.) Interview with Joab Keki (1997).

(21.) Interview with George Weyawo (1997).

(22.) Interview with Joab Keki (1993).

(23.) Interview with Yitzhack Ozeri (1995).

(24.) See N. Wade, "DNA Backs a Tribe's Tradition of Early Descent From the Jews," The New York Times, May 9, 1999, p. 1.

(25.) Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage (London: Random House, 1976).