CHANUKAH EDITION
SECTION A PAGE 10
NEARLY a century ago, according to an old Ugandan legend, a chieftain of the Muganda tribe stood before his followers, a Christian Bible in his hands.
He must have been a strong man, for he tore the book roughly in half, throwing the New Testament away and holding the Old Testament aloft.
This shall be our book! he is said to have cried.
The chieftain Semei Kakungulu, by name had several reasons for his symbolic action, religious faith being only one of them. But the act whether apocryphal or historical has nonetheless come to symbolize the genesis of one of the worlds unlikeliest Jewish communities.
They are known today as the Abayudaya the People of Judah and they still live in eastern Uganda near the town of Mbale. There are nearly 1,500 of them, and they practice a coherent and mostly halachic form of Judaism, a religion the community adopted, and have long and faithfully kept, by choice.
Recently, a leader of that community, a soft-spoken, expressive man with a sparkling smile and a skillful hand at the guitar, visited faraway Denver and discussed with the Intermountain Jewish News his native community and his uniquely African form of Jewishness.
By his side was Denverite Evelyn Hutt, who facilitated Aaron Kintu Moses November trip to Denver to speak at Rodef Shalom, BMH-BJ and DJDS in a trip sponsored by BMH-BJ and the Abrahamic Initiative, of which Hutt is a member.
Hutt traveled to Uganda in 2009 with her daughter, Eliana Mastrangelo, when Eliana was studying there as an NYU undergrad interested in international development in post-conflict environments.
They specifically sought out the Jews of Mbale, having become curious after listening to a CD of the communitys unique folk music.
It was, Hutt recalls, a fascinating and exotic journey.
Its very typical Ugandan countryside equatorial, tropical Africa, she says. The earth is kind of a red color and the countryside is green and mountainous with banana and guava trees. It took a couple of hours to get there from where we were traveling from.
When Hutt and her daughter arrived in Mbale, she and her daughter were struck to see blue and white buildings with signs saying Shalom Center and Internet Café, she says. Then these African people with Hebrew names greet you with Shalom! You felt like youd come home.
MOSES speaks quietly, sometimes hesitantly, in his lilting accent, which makes him seem shy. When he starts strumming the guitar and humming melodies, however, the impression of shyness immediately disappears.
And when asked to relate some of the history of the Abayudaya, he does not hesitate.
As a leader of the Abayudaya serving as the director of its elementary school and as a member of the elected committee that governs the community Moses, 46, takes obvious pride in how his people came to be who they are.
Semei Kakungulu, the chieftain mentioned above, was a military leader who had served in the army of Ugandas king to fight his enemies the other tribes, Moses says. He wanted to bring some of those tribes into the kingdom. This was before the British power came.
Kakungulu had already been converted by Christian missionaries who taught him how to read and write. When his region was colonized by the British in the late 19th century, he was enlisted by the new rulers to help them subdue tribes not yet under their domain.
Kakungulu accepted the British offer, having been told that if he successfully overcame these tribes, he would be named king of Ugandas eastern region.
And he did, says Moses. He fought. He fought the western, he fought the central, he fought the north, he fought the northeastern, and finally the east. Then he said, What now? I want to be the king.
But they didnt respect their promise. Why? Because they didnt want to make him the king of the eastern region. He didnt belong to that group. He was a Muganda and most of the people in the east were not Muganda. How could they make him the king of other tribes?
Thus cheated out of his throne, Kakungulu retired, devoting his time to reading the Bible he had been given by the missionaries.
It took awhile for his faith to fully mature, Moses says. At first he followed a sort of blend between Christianity and Judaism, coupled with a determined rejection of Western medicine.
By 1919, however, the chieftain had become convinced that the Old Testament the Hebrew Scriptures was the one true word of G-d.
He argued with Christian missionaries, who told Kakungulu that if he devoted himself only to the Hebrew Scriptures and ignored the Christian, it would amount to Judaism.
Then I am Jewish! Kakungulu is said to have responded.
He and his followers fled to a nearby mountain, to a place called Gangama, where he founded a sect that called itself the Kibina Kya Bayudaya Absesiga Katonda (the Community of Jews who trust in the L-rd).
He wanted to observe all the laws, Moses says. When he read about sacrifices, he brought in sacrifices. When he read about circumcision, he circumcised himself and his son, then he wanted all the people to be circumcised. When he read about High Holidays, he wanted all the holidays to be celebrated.
We are told that by 1919 that same year there were over 3,000 people who were following him.
DURING the 1920s, the Abayudaya had contact with a few knowledgeable Jews who helped the Ugandans better understand some of the basics of rabbinic Judaism.
Some historians say these Jews were Europeans. Moses says he believes they were observant and knowledgeable travelers from Yemen, possibly journalists.
Whoever they were, these sojourners spent time with the community and helped the Abayudaya understand chumash, siddur, Hebrew texts, kashrut and other dimensions of Judaism.
By the time Kakungulu died in 1928 at the age of 65, the Abayudaya were practicing an informed and largely authentic form of Judaism. A number of the communitys more knowledgeable individuals, including Moses grandfather, helped ease the transition into new leadership after their founders death.
Their next significant contact with Jews from elsewhere was with Conservative Jews from America, in much more recent years.
The first people we saw were the Conservative rabbis, Moses says, and we liked their teaching. They were so happy to welcome us.
It was through the Conservative movement that the Abayudaya finally gained international recognition as a Jewish community, Moses says.
That came in the form of the mass conversion in 2002 of 450 community members by five rabbis of the US-based Conservative movement. More conversions have followed. The community is also seeking conversion under Orthodox auspices along with the right to emigrate to Israel.
Today, the Abayudaya practice a mainstream form of Judaism very similar to American Conservative Judaism, Moses says. The communitys rabbi who serves a total of five synagogues in Mbale and several nearby villages is a graduate of the movements American Jewish University.
Like Conservative Jews, the Abayudaya have changed with the times.
In the era of Kakungulu and his grandfather, Moses says, the community followed strict rules of gender segregation.
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By 2011, however, the Abayudaya allow women to read from the Torah and to lead services.
We still have some kind of mechitzah, Moses says, but there is no actual barrier. The women sit on one side, the men on the other. Its only symbolic.
Such egalitarianism clearly makes Moses proud of his community, as does the historical fact that the Abayudaya are Jews by choice.
They claim no blood connection to ethnic Jews and make no genetic or historical claims to Jewishness, unlike such African Jewish communities as the Ethiopians and the Lemba of Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The Abayudaya, however, do have contacts with the Lemba, a community which has presented a credible genetic case for Jewish ancestry. The Abayudaya have sent teachers, proficient in Judaic topics, to help the Lemba in their efforts to learn and practice normative Judaism.
In addition to a few Kenyans who have moved to Mbale in order to study with the Abayudaya, we also have one boy from Ghana who is studying with us, Moses says proudly.
So we are spreading the word. Eventually, there might be many Jewish people in Africa.
THINGS have not always been easy for the Abayudaya.
One of the things they inherited with their decision to practice Judaism, perhaps unknowingly at first, was the curse of anti-Semitism.
Their neighbors in eastern Uganda, most of whom had been converted to Islam or Christianity during the 20th century, distrusted and sometimes persecuted their Jewish countrymen.
During the 1970s, under the reign of the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, things grew considerably worse.
I was a little guy at that time, Moses says, but I knew some of the things that happened when Idi Amin was there.
Amin made Islam the official religion of Uganda and had serious misgivings about his countrys small Jewish community.
I think he didnt want our community to exist, Moses says simply.
That was his aim, simply because he thought that we had a connection with Israel and he felt that Israel wanted to attack him. He was already worried about our community. We couldnt have guns, we couldnt have any military know-how.
Members of the Abayudaya were often imprisoned by Amin. Moses speaks of one group who were jailed for doing nothing more than repair the roof of a synagogue which had been blown off in a storm.
Synagogues were destroyed under Amin and many members of the Abayudaya community, fearful of oppression, converted to Islam to escape it.
After the Israeli raid on the Ugandan airport Entebbe in 1976, to free hostages aboard a jet hijacked by the PLO, such arbitrary oppression intensified.
My grandfather was put in prison. The police came and searched the whole house after Entebbe had been attacked. They arrested him and took all the books, [anything] that had any element of Israel.
His grandfather, who had studied under Kakungulu in his youth, was released after a few days.
We had to hide, Moses says. We held our services underground. We did Shabbat services in a cave or in the bush, out in the jungle.
A few small groups held services, as quietly and invisibly as possible, in their own homes.
One of the local chiefs one of many who had been empowered by Amin arrested Moses father when they found a sukkah behind his house.
In this chiefs mind, he thought it was organizing for a rebel movement, something like this. So he took him.
Moses father had to purchase his release with a bribe paid in gold. He also had to take his sukkah down.
Occasionally, certain Christian groups also were persecuted in such ways, Moses says, but all Muslims were given freedom. They were privileged.
After Amins ouster in 1979, the Abayudaya were understandably relieved.
He left right before Pesach of course it was in April. We were so happy. We walked to the synagogue in joy.
MOSES smiles a dazzling smile when he brings his history lesson up to the present day.
Since then, things have improved, he says. We have schools now. We have projects. We are coming up, and Im sure, within the next five to 10 years, our numbers will double. Well have 3,000. Thats what I think.
The school that Moses runs, the Hadassah Primary School, welcomes Jewish, Muslim and Christian students, providing secular instruction to all and religious instruction appropriate to specific groups.
A private school, it operates independently of the public education system in Uganda, which allows religious education for Muslim and Christian students but not for Jews and other religious minorities.
Moses doesnt seem to resent this, comparing Ugandas Abayudaya population of perhaps 1,450 individuals to the national population of some 35 million.
At Hadassah, however, the lines of religious distinction are not drawn with absolute clarity. Non-Jewish students often study Jewish subjects there, and vice-versa. He says its not uncommon to hear, within the halls of the school, students of various religions singing Hatikvah together.
Moses feels the schools pluralistic approach is an effective means of achieving a measure of inter-communal harmony in the region.
We live in peace, he says of the differing religious groups in eastern Uganda, and theres no problem.
It wasnt very long ago, he points out, that the Christians sometimes called us Christ-killers, and the Moslems were regarding us as monkeys.
The Abayudaya have played a central role in changing that. In addition to education, the community has made effective use of commerce to create a regional climate of tolerance.
It initiated, for example, the Mirembe Kawomera or Delicious Peace fair trade coffee program, in which regional Jewish, Christian and Muslim farmers cooperate to produce and market organic coffee.
Working together Muslims, Christians and Jews together sitting at the same table, discussing how they can get markets for their coffee, is something that really brings a kind of peace. After selling the coffee, we come together and share the profits. That is something that is done in peace.
There are similar joint projects working toward improving the overall educational system in the region, lessening child hunger, improving health care and enhancing eco-tourism.
All of which has made the region surrounding the Abayudaya community a relatively peaceful and harmonious place, unlike many other areas in Uganda which are still suffering from political unrest and often violent militarism and terrorism.
The Abayudaya, Moses says, fully believe that Jews, Muslims and Christians are all people of the book, with more in common than in contrast.
We believe that we all come from one father, he says. This brings us together. We think there are very few differences among us. The Moslems say Salaam and the Jewish people say Shalom. So whats the difference there?
There are times when tensions from the Middle East creep into the local consciousness, Moses concedes.
Sometimes, like when Israel has some reaction to the Palestinians, they see the Jews as attacking the Moslems. But it doesnt go far.
Moses believes that the Abayudayas success in interfaith and inter-community cooperation provides an invaluable lesson not only for Uganda but for Africa as a whole.
He is an unshakeable optimist about his home continent, despite the huge challenges and obstacles it is sure to face in the next century. The key to African peace and prosperity, he believes, is democracy.
FINALLY, Moses is asked why he and, by extension, the entire community of the Abayudaya have chosen to remain Jewish, in spite of the daunting price they have sometimes paid in order to do so.
His answer is eloquent and straightforward.
I look at Judaism being a way of life, he says quietly.
Its very special to me the way that Judaism empowers me to speak about my faith. I need to believe something that I understand.
I need to ask questions. I ask the rabbi, Why should we do this? Thats why I like Judaism. It makes me feel that I really am part of it.
On a much larger and more profound level, he adds, he and his fellow Abayudaya choose Judaism for the most simple and most powerful of reasons: They believe it to be the truth.
Through his studies, Semei Kakungulu discovered that the Bible was a holy book, he says. After careful study, he found it true. They found a way to G-d.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
