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February 22, 2002/Adar 10, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 23
Ugandans convert en masse
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Capping a Jewish story of struggle and survival, Uganda's Jews just got dunked in the mikvah.
Four Conservative rabbis from the United States and one from Israel joined the community's spiritual leader, Gershom Sizomu, in supervising the conversion of most of Uganda's 600 Jews, a several-day affair that concluded Feb. 19.
Sizomu, who recently returned to Uganda from a semester of rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union College in New York, the Reform movement's theological seminary, is thrilled that the 83-year-old Jewish community has converted according to halachah, or Jewish law.
As such, the community should now gain more legitimacy in the eyes of the Jewish world, he says. Still, the Conservative conversions will not be accepted by most Orthodox Jews because they do not meet Orthodox standards. Sizomu also is being pragmatic.
There are more men in the community than women, and most members of the community are related. Recognition by other Jews will expand members' opportunities to marry and sustain their community, known as Abayudaya, a local term that means "the people of Judah."
The community lives on the outskirts of Mbale, the third largest city in Uganda.
After several intense days, two-thirds of the Abayudaya - some 400 people - were converted.
The Jews of Uganda trace their roots to Semei Kakungulu, the local agent of British imperialists at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to carrying out political orders, Kakungulu was to be a missionary for the British, converting the people of Mbale to Christianity. But Kakungulu favored the Hebrew bible, and spread its teachings instead of the Christian one.
The British fired Kakungulu in 1917. Around that time, he took on the task of circumcising himself - when he was almost 50 years old - along with his two grown sons and the 3,000 men of the community.
Two years later, the city began referring to the community - pejoratively - as Abayudaya when members began practicing the Orthodox Judaism they maintain to this day.
After Kakungulu's death in 1928, many members left the Abayudaya for gifts that came with a price. The nearly naked Abayudaya could have education and clothing - if they accepted Christianity.
Sizomu's grandfather held together what was left of the community from 1936 to 1992. In 1962 Israel opened an embassy in Uganda, bringing clothing to the country's 1,000 remaining Jews and prayer books to their 36 village synagogues, but in 1971 Idi Amin came to power, banning Jewish practice and ordering Jews to convert to Christianity or Islam.
Amin took 32 synagogues for public use and shut the Israeli embassy, which never reopened. The countries renewed diplomatic ties in 1994, but Uganda today is served by the Israeli ambassador in Kenya.
Amin was overthrown in 1979 - two days before Passover.
"It was a real celebration of freedom. We had a practical Pesach," Sizomu said.
About fifteen years later, an American organization called Kulanu - Hebrew for "all of us" - that aids lost and dispersed Jewish communities learned about Abayudaya, and has been working with the community since.
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