Here in this humid and leafy village in eastern Uganda 20 minutes from the Kenyan border, 16 American college students sit in a circle. They are protected by the shade of a straw thatch structure adjacent to the complex where they have been living for the past month.
Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the first black sub-Saharan rabbi ordained at an American rabbinical school, has had a very busy time since returning to Uganda in June, after not having lived there for five years.
The Abayudaya, only Jewish community in Uganda, are hoping to emigrate to Israel. It\’s a move that requires preparation, so some US Jews help them get ready.
100th birthday for Workmen\’s Circle; \’Kosher\’ is numero uno; Billionaire Leviev Leaving Israel; Israeli Airport Profiling Reviewed; Nazi HQ to be Learning Center
In the documentary, "Moving Heaven and Earth," an American Jew describes spying an African, Gershom Sizomu, amid the white expatriates in a Nairobi synagogue in the 1990s."
When his father was arrested for building a sukkah at a time when Idi Amin had outlawed Judaism in Uganda, Gershom Sizomu paid the arresting scout five goats for his father\’s freedom.
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