Rusape, Zimbabwe

history

The Jewish community centered in Rusape, Zimbabwe, claims both ancient and contemporary origins. According to community lore, the Bantu people, who history has proven were not the original residents of Southern Africa but instead migrated from the north, were actually Jews. The community favorably compares traditional Bantu symbols, burial rites, circumcision patterns, marriage customs and agricultural practices, to those of the ancient Israelites. They are convinced that they are descendants of this "Lost Tribe."

The Jewish community centered in Rusape, Zimbabwe, claims both ancient and contemporary origins. According to community lore, the Bantu people, who history has proven were not the original residents of Southern Africa but instead migrated from the north, were actually Jews. The community favorably compares traditional Bantu symbols, burial rites, circumcision patterns, marriage customs and agricultural practices, to those of the ancient Israelites. They are convinced that they are descendants of this "Lost Tribe."

The more contemporary origin of the community is more direct but no less unique. In the 1880s a former American slave and Baptist deacon named William Saunders Crowdy had a "visitation" from God who told him that he should lead black people to Judaism. He understood that his being black and openly Jewish could scare people away from his mission so he started a church and named it the "Church of God and the Saints of Christ." In about 1903 a man named Albert Christian had a vision that he should go to America to find the prophet of God. Christian met Crowdy in America and was convinced that God had conceived the meeting. Christian brought his interest in Judaism back to South Africa where approximately three decades later, community members from near Rusape met his followers and decided that they too should learn more about Judaism.