The Jews of Africa -- The Abayudaya of Uganda

The Abayudaya of Uganda

the setting

Saulo, elder of the Abayudaya community of Uganda

The approximately 500 members of the Abayudaya community live sprinkled among the rolling, green hills of Eastern Uganda. Most community members live within several miles of Mbale, the third largest city in Uganda, which is about four hours from the capital of Kampala.

Mbale is a bustling, medium-sized city. The streets are full of minivan-taxis and boda bodas, bicycle taxis with multi-colored cushions on the back upon which a rider sits as the driver propels him or her by pedaling. Mbale is at the base of several large hills that are part of the same range at Mt. Elgon, one of the tallest mountains in the region. Peaks such as the daunting Wanaleare always visible. The hills begin where the cities (and the paved roads) end.

Renowned Bagandan elephant hunter and local military leader Semei Kakungulu founded Mbale about 80 years ago when he fell afoul of his British colonialist supporters. He and about 3,000 of his followers lived about the region, farming and hunting and practicing Kakungulu’s own hybrid of Judaism and Christianity. Most of them settled in areas around Nabugoye Hill where Kakungulu planned to build a grand synagogue that looked down the hill toward Mbale. Kakungulu died before he could complete the structure and Christian missionaries assumed control of the hill until the early ‘80s when a group of young Abayudaya calling themselves "the Kibbutz movement" reclaimed the it and built the Moses Synagogue. This brought the community’s focus back to the high ground.

Today most community members live around the Moses synagogue or the nearby synagogue in the village of Namanyonyi. Other community members live several miles on the other side of Mbale, in the flat land town known as Palisa, where there are two synagogues. The community’s fifth and most remote synagogue is in the village of Namatumba, approximately seventy kilometers from Mbale.

All of Kakungulu’s former domain is fertile and green.
Multicolored wildflowers accent the lush foliage. Ugandans farm most of the land, both mountainous and flat – there are scattered groves of jackfruit and papaya trees everywhere, plots of cotton and sugar cane, fields of cassava and cocoa. Outside of town there are few motorized vehicles so the air does not fill with exhaust; there is so little pollution that a clear night’s sky is ablaze with stars.