Entry ten - Abbayudaya

A few weekends ago I visited the Ugandan Jewish community (abbayudaya) for Yom Kippur. The community was founded in 1919 by Semei Kakungulu, an administrator / conquistador who was influential in the founding of what became the colony of Uganda. Toward the end of his life, he and his followers joined the religion of Malaki, a Christian movement that criticized the practices of the standard European Anglican and Catholic churches for "observing the wrong Sabbath" (i.e. Sunday, the day after God is supposed to have rested) and using Western medicine, for which they found no justification in the Bible. After several encounters with Jewish colonial officials who gave him copies of the Torah, Kakungulu and his followers converted to Judaism. Although many of his followers left, since religion was (and is) a major arbiter of social status and resulting material benefit in Uganda, a substantial Jewish community remained after his death. Although it ceased to exist in public during Idi Amin's rule (1971-1979), the community reemerged afterwards and has been cultivating their international links recently. Significantly, they recently received official recognition by Israel.

The community consists of about 700 people spread around the outlying areas of Mbale. There are five synagogues, each holding services every Saturday. I understand that the one that I visited is the most important one, where the entire community will occasionally meet on important occasions. Most of the community's leadership is self-trained in Hebrew, and services are held in a mix of Hebrew, English, and Luganda (the language of the central part of the country, from where the original founders of the community came).

In 2002, I asked Sam Watulatsu (the director of the NGO I was working with, FDNC) about the abbayudaya, whom I had only vaguely heard about. He happened to know a few of the rabbis, including Rabbi Gershom, whom I met briefly on that visit. Last month, a Jewish Canadian resident of my residence mentioned that he was interested in attending a service there. Through Sam, we made contact with Rabbi Aaron (Gershom is currently in the United States) and arranged to attend Yom Kippur services on Sunday and Monday.

Having never (or perhaps once?) attended a proper Yom Kippur service before, I am not a qualified authority to describe one. However, I gather that the general idea is that Sunday night at sundown, there is a service marking the beginning of a one-day fast. There are then services all of the next day leading up until just past sundown when the fast is broken. (There is of course religious significance for all this, including the drawn-out ceremonies.)

The synagogue that we visited is in a beautiful location in the hills just above Mbale town. There are a few houses and a high school on the same plot of land, while a mosque and church are just down the road. Although some live far away, most members of this synagogue live nearby. Most of the community keeps kosher and most men wear kippahs or yarmulkes. My impression (and what I understood from the person I visited with) is that the abbayudaya services are pretty close to those in North America, aside from a few songs and stories in Luganda. In terms of religious observance, the community could be just as at home in New York or Toronto as in Mbale. Thus, it is mainly their physical location and nature of their historical emergence that make the abbayudaya and their religious observance any different from those in the U.S. or Canada. Unfortunately, I was only able to take one picture (of the inside of the synagogue), but I hope to visit again and get some more.