History of Jews in Uganda & Their Sukkot Experience

A virtual event presentation by Rabbi Gershom Sizomu

The event was co-sponsored by BMH-BJ

About the Event: 

Rabbi Sizomu will speak about the origins of Abayudaya, the challenges occasioned by the dictatorial reign of President Iddi Amin Dada, antisemitism, and living as a minority in a country that is predominantly Christian and Muslim. 

About the Speaker: 

Rabbi Gershom Sizomu is a Be’chol Lashon Rabbinic Fellow and the spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda. Gershom is the current leader of the 100-year-old Abayudaya community of almost 2,000 Jews living in rural villages in Eastern Uganda. He is the grandson of community elder “Rabbi” Samson. He lives near the Moses Synagogue in the village of Nabagogye, which he and others from the community’s early 1980s “Kibbutz movement” built with their own hands. Their goal has been to gather what was left of the Abayudaya community back together after the devastating reign of Idi Amin Dada ended in 1979. As a visionary leader, Gershom’s dream was to attend a rabbinic seminary to understand ancient and modern egalitarian Judaism better and bring the Ugandan community into mainstream Jewish life. Gershom was awarded a Be’chol Lashon Fellowship in 2003 to attend the five-year Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He returned to Uganda in 2008 as the first native-born black rabbi in Sub-Saharan Africa. He opened a Yeshiva to train African teachers and rabbis to serve their ancient and emerging Jewish communities. In 2016, Gershom became the first Jew ever elected to Uganda’s parliament.