Supporting the Jews of Uganda and Kenya
We support the Abayudaya Jewish community in Mbale, Uganda.
Abayudaya means “People of Judah” in their native language of Luganda.
The community in Mbale includes about 2,000 men, women and children, including many elderly residents. Most are subsistence farmers, dependent on the land for their sustenance.
The community started when General Semei Kakungulu, who originally was converted to Christianity by British missionaries around 1880, studied the Hebrew Bible and came to believe in its core teachings, including circumcision, kashrut and Shabbat. He established a Jewish community, and together they adopted the Jewish calendar and holiday observance. The community formally converted to Judaism in 2022. They are now led by Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the first first native-born black rabbi in sub-Saharan Africa. Rabbi Gershom studied and was ordained in the Conservative movement in the United States, and has served in the Ugandan Parliament.
The only secondary school in the region, Semei Kakungulu High School, was established by Rabbi Gershom in 1998 and is now run by Head Teacher/Principal Seth Ben Jonadav. There is minimal government funding, and parents of the students are unable to provide the students with food for lunch, learning materials, or feminine sanitary supplies.
To supplement the community’s meager income, women produce handicrafts for sale: kippot and challah covers. Watch a video of the process here.
The school and the community are almost entirely dependent on tzedakah, the generosity of fellow Jews, to educate children and pay for food, holiday supplies and medications.
You can help support our fellow Jews in this emerging and vibrant community through donations and by purchasing these beautiful ritual objects for your daily and Shabbat use. They can be customized with names and dates for weddings, B’nai Mitzvah and personal gifts.
We support the Kehillat Israel community in Kenya.
Kehillat Israel Kenya is home to about 100 Jews. It is located in the village of Gathudia, a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from Nairobi, Kenya’s largest city.
The first members of this emerging and strongly growing community began their relationship with Judaism about 20 years ago, moving from participation in a community of Messianic Jews to a fully Jewish practice. You can read more about their history here. The Kehillat Israel Kenya community observes Shabbat and all the Jewish holidays with services in Hebrew, keeps kosher and observes other Jewish traditions. The Jews of Kehillat Israel were formally converted by Rabbi Sizomu of Uganda..
If you are able to visit the community, as other Jews from Nairobi and around the world have done, you will meet small children singing Hebrew zemirot and writing and reading in Hebrew, with their whole hearts dedicated to their faith as Jews. The community’s leader, Yehuda Kimani, says that their primary goals are enlightening the children, the largest part of the community, with the best education possible, and projects that will help promote the study of Torah, including building a synagogue and a mikvah.
The community faces the challenges of poverty and Illiteracy for both children and adults, and tries to maintain good relations with people of other faiths in the surrounding area.
P’nai Shore strives to provide the people of Kehillat Israel Kenya with candles and other supplies for Hanukkah and Passover each year. Although they have acquired many books, they do not have their own Torah scroll, so we are hoping to help them acquire a donated scroll which we would love to personally deliver. Your directed donations are used to help them purchase holiday supplies (shipped from Israel – it’s much closer!) and to support the community’s needs for food and medical supplies.
