SAJA seeks to unite the continent’s emerging communities.
BY AVI KUMAR
Participants at the Kulanu gathering in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, earlier this month. Credit: Serge Etele.
(December 30, 2022 / JNS) – The Sub-Saharan African Jewish Alliance was founded this month, with the goal of facilitating ties among the continent’s Jewish groups. The organization will include representatives from Tanzania, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya and Cameroon.
The SAJA was established after representatives of Jewish communities across sub-Saharan Africa gathered for the first time in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, this month to discuss various aspects of Judaism and Jewish life in the region.
SAJA has a temporary board with Mordreck Maersara from Zimbabwe currently serving as acting president. The group aims to draft a constitution and hold elections for a permanent board in the next six months. It also has a vice president and treasurer, and intends to add more positions to the roster after the constitution is finalized.
Maersara told JNS, “Our goal is to help each other by discussing both shared successes and challenges to aid each other to grow in our Judaism across Africa.”
Representatives of Jewish communities in Sub-Saharan Africa gathered last weekend in Ivory Coast to create an umbrella religious organisation for the region.
During a week of activities in Abidjan, the attendees learnt about Jewish practices, such as “kosher” slaughter and burial practices.
“The purpose of this meeting is to bring together all of the emerging Jewish communities that are developing and growing throughout Africa. For example, Nigeria has over 80 orthodox synagogues and it’s growing. And we find this in many countries across Africa. They’ve never met each other. (…) We spent a week together learning and studying the Bible, the Torah, the Jewish traditions and the Jewish law”, explained Arieh Greenspan, co-organizer of the conference.
The event was organized by a Jewish non-profit organization, Kulanu, with the aim of reuniting emerging Jewish communities in Africa.
“They understand that Judaism in Sub-Saharan Africa is sometimes a new phenomenon. Though some believe they are descendants of lost tribes or Israelite tribes in the Bible. Some have found Judaism new. And this group of combined people are practising Judaism, living Jewish lives, and for the first time ever got together to create an alliance”, added Bonita Sussman, known as Rabbanit, president of Kulanu.
On the final day, ahead of the Hannukah celebrations, the group planned to consecrate a new synagogue with the laying of a cornerstone.
Rabbi Sussman teaching in Antananarivo, Madagascar
Imagine taking a trip on one of those huge luxurious cruise ships unbeknownst to you the course is altered by a few degrees. While you are traveling everything seems the same except that because of this seemingly small course alteration the ship will end up arriving at a destination completely different from the one you expected.
Right now an important and I believe decisive development is taking place which, while at this moment mostly unnoticed, will with time transform the Jewish faith and people from the tiny and often embattled minority that we are, to a truly international people with numerous adherents in every corner of the globe.
All the headlines about antisemitism have obscured the fact that all over the world people are turning toward Judaism. New Jewish communities are emerging in Africa which proclaim descent from the Lost Tribes or who have found that their search for religious truth has led them to Judaism.
In Latin America, numerous communities are springing up being founded by Crypto Jews who no longer want to keep their Jewish ancestry a secret but publicly embrace their Jewish roots and openly practice Judaism and are rejected by the Jewish establishment.
The same phenomenon is also found to some extent in India and to a limited extent in Europe. Even in the United States there are Christian backgrounds who are seriously exploring Judaism.
In the coming months, I hope to introduce you to specific emerging communities, their histories, practices and the issues they face. To name a few there are the 30 million plus Ibos in Nigeria and the two mllion Danites in the Ivory Coast, the B’nai Ephraim of South East India, or the Gogodalas of Papua New Guinea who claim that the Ark and the staff of Moses lie under the water of the Fly River lagoon. I also want to introduce you to some of the academic study who of these groups.
Will these new communities lead to a different definition of Judaism? Does racism play a role in their acceptance? Are Jews a race? Does the field of Jewish genetics play a role? What role does socio-economics play? What would be the consequences of the new communities coming to comprise the majority of the Jewish people?
I first became interested in the subject back in 2007, when my wife and I attended a conference at the Academy For Jewish Religion where my wife taught. We met a leader of the Abayudaya community of Uganda and offered to volunteer. We ended up volunteering for the Bnai Ephraim community in India, It was a life-changing experience. Since then I’ve been to Cameroon, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, and Nicaragua as a volunteer for Kulanu, an organization which supports emerging, returning and isolated communities around the globe and of which my wife Bonita now serves as president.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rabbi Gerald Sussman serves as the coordinator of the Rabbinic Ambassador program of Kulanu and has traveled extensively to meet emerging Jewish communities around the globe. He lives on Staten Island and serves as rabbi of Congregation Temple Emanuel-El, Staten Island. He is also a founding member of the Union for Traditional Judaism and on the Board of Governors of the New York Board of Rabbis.
