Geniza under a mango tree

G’niza Ceremony under a Mango Tree

On a beautiful Sunday morning on Nabugoye Hill, the Abayudaya buried many unusable books containing shemot, names of God. Part of my work of organizing the books in the synagogue over the past few months has been separating out these unusable books from the collection. I have found humashim, books containing the five books of Moses, siddurim, prayer books, haggadot, books we use during a Passover seder, and other books and papers containing God’s name that once clean and new had become torn and broken. After planning with leaders of the community, Seth, Aaron, and Israel, for a few weeks, the community joined us in burying one large bag and a box of books under a Mango tree behind Rabbi Gershom’s house.

I was surprised and thrilled to see that over 30 people had come to the ceremony. A few of the teenagers, Isaac, Esau, Natan, and Rachman, dug barefoot with garden tools for over an hour in order to create a hole deep enough to inter all the books and papers. Over ten men stood around while they dug andchatted in Luganda and Luguere. Not understanding most of what was being said, I went to talk to some students that would be presenting during the ceremony. Finally, the hole was deep enough and more people had gathered. Since Ugandans are very particular about creating agendas for ceremonies, this geniza burying ceremony had an agenda as well. After Seth, the M.C.,  read through the agenda, Maccabee, one of the musically talented youth in the community, led us with his echidongo,  guitar, in singing aa few Psalms in Luganda. Seth described the Jewish custom of burying books with shemot before he turned it over to Israel who explained the history of the donations of holy books that the Abayudaya have received over the years. I then read a letter that I found mysteriously while sorting through the books an hour before the ceremony. The letter, attached to a donation of humashim, had been sent a few years ago by a friend and supporter of the Abayudaya, Rabbi Carl M. Perkins. The end of the letter read, “We feel very fortunate to be able to establish a link with your community through the gift of these humashim. We hope that you will be able to study and learn from these books for many years to come!” It was moving for those present to witness the burying of books that have been completely worn from use knowing that other usable books line the shelves of the synagogue thanks to the help of many friends of the Abayudaya from around the world.

After I read the blessing for studying Torah, Isaac, a youth in the community, read passages from different Jewish holy texts from the Siddur Sim Shalom. After a musical interlude, we continued with the reading in Hebrew and Luganda of Exodus, chapter 19 and 20, describing revelation at Mt. Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments. One of the reasons that Seth and I chose these passages is that the Abayudaya are very familiar with them. Not many people in the community can read Luganda, but most can understand it when it is read or spoken.  Therefore, it was an exciting moment when Rachman, one of the Abayudaya youth, read the Ten Commandments in Luganda; many people (who unlike Rachman did not have the text in front of them) even corrected him each time he mispronounced a word!

The next part of the ceremony was the most moving. A few community members had prepared brief responses to a question Seth and I posed to them: Why is the Torah important to you, your community, and to the Jewish people? A few people spoke about the inherent good of God’s commandments and the positive affect that the Torah has had on the world because most countries’ governments uphold the Ten Commandments. Some spoke about how learning Torah and observing mitzvoth has been an incredible asset intheir lives and how it hasinfluenced the way that they behave and the way that they see the world. And some spoke about their relationship with God. The Torah for them is the constitution they must follow that will lead them to doing God’s will. Someone even gave the example of Adam eating of the fruit from the Garden of Eden and explained that because he was punished for disobeying God’s commandment, she has been careful to always observe the laws of Torah so that she will never be punished. I was surprised and thrilled that after those who had been asked to present gave their answers,  other community members volunteered to answer as well. The sharing of love and respect for the Torah continued for about twenty minutes. Most of the answers were given in Luganda, but Dr. Sam Wamani, the clinical officer from the community, was very kind to translate them to English for me.

After I offered a prayer to the community and thanked everyone for coming, Maccabee led us in some more songs as we placed the bag and box of shemot into the hole and shoveled in dirt. Everyone joined in throwing dirt into the hole and then those with shovels smoothed it over. The ceremony was  very moving and many community members expressed their thanks to me and the other planners of the service. During my blessing to the community, I  urged them to move from these unusable books to those on the shelves of the synagogue so that they continue to learn Torah each day throughout their lives. Some understood that I was speaking metaphorically, but others moved to the synagogue to learn more Torah thinking that it was next on the agenda. I guess my comments had been lost in translation…

Pesach with Beta Israel

When we stepped off the plane in Gonder, Ethiopia, we didn’t know what to expect. Maital, Ronit (our close friend and Maital’s counselor on Nesiya), and I were supposed to meet Getenet, an Ethiopian Israeli who was helping the Gonder Jewish community with their Pesach seder. Ronit found a short, smiling man in the parking lot who immediately took our bags for us and explained in an Ethiopian accent, “slicha, ani lo yodeah anglit. Efshar l’daber b’ivrit?” “Sorry, I don’t know English, is it possible to speak in Hebrew?” Ronit, Maital, and I assured him that we all spoke Hebrew and then set off toward Gonder’s city center (or Piazza). Getenet introduced us to Getu, the president of the Jewish community, who doesn’t speak a word of Hebrew. So while we communicated with Getenet in Hebrew and Getu in English, they communicated with each other in Amharic, the dominant local languages in Ethiopia.

Getenet explained that there would be about 5,000 people at the seder. Although many claim that Chabad’s seder in Nepal is the largest in the world, we have to say that the seder in Gonder might actually be bigger! In preparation for the 5,000 person seder and for the week of Passover, the community employed 110 people to back 280,000 (no, I didn’t miscount the zeros) matzot in two weeks. The next day, we toured four rooms stacked high with matzot, or small light brown circles which ended up tasting like cardboard. But we didn’t expect Manischewitz. In addition to preparing the matzot, they were also fermenting wine in huge garbage bins.

Our first morning in Gonder, Thursday morning, we went to the Jewish compound that includes the synagogue, mikveh, and feeding center. We arrived at 7:00am in time for morning minyan. After getting the ok from the three armed guards sitting in front of the gate with a sign attached that read “Beta Israel,” the Falash Muras’ preferred title, we entered a huge space covered by sheet metal and tarps completely full of people dressed in white. The women sat on the left of the mechitza and the men on the right. The women (all of them – married and unmarried) wrapped themselves in white shawls and covered their heads with white scarves as well (most Ethiopians wear shawls all the time, we think due to the cold). About 30 of the 300 men donned beautiful, large t’filin and all the men were wrapped in matching white talitot with blue stripes. Four men stood facing away from the congregation on a high bimah, platform, and prayed in a soft monotone throughout the service. They prayed according to Sephardi nusach, mostly in Amharic. The congregation responded amen once in a while and chanted a few other prayers, but for the most part, the baalay t’filah, the service leaders, ran the show. Even the amidah was only said by the leaders and the congregants responded amen to the 19 benedictions. From my limited knowledge of the community, it seemed that the majority of people were either illiterate or there weren’t enough books for everyone. During the sh’ma, the congregants repeated each word the leaders said at such a fast pace that sometimes the leaders interrupted the congregation with the next word. It was a very interesting solution to the problems I mentioned above related to the amidah, and I reminded me of the repition of certain lines in Hallel.

The most exciting part of the service, in my opinion, was when they brought out the huge sephardic Torah with its large round case and brought it around the front of the bimah. Men started bowing their knees successively and kissing the tzitzit wrapped around their fingers while the women ululated in excitement. The leaders opened the Torah, people said the brachah after touching and kissing the Torah parchment, but someone faced the congregation and read the aliyah in Amharic. After the service, I asked Getenet if those who read the Torah in Amharic know how to read Torah in Hebrew. He answered that they don’t and would appreciate if I would read for them. So, just like that, I was assigned to read the Pesach reading a few days later.

After the service, Rabbi Waldman, an Israeli rabbi, who has had a relationship with the Ethiopian Jewish community for over twenty years, made his bimonthly phone call to the community. I was amazed to learn that every other Friday Rabbi Waldman calls to give a d’var Torah, which Getenet translates from Hebrew to Amharic (over the phone when he is in Israel). He gave a very moving speech, in which he spoke about the laws of Pesach from the Torah and from the rabbis, the prophecy from Jeremiah that the Jews would be brought back from their land from exile and the importance of am echad, mishpacha achat, one people, one family.

Most of the Jews from Ethiopia have already moved to Israel. Their family members, still in Gonder, came back to Judaism after practicing Christianity for many years. They were possibly forced to convert or given incentives which caused them to convert. These Jews want to be Jewish again and move to Israel to live with their family members. These people, who number around 12,000, have moved away from their villages and now rent space in Gonder to be close to the Jewish compound. They moved to the city so that they wouldn’t be forgotten in the transport of Jews to Israel. The Israeli government, who has promised to bring more Falash mura to Israel, recently stopped bringing people to Israel and are keeping these Jews in limbo. While these people wait in Gonder, they are receiving financial aid from an American non-profit called NACEJ, (The North American Committee for Ethiopian Jewry), which supplies food to children under six and pregnant mothers twice per day and runs the half day Hebrew school for Jewish culture.

After the services, I asked Getu how many of the people have family members living in Israel. He immediately turned to the congregation and called out in Amharic, “Raise your hands if your grandparents are in Israel.” One quarter of the room raised their hands. “Raise your hands if your mothers and fathers are in Israel.” Half the room raised their hands. “Uncles and aunts.” More raised their hands. “Brothers and sisters.” Almost half the room raised their hands and cheered. This was a room full of people whose families were in Israel and who couldn’t wait to make aliyah to live with them. Getu announced that just that morning, Ethiopian Israelis were protesting in Tel Aviv that the Israeli government bring the rest of Beta Israel to their homeland.

The next day, also the morning before the seder, many people came to volunteer to pick the pits out of hundreds of dates, to cut ginger, and to peel bananas in order to prepare kharoset, one of the necessities for the seder. This was by far the sweetest kharoset I’d ever tasted. In the next room, we could smell thousands of eggs and potatoes cooking in huge pots.

The seder itself was an amazing experience. There was great excitement as people tried to find any available seats amidst a crowd of 5,000. I was asked to sit with Getenet and Getu on the bimah to help them lead the seder, which was mostly in Amharic, except for the blessings and some of the songs. The end of the seder was the most incredible part. As everyone sang L’shana haba b’yerushalayim hab’nuyah, a group of boys started a moving moshpit as they screamed, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” It was an amazing feeling, and I looked over to see wide smiles on the faces of Getenet and Getu. It also stirred mixed emotions, because as they chanted, we realized that most likely next year would not be in Jerusalem for them and not by their choice!

The next night Maital and I made our own seder, in which we used haggadot from the community, although we read from the Hebrew side (not the Amharic one!) We were joined by 10 people, mostly Israeli travelers that were staying at the Belegez Pension with us and then two Americans that have been volunteering with the Jewish community for a few months. The seder was really great. We made it through the whole haggadah, had some really interesting conversations, and enjoyed Israeli wine, thanks to a present from Saba and Savta, Maital’s grandparents. There was an Israeli film crew that was in the area filming a documentary on the community that might air on arutz shtayim at some point in the future that stopped by for an hour and interviewed us a few days before. So who knows, we might be famous! The Israeli film crew also left us a box of Israeli matzah, which we rationed and made last for the rest of the holiday!!

We spent the rest of Pesach seeing some amazing castles and an Orthodox church in Gonder. We then made our way south to Bahir Dar where we hiked to see the Blue Nile waterfalls and took a boat on Lake Tana to see a few islands housing more incredible churches and even a monastery for 70 monks, where only men were allowed to visit. It was a truly incredible Pesach.

childhood in uganda

It was just after we had buried my mother in the banana plantation in the village….I was in the house along, resting in my grandmama’s bed when Daddy’s friend, Mr Nsozi, tiptoed into my room. And everyone on the hill knows he has AIDS…[H]e told me not to scream and said that if I made any noise, I would not be his friend any more or he would even kill me. I was so, so scared that I felt dizzy. Mr Nsozi held me down with his strong arms and brought his body close to mine while spreading my legs apart…. I was in terrible pain, I screamed so Mr Nsozi closed my mouth in his hand.

This is an excerpt from How Kwezi Got Into Trouble by Foundation Junior Living Youth Series. As it explains on the back cover, this story is one of a series written by some of Uganda’s leading writers of children’s books. “These stories are told in a captivating manner to help the youth enhance their self-esteem and life skills to resist temptations that may expose them to risk[y] behaviour, which may lead them to contracting HIV/AIDS. These stories are drawn from the youth’s backgrounds, using characters they can identify with, and experiences they are familiar with.” This eight-year-old girl is raped by her father’s best friend on the night of her mother’s funeral. The story is about her struggling to confide in her teacher about the incident, getting tested, and then teaching others about AIDS.

I read this startling story in a bookstore two weeks ago when I was looking for books to read with Paul Tiboti’s family. I have started visiting on a weekly basis Paul and his four younger cousins with whom he lives, all of whom have been orphaned by AIDS. When my parents came to Uganda, they brought the family a deck of cards, which they use on a nightly basis. Each week, I try to teach them a new game. After a few weeks, I decided that it would be nice if I could read stories with them during my visits as well. So, Beth Rosen and I went to some “book” stores, more like stationary shops that carry books that correspond to the Ugandan curriculum. We finally reached a store that had some promising options. The one I bought was a story about a boy who receives a radio from his father for his birthday. When he and his friends are dancing outside, a monkey steals the radio. The three boys then lay out a row of mangos to entice the monkey away from the tree. Then one of the boys climbs the tree and saves the radio. First of all, I think this story accurately captures the difference between many American children’s books and ones that relate directly to Ugandan culture. Anyway, in sifting through the books, I also came across How Kwezi Got Into Trouble. When I read the aforementioned passage, my jaw dropped, and I began to really think about and want to try to articulate the differences between Ugandan and American childhood. I couldn’t believe that this story could actually be something that children “can identify with.”

But then I started reflecting on my own experiences. Visiting Paul’s family each week has not been easy although it is always very fun. I come face-to-face with what it means for children to be orphaned, but not just children, entire families! I witness the burden that Paul, a twenty-five year old, has to shoulder being responsible for four children under the age of 13. Paul still has not found a job despite having a diploma in water engineering and the family struggles to make ends meet on about $25 a month that they receive as welfare through BCC. Sometimes Paul brings in a little bit more money from side jobs, but over the past month or so that I have been visiting numerous times, the family has been scrounging for food, and even when they have food, it’s not a lot.

Two weeks ago, Paul had to travel to Kampala to find out about a possible job opportunity. Although the children’s older brother, Seth,, who is currently in teacher training college, came home for a few days, he had to return to school that Monday evening, leaving the four children in the home alone. Tuesday evening, I walked home from BCC with the two third grade girls. When we reached home, the girls began preparing tea on the firewood stove. Before we could light the fire, we needed to chop the wood. Khaana, who is eight-years-old, picked up an ax bigger than she, placed her barefoot on one end of the log, and tried to chop the other end. I asked if I could help, though I knew that I would probably be even less successful than she was. After a few minutes of barely chopping any wood, I put down the ax. A neighbor immediately asked Khaana to bring the wood over to her and chopped it for us. Then, I washed dishes with Rachel, who is around ten, as Khaana sat in the kitchen filled with smoke watching to know when the water boiled in the kettle. Rachel asked if I eat white ants, insects that the children collect at night during the rainy season. After replying no, she showed me a huge pot full of them, which she fried on the fire, after the tea was finished. The two fourth grade boys, both around twelve years old, came home shortly after we had finished preparing tea. We read the story about the radio thief, played a few intense rounds of cards, and then the children walked me to the roadside. I asked them if they needed anything. They told me the only food in the house was posho (maize flour) and asked for some greens. I bought them a cabbage for 30 cents and asked if they needed anything else. They told me they also didn’t have cooking oil, paraffin for the lamp (they don’t have power), and even a matchbox. For less than a dollar, I bought them small quantities of all of these things and left.

I spent the night thinking that these children would prepare themselves dinner, put themselves to bed, wake themselves up, and prepare themselves for school. I just remember how more often than not, my mother was my alarm clock and I rarely had to prepare dinner for myself, and never on a firewood stove, if I would have even been allowed near such a thing at eight years old. But these children have no choice. They have no parent to rely on, just an older cousin who does an immense amount for them but has his limits as well!

The next day, I asked Rachel’s teacher to send her to the clinic because she had a cough. When I returned to clinic instead of Rachel, I found Khaana sitting on the bench shivering with a fever of 103.8 degrees. I sat with her as the nurses did intake and then took her to the lab for blood work. Her malaria test came back positive. The nurses started her on treatment and prepared a bed for her to rest on for the rest of the day. I checked on her as often as possible, gave her some paper for coloring, and made sure she had lunch. (She was very, very excited when I told her she could keep the pen with which she was coloring.) The nurses washed her down when her fever got too high and checked on her repeatedly. But for the most part she was alone. Paul returned that evening, thank God!

These experiences have begun to slowly expose me to what it means to be an orphan, to have no parents. This young girl, like her siblings, is so lucky to have an older cousin like Paul who cares for them as best as he can despite the inadequate resources. These children are also so lucky to be sponsored through BCC and have the organization’s emotional and financial support.

According to Helen Epstein in her new (highly recommended) book The Invisible Cure about the African Aids epidemic, “By 2006, some twelve million African children had lost at least one parent to AIDS. A small fraction received help from dedicated, community based organization….[T]he vast majority were cared for by relatives, often desperately needy themselves” (p.213-214). And to make matters worse, Epstein cites studies that indicate that orphans are 3-4 times more likely than other children to contract HIV in their teens, possibly because of emotional and material deprivation (p.214).

As I am writing this blog post and listening to the local radio, I heard an advertisement by the Ministry of Health in which a mother asks a health official what happens if she tests positive for HIV/AIDS. The health official explains that if she tests positive and then takes the proper precautions, she can avoid transmitting the illness to her child.

The young girl in the story from the beginning of this post contracts HIV when she is raped on the evening of her mother’s funeral. After some time, she gathers the strength to become a youth leader at her school and in her community in fighting the spread of AIDS. I pray for a time when children’s books won’t need to contain stories of rape and HIV/AIDS and when children won’t have to be orphaned because of this and other devastating diseases.

An update on Paul’s family: one of the children’s sponsors bought the family a cow, which will eventually give them more cows and milk!!! Also, some generous friends of the family have allowed Paul and his cousins to dig and plant on their land. The crop in July will hopefully be able to help sustain the family for many months.

there’s still time…

I want to thank everyone who has made a donation toward the library. So far we have raised more than $5,000! Slowly but surely, we are getting closer to making this dream a reality. I want to remind those who have yet to donate, that American Friends of BCC is still accepting donations!!

You can donate through paypal (there is a button on the right side of the blog) or you can write a check to American Friends of BCC and mail it to:
223 Albemarle Rd.
White Plains, NY 10605

Please let me know if you have any questions or other fund raising suggestions.

Pesach in Ethiopia?!?

No, it’s not an April fool’s joke. Adam and I are actually spending Pesach in Ethiopia…

We will be sure to keep you posted about all of our adventures there.

a purim to remember

I was really excited to find out what Purim at the Abayudaya would be like. I had a feeling that such a fun and entertaining holiday would be a favorite among the Abyudaya and I was correct. At Hebrew/Judaica classes on the Sunday morning before Purim, as I was asking some questions about Purim and reviewing the four mitzvoth of the holiday, I was asked the question- how can we be celebrating a holiday that commemorates Jews slaughtering over 75,000 Persians on the 13th and 14th of Adar? I agreed that it is not easy to read that part of the megilla. It reminded me of the midrash about shirat hayam, the Song of the Sea, when God reprimands the angels for singing praises to God as they watch the Egyptians drown. God rebukes them by saying that we should never rejoice about the suffering of another human being. Through further discussion, we explored the central theme of opposites in the megilla and the customs of the holiday. In the story, instead of Haman riding on the back of the king’s horse wearing the king’s robe, it is Mordechai. And instead of Haman causing the deaths of thousands of Jews, Mordechai and Esther facilitated the deaths of thousands of Persians. It is this reversal of components of the story that makes this holiday so topsy-turvy. We wear costumes to appear as people we are not. Some people drink alcohol to confuse their perception of the truth. And we fast the day before the holiday only to have a large festive meal a day later. It is this nature of the holiday that makes it so fun and so bizarre. The conversation was eye opening for all of us and I really looked forward to celebrate with the community.
To celebrate our being in Africa, and the fact that we are very far from being African, we wore fancy African attire. Maital wore a bright blue Gomezi, which is a silk gown with puffed up shoulders and really large belt that is worn by Ugandan women at introductions (the traditional ceremony before the wedding) and other celebratory events. Some older women wear gomezis on a regular basis. I wore a kanzu, a full-length white shirt down to my toes with a suit jacket covering the top half. This is an outfit worn by men at introductions and other festive events. It was hysterical, and people were really excited to see us wearing their traditional clothing. I ended up reading the Megilla from a scroll that was miraculously in the back of the ark. Who knew? And Maital was my assistant. She corrected my words and motioned at the end of every verse. No one else dressed up really, but it was a fun experience and we have pictures to prove it. The next day, the kids put on a Purim shpiel in Luganda and did a great job.
One difficult thing we had to deal with was deciding what to do for mishloach manot (sending meals to friends) and matanot l’evyonim, presents for the poor. We have been very conscious this year about giving monetary gifts to the people we work with. A lot of people ask us for money, and it has been hard to say no. We feel that giving money to people that ask is not the most helpful thing we can do for that person and it also creates a precedent for our relationship with those we meet and for volunteers in the future. We ended up giving gift packages to our other volunteer friends in Mbale and buying food for a family with whom we already have a close relationship.
We were supposed to go back for Shabbat, but we go stuck in the rain and ran out of time. The hard thing about being dependent on motorcycles is that in the rainy season, it’s often too wet to go anywhere! But instead, we settled for a nice Shabbat at home. We continued celebrating Purim two weeks later when we received delicious humentashen from Maital’s family! Thanks!

a visit to apac

On Easter Monday morning, a national holiday in Uganda, Adam and I woke up at 4:30 to travel to Apac (pronounced Apach), a district four hours north of Mbale, with two members of the Nabugoye Hill Jewish community, Rabbi Aaron, the headmaster of the elementary school, and Seth, the headmaster of the high school. Basically all we knew was that we were going to meet a group of people who want to be Jewish. We had already met four members of their community on Purim at Nabugoye Hill. They have started coming to Nabugoye Hill for holidays and at other times to learn more about Judaism. In fact, one teenage girl from the community is currently living with Rabbi Aaron and attending Semei Kakungulu high school, the Jewish high school on Nabugoye Hill. But this morning would be the first time that Jews visited their community.

So, just after 5:00 am we set out on what would be a very bumpy journey. After about one hour we left the paved road for dirt roads that got worse as we went. To give you an idea, at one point, the road was closed for construction, so in our small station wagon, we drove off the road on a path for bicycles in grass almost as high as our car. Eventually, we ended up in someone’s compound and when we drove through, the family just stared at us shocked. We followed this path back to the main road and continued driving. On the last leg of the journey, we were on a dirt road with pot holes, actually puddles since they were filled with water, which stretched across the entire road. The driver would stop and we would discuss which route was the best way around (or through) the ditch. But, eventually we made it.

We arrived to a group of people standing together holding pink flowers and singing in their local language. As they continued to sing, we followed them to their synagogue, about a fifteen minute walk from where we stopped the car. Although few in the community speak English, every person shook our hands and welcomed us. We then entered the synagogue, a large square mud building with a high thatched roof. On the opposite wall from where we entered are painted a Jewish star and a menorah, seven branched candelabra, and in the front of the room is a small table with a few chumashim, Bibles, and a few siddurim, prayer books. The community pointed us visitors to the seats in the front of the room. The community filed in after us and sat behind us either on chairs or on mats on the floor. The woman sat on the left and the men on the right. Before the chairman and vice-chairman of the community officially welcomed us, the community sang two other songs for us. Their leader, Shmuel, explained to us that the community wrote their own words for these songs, one of which meant, the Israelites left Egypt, got stuck at the Red Sea, but then the Egyptians drowned.

After the leaders thanked us for coming, they introduced the community to us family-by-family. The husband was called up and his wife and children followed. They told us their names and then posed for a photo. Everyone had Hebrew names; while most were familiar ones, like Shoshana,  Rebecca, Yochanan, and Joshua, some were a bit more unusual although definitely biblical, like Lot, Abel, and Job. After we introduced ourselves, Rabbi Aaron explained that this visit is the beginning of a longer term relationship. While members of the Apac community had traveled to Nabugoye Hill to learn from the Jews there, this time, we had traveled to learn from them. Then he explained that we would learn from each family, one at a time. I still don’t think that I really understood what we would be learning from the families and how the process would be conducted. Only after everyone, except one family, left the synagogue, and we arranged ourselves at the front of the room with Shmuel there to serve as a translator (this community speaks a different language than those around Mbale), did I begin to realize what was happening. We would be interviewing families to try to better understand their connection to and knowledge of Judaism. In June a beit din, a court of three rabbis, will be coming to Uganda that will be able to conduct more conversations and it was our job to help determine if this community (or which families) might be able to convert this time.

When we asked the families questions, the father was always the one to respond. We made sure to direct at least one or two questions to every mother as well. Usually the question for the mother was about the home and how she imparted Judaism on her children. By the way, every family had more than two children, with many having five to eight all under the age of 15, and the majority of mothers were breastfeeding. In most cases, when we asked the family about their commitment to learning Hebrew, their children recited the aleph-bet for us. Most of the children pronounced some of the letters wrong but almost all of the children over the age of six knew the letters. (It’s still not entirely clear to us who taught them the alphabet.)

We began the interviews by asking the families when and why they were Jewish. The families have been Jewish for various lengths of time, the longest being since 1996 and the most recent since March 2007 (at least that’s the date that these two men, around 40 years old, were circumcised). Almost every family told us that God made many promises to the Jews, they are his people, and that all nations must accept knowledge from Jews. When we asked them where they learned or read this, two of the fathers immediately cited Psalms 147:19-20: “He issued his commands to Jacob, His statutes and rules to Israel. He did not do so for any other nation; of such rules they know nothing” and Zechariah 8:2-23: “The many people and the multitude of nations shall come to seek the lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus said the Lord of Hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every tongue will take hold of every Jew by a corner of his cloak and say, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” Many people also mentioned wanting to worship only one God. One father explained further that when a Protestant, he worshipped Trinity, but preferred now to worship three gods instead of one. When we asked about Islam, he explained that they observe the Sabbath on Friday instead of Saturday.

The community has very limited knowledge, but what can you really expect when the closest Jewish community is four hours away with a private car (and no one in the community has a private car) and we were the first Jews to visit their village? When asked what holidays they observe, everyone said Shabbat, some said Yom Kippur, fewer said Pesach, and one said Rosh Hashanah and Purim. When we asked about which basic Jewish laws they observe, most answered Shabbat and then when asked further, they usually replied either the 10 commandments or kashrut, Jewish dietary laws. We would usually follow up and asked when and how they observed the Sabbath. All the families knew that the Sabbath began on Friday and lasted until Saturday night (we didn’t probe about the start and end times more specifically). When we asked about Shabbat in more detail, the families always said that they rested. We had to ask more questions to better understand what they meant by rested and usually found out that the families didn’t cook and knew not to start fires. One man articulately explained why they kept Shabbat; they told us that Shabbat connects humans to God. This same man told us that the community has been searching for the true way and now finally they are on their way.

Interestingly, when we asked about family purity, most men explained that they would not sleep with their wives on Friday night. One man explained to us that he did not engage in sex with his wife on days dedicated to God. Only one family spoke about separating during the woman’s menstruation, the time when Jewish couples traditionally separate. This couple mentioned this after we asked more specific questions, so it is not clear if only one family observes this way or if we didn’t phrase our questions in such a way as to elicit this response. Anyway, Adam and I spent a lot of time trying to imagine the origin of this tradition. We wondered whether separating from each other on a day dedicated to God had to do with their Christian past or whether there were other traditional/local reasons why this custom may have developed.

We even learned about another Jewish community about 30 kms from the one in Apac that we were visiting. The two men, Joab and Abraham, who had been circumcised in March traveled to Apac without their families due to the distance. Joab has nine kids and Abraham has two. Anyway, these two men are running a Jewish community of five families that meets under a mango tree and uses one siddur, prayer book, which they received from the Apac community that probably has only a half-dozen of their own. These two men don’t read English, and definitely not Hebrew, so they said that a student in the community helps them read the English from the prayer book.

The trip raised many questions for us: What can we expect a remote African community to know about Judaism? How should they learn more? Should the criteria of conversion be modified at all based on the access one has to knowledge? If someone wants to learn more about Judaism, and more difficult – if an entire community wants to convert- what is our responsibility to teach them? Who determines who can convert? Can you convert some individuals in a community and not others? What about members of a family? How does one actually determine one’s sincerity about Judaism?

We really felt privileged to have the opportunity to see and experience this process first hand.

A Gift of Life

            After such a long hiatus, it’s difficult to know where to begin recounting our adventures and experiences.

            Let me begin by telling you about the future instead of the past. I received the Princeton Project 55 fellowship, a public interest fellowship for recent Princeton graduates, and will be working as the Assistant to the Director of Youth Programs at CASES, the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, in NYC. You can learn more about the organization on their website at www.cases.org.

            Now back to the past. I realize that I didn’t exactly finish describing my family’s trip, and, unfortunately, I am not sure that I ever will, but I will write about a few more experiences as time goes on…

            On Friday morning, after the schetitah, kosher slaughtering, of the goat, my father, brother, and Adam stayed on Nabugoye Hill to watch the rest of the preparations (and to fix one of the computers at the internet café. In minutes, Ronen solved a problem that many people had tried to fix over the past few weeks. Needless to say, we were quite proud.). My grandparents, mom, Liat, and I returned to town to meet Grace, the first child for whom my grandfather’s Rotary fund raised to travel to America for open heart surgery almost thirty years ago. Through a program called A Gift of Life, Rotary clubs in Westchester raise money to bring children to New York for surgeries that can’t be done in their countries. Grace traveled to the United States at around six years old. Before the surgery, she had been a very lethargic child, but immediately after the surgery, like most children who receive this treatment, Grace became an active and energetic six-year-old. Grace is now a healthy woman who works full time in community development. She currently serves as a field officer for Teso Foundation for Sustainable Development, an organization that works to empower people living in the slums in Kumi, a district near Mbale. She brought along an album with pictures from the hospital in the States, her family, and snapshots from momentous occasions over the years. Meeting Grace was a real privilege. My grandfather had the opportunity to see first-hand what the Gift of Life program offers children. Even though Grace had visited the United States a number of years ago to testify about the incredible miracle of heart surgery, this encounter was different. My grandparents had already spent five days in Uganda and better understood where Grace was coming from and what she had been up against as a child. They also had the privilege of learning how she is giving back to her community and the impact that she is having with the life that the surgery gave back to her! Although the clubs can’t bring in every child that needs the surgery, and this thought can be paralyzing, Grace was a reminder of the importance of doing what one can, even if it just for one person.

            Being here and seeing the need can often be overwhelming and paralyzing. Just today, when Adam and I were taking a Shabbat walk, we passed by a huge garbage pile (There is no garbage pick-up in Mbale; most people burn their own garbage. But in some places around town, the garbage accumulates into huge piles that emit nasty stenches). Anyway, we saw an older couple sorting through the garbage for food. The wife was actually sorting through what looked like a pile of beans mixed with garbage. We were on our way home to a nice, warm meal of chapatti and beans. Walking by was not easy. We wanted to return with a hot meal for them, but what would happen tomorrow? And what about the filthy street children with ripped clothing that we had passed on our walk, who were most likely also really hungry? It’s easy to be paralyzed not only by the need and but also by the failing infrastructure. It’s easy to want to give up. What difference will one heart surgery make anyway? Or even a health center when people are drinking water with cholera and typhoid? But meeting Grace, listening to her story, and learning about her life reminded us that amid the chaos some order can be made. Also, as we strive to make macro-level changes, Grace’s story reminds us not to lose sight of the individuals for whom we are trying to make those changes. Even as we work toward a more “sustainable” solution, like educating local doctors and building medical facilities that can accommodate complicated surgeries, we should not make all children with curable problems wait until the doctors are trained and the facilities built, even if we can’t yet heal everyone.

            On a separate note, it’s now the rainy season, which means that it usually rains at least once a day for about an hour. With the rains come more mosquitoes and with more mosquitoes comes more malaria! It has been raining regularly for just over a week now and it’s incredible that within such a short time, we have noticed the drastic increase in malaria. So many people who we know came down with malaria this week and even the number of patients at the health unit has risen sharply. (For those who visited in December and January and thought things at the health unit were a bit slow, unfortunately, the wards are now filling up and there seems to be a steady stream of out-patients.) We hope and pray that as the rainy season continues, which is a blessing for farmers who are ready to plant their fields, the incidences of malaria can be controlled and the infections treated quickly and successfully.
 

What else can I say….

Picture of the week
Friday, 7th March, 2008
SCHOOL children walk towards a Secondary School named after the U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama in western Kenya Village of Kogelo on March 5. Villagers in Barack Obama’s ancestral Kenyan home expressed disappointment on Wednesday as his rival, Hillary Clinton won key votes to revive her campaign for the White House

Impressions of Uganda by Aba (my dad)

We just arrived home from visiting Maital and Adam in Uganda. I have to say that this trip to Sub-Saharan Africa, to Uganda, was an amazing trip. I would recommend for everyone to visit Uganda. The people we met were warm, generous, and appreciative of our visit. It was very eye-opening to see such an underdeveloped country. Once you leave the larger towns most people live in mud walled, thatch roofed huts, without electricity or running water. Bathrooms are outhouses behind the house; having a bathroom in the house is an idea foreign to most of the population. All water, even in town, must be boiled before drinking so we only used bottle water. As Maital wrote in her entry we quickly learned that patience is a necessary quality in Africa. Not only can meals take an hour or more to arrive at the table most everything happens slowly or with a logic westerners find hard to comprehend.

The first few days we spent in the town of Mbale visiting with the people Maital works with at the Bushikori Christian Center. We visited the primary school and the clinic that BCC runs. BCC has a small compound outside of town where the school and clinic are located. I was very impressed by the wonderful staff. The teachers and the administration are wonderful people who have dedicated their lives to the care and education of some of the most vulnerable children in the society. BCC provides not only an education for underprivileged children but also is dedicated to working with their families in many supportive ways. Many of these children are orphaned and live in families headed by older siblings or cousins because the parents have succumbed to the Aids epidemic (which Uganda currently has better control of than some other African countries). Since the summer of 2005, when Maital spent the summer working at Bushikori Christian Center (BCC), we have supported a young girl so she can attend school and sent money to support the family of siblings and cousins she lives with headed by a wonderfully, responsible young 25 year old man named Paul. Sponsoring a child’s education only costs $250 a year. Please contact me if you are willing to help BCC by sponsoring a child or help Maital and BCC build a library for the community.

BCC also runs an onsite clinic being administered by a terrific young Kenyan doctor, Levert. The clinic is a bare bones operation that provides vital care not only for the children of BCC but the doctor also provides care for the larger geographic area around Mbale. He provides vaccinations, health instruction, pre-natal and obstetrics services for many people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to these services We spent several pleasant dinners and evenings with Levert.

We spent Shabbat with the Abuyadaya. This is a Ugandan community that began following Judaism about 100 years ago. You can read more about their history by following the links on this blog. They have just set up a new guest house where we stayed. Adam is working hard at helping to organizethe guest house. Our Shabbat with the Abuyadaya was another experience. Our guide, Samson, took us on Friday morning to a local market day where we negotiated on a goat. Yes we purchased a goat at the request of our 17 year son, Ronen, so we could watch the shochet of the Abuyadayah do a kosher slaughtering of the goat, another expert skinned it, another expert cut out the tendon in the back legs (a kosher requirement) and another person cut up the meat for cooking. All this was done outside, involving hanging the goat from a tree, after it was ritually killed. I’ll spare you more of the details but we have pictures of the whole thing.

How can I describe sitting in the village’s synagogue on Friday night and again on Saturday participating in services. Here we were in Africa davoning with a Jewish minyan. We sat at dinner on Friday night and at lunch on Shabbat day with one of the elders of the tribe who told us about the history of the community and many of the current projects; several young girls came by to join us in Zmirot, singing after we ate. The community has their own Jewish primary and high school. It was a heart warming feeling to see this small community struggling to learn what Judaism is, exploring Judaism and committed to teaching their children to be Jews.

For the next three days of our trip we traveled across the country to visit Uganda’s largest national park. It was all and more than we expected, something out of the movie, African Queen. We did a game drive where we saw many varieties of antelope, warthogs, monkeys, water buffalo, elephants, giraffe, jackals and even lions. We took a boat on the Nile River to see the second most powerful water fall in the world, Murchison Falls. We also saw hippos, crocodiles and a lot of other game along the river. This was a beautiful ending to a fantastic trip. We not only have many, many pictures of our time in Uganda but we have a greater appreciation and deeper understanding of what sub-Saharan Africa is and what Maital and Adam are working hard to accomplish there.