Abayudaya

In February 2002, I had the honor of leading a Bet Din - a rabbinic court - to Uganda. Joining me on the Bet Din were Rabbi Scott Glass (Ithaca, NY); Rabbi Joseph Prouser (Little Neck, NY; Rabbi Andrew Sacks, Jerusalem; and a rabbinical student, (now: Rabbi) Moshe (Morris) Cotel. Accompanying us and assisting us were nine laypeople who had expressed an interest in the Abayudaya community. Two of them, members of Kulanu, coordinated the logistics.

We had been invited by the community’s leadership to convert the members of the community to Judaism. However, this "conversion" was unlike anything that any of us had ever done, and not only because of the numbers involved. Conversion usually implies a change in one's religion or spiritual outlook. That was not the case in this situation. The community had been practicing Judaism for over 80 years; its founding leader, Semei Kakungulu, had embraced Judaism in 1919, but without any ceremony or ritual of admission into the Jewish People. What we were doing, therefore, was more of an affirmation or confirmation of an existing reality; we were normalizing their status as Jews.

Why had the community never before formally converted to Judaism? The community was founded on the religion of the Jewish Bible, without reference to or knowledge of later developments – i.e., Rabbinic Judaism, as reflected in the Talmud and in later works of Jewish law. Since nowhere in the Bible is there an explicit mention of a ritual of conversion, the Abayudaya never felt the need to be converted. In fact, one of their leaders, Rabbi Samson Mugombe, the last living member of Kakungulu’s inner circle, opposed conversion as an unwarranted and unacceptable rabbinic innovation.
Why, then, did the Abayudaya decide to go through this ritual? The Abayudaya have come into contact with Jews throughout the world, and they have come to understand that Judaism and the religion of the Bible are not synonymous. They understand that normative Judaism is based, in large measure, on the teachings of the Talmudic rabbis. These rabbis defined the process of how one becomes a Jew. In order to be accepted by a wider cross-section of Jews throughout the world, more needed to be done than merely declaring, “I am muyudaya (a Jew).”

Joab Jonadab (J.J.) Keki, past community chairperson whose father had been a follower of Kakungulu, expressed it this way: "I was raised Jewish; it was already in my environment. Now I realize that someone might question my Judaism." (Quoted in Jews in Places You Never Thought of, Karen Primack, ed., page 190)

To be recognized and accepted as Jews -- by God as well as by other Jews -- is important to the Abayudaya, as it is for any of our people. It is important for spiritual reasons, to be included in a covenanted community that is charged with observing the precepts of the Torah. In the words of the community's spiritual leader, Rabbi Gershom Sizomu (who is currently a student in the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles): "Another benefit is that precious instrument, the Torah. To be Jewish is to submit to the Torah. There is no physical benefit that you get from observing Shabbat directly. But we hope that in the world-to-come we shall have a share in the good that God will bestow on His people, and we shall share it together. We shall also be called God's people. That's why we have chosen not to miss that." (op. cit.)

The Abayudaya have another, more "political" reason for wanting to be recognized as Jews. They remember the brutal persecution of the regime of Idi Amin, when they were forbidden to attend services and most of their synagogues were destroyed. Sizomu: "I think if Amin's power had continued ten years more the community would not have survived. But God saved it." He continues: "Persecution can come again, but now we shan't perish in isolation." Once they are recognized as Jews, Sizomu understands, should there be another period of persecution, Jews throughout the world will come to their aid. (op. cit., p. 191)

Make no mistake about this: Our Bet Din did not go to Uganda unbidden, to proselytize or to impose on this marvelous community our definition of who is a Jew. Since 1995, when a delegation, organized by Kulanu, went on a fact-finding mission to the Abayudaya, the desire to convert, to be recognized as Jews completely and without reservation, was an oft-stated priority of this community. Aaron Kintu Moses, the headmaster of the Abayudaya's Hadassah Infant School, made this very clear: "I can assure you that we long very much to convert, and any effort to do so is much welcome with great appreciation by members of the community." (op. cit., p. 171)

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