Jewish community in Uganda

This is very interesting - I had no idea that Uganda is home to a small ethnic Jewish community. They live in the  eastern Ugandan town of Mbale and are known as the Abayudaya, which is the Luganda word for Jews.The community was founded by a warrior called Kakungulu, who was used by the British to help conquer Uganda.

Kakungulu eventually fell out with the colonialists, settled down in Mbale and converted to Judaism in 1919, without ever having met a Jew. By the time he died, about ten years later he had around 2,000 followers.Through the years the community dwindled, but over recent years has experienced a revival, having grown from around 500 members in 2001 to more than 750 members today. The community has built Jewish schools which are currently also attended by Muslim and Christian scholars.

Comments

[James Clark]

Back in the day...

When the powers that were were deliberating about where to dump a Jewish state, Uganda was one of the possible areas of placement.

Obviously, the Middle East won once the Ottoman Empire was smashed after the First World War.

[Bronwyn]

"Theodor Herzl sought support from the great powers for the creation of a Jewish homeland. He turned to Great Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others. The British agreed, in principle, to Jewish settlement in East Africa.

At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basle on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary emergency refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO) was formed as a result of the unification of various groups who had supported Herzl's Uganda proposals during the period 1903-1905. The Uganda Program, which never had much support, was formally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905."
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf1.html#g

Secondly I don't think that the Jewish state was dumped arbitrarily in the Middle east for the lack of a better place. Jews have strong religious, ethnic and historical ties to Israel. Firstly they were massacred and kicked out by the Romans, and then by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire. Israel has as much right to exist as Palestine, and hopefully as soon as possible we will witness the creation of a Palestinian state as well.

[James Clark]

Yes.

The only reason they considered other places at all was because the Ottoman Empire was still a force to be reckoned with at the start of the 20th century.

Believe it or not, North Dakota was also a possible location.

[Rethabile]

Expectedly the group's name, 'Abayudaya,' is derived from the same root -"jud"- as the appellation of Jewish folks all over the world (Majuda in Sesotho).

Idi despised Jews. How did this small community fare during his reign?