Shalom Uganda:A Jewish Community on the Equator

By Janice Masur

Janice Masur grew up in a tiny, remote European Jewish community in Kampala, Uganda under British Imperial rule, with no rabbi or Jewish infrastructure. And yet, this community of only twenty-three families formed a cohesive group that celebrated all Jewish festivals together and upheld their Jewish identity. Sadly, while Kampala Jewry made every effort to survive, it eventually failed and withered under the hot African sun.

 In Shalom Uganda: A Jewish Community on the Equator, Masur tells her story of living in this little-known Ashkenazi Jewish community from 1949 to 1961.  As so many Jewish communities were obliterated in the last century, she documents, remembers, and preserves Kampala European Jewry with all the respect it deserves.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janice Masur
• Release date: May 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781999146917

Book preview

ShalomUganda_front_cover_Apr29.jpg

Janice Masur

Copyright

Text copyright © 2020 Janice Masur

Photographs copyright © 2020 from the personal collection of Janice Masur, with the exception of front cover colour photo, Southwestern Uganda, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, © Travel Stock/Shutterstock.com; back cover painting, Mountain Scene, Kigezi, Uganda, © Kay Lipton; title page, Crowned Crane, by Aliaksei © VectorStock.

Map of British East Africa from Philips’ Modern School Atlas 43rd ed. London: George Philip and Son Limited, 1952.

First paperback edition published in April 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, [e-mail]

The author can be contacted for public speaking engagements at [e-mail]

ISBN 978-1-9991469-1-7

Produced by Behind the Book (behindthebook.ca)

Cover design: Sean Thompson (seanthompson.crevado.com)

Ebook by EbookConversion.CA (ebookconversion.ca)

Copy editing: Dallas Harrison

Front cover (black-and-white photo): Almost the whole Kampala Jewish community at the Speke Hotel on Seder night, 1956. See Appendix I for names of those present (and missing).

Dedication

Dedicated to a vanished Jewish community

on the African equator

and to Joel, Liora and Tom

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Part 1. Jews Moving into Africa 1867–1949

1. Europeans Battle for African Resources

2. A Jewish Pattern of Diasporic Displacement

3. Two Worlds Collide

Part 2. The Kampala European Jewish Community 1949–1961

4. By Sea, by Train and on Foot

5. Kampala: Jewish Life on the Equator

6. Jewish Communities in Isolation

7. Limited Options: Rites of Passage

Part 3. Leaving Kampala 1961–1975

8 The Jewish Exodus Begins

9. A Jewish Community Disappears, and the Abayudaya Endure

Conclusion

Appendix I. The Kampala Jewish Community

Appendix II. Statistics on Jews in Uganda

Appendix III. Timeline of Ugandan Colonial History

Appendix IV. Excerpt from Uganda Shore Excursions Information Booklet

Appendix V. Newspaper Clippings

References

Acknowledgements

This book germinated from a research seed sown in an East African history credit course at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. Professor Sarah Walshaw set this whole process in motion. Like an elephant pregnancy, it has taken a long time to complete. Little did she know what she had unleashed, because this project has become larger than a mature elephant. Some of the writing was exciting, some of it difficult, because I am not a professional writer; rather, I had a burning desire to bear witness to my Kampala Jewish community in Uganda since there seems to be no other record of its existence.

Walking on the sometimes jagged and sometimes smooth stepping stones of this daunting path, I have been helped along the way by many to whom I am most grateful. Many amazing people have given their time and knowledge unstintingly. Sue Eldridge was a most helpful critic in the early days. Ed Steinberg provided some salient points in his reading. Richard Menkis, Hinda Avery and Rhoda Kaellis (who has since died) were insightful readers of an early draft. I am indebted to my mentors Betsy Warland, in the VMI (Vancouver Manuscript Intensive) creative writing program, and Ingrid Rose, whose inspirational words of wisdom and invaluable gentle caring and knowledge thrust me into the fire of writing a memoir. I also thank my creative writing group for their encouragement.

I am grateful to octogenarian Theresa Franco, now living in Houston; the late nonagenarians Ilsa Dokelman and Dina Levitan, who lived in London, England; and Kay Lipton, now living in Brisbane. All were delighted to help me. Their most generous time and energy answering my numerous questions about Uganda, with their collective sharp minds, were invaluable. Among others, Arye Oded, Sami Cohen, David Lichtenstein, David Kiyaga-Mulindwa and Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, and finally the late Velora Moskovitch, helped me along my way.

My East African school friends, who live all over the world, were quick to respond via email with details of and embellishments to my questions about our childhood there. With deep gratitude, I thank Hazel Slutzkin, Ruth Walton, Leora Liberman, Dita Dokelman, Bernard Dokelman, Danny Franco, Margaret Bryant and Carol Lynch. It astonishes me, now living in Canada, to have Highland School friends here in British Columbia—Gillian Pinette and Jane Matheson, from primary school in Kampala, and Carolyn and Elizabeth Millar-Logan and Barbara Kaylor, from Highland School years; all were supportive and helpful with memorable details, which I have tried faithfully to include.

Grateful thanks go to my dear lifetime friends Sheila Kemble, Jane Cole and Shirley Fineblit, all eagle-eyed readers who did a remarkable job of making an early manuscript grammatical. I thank Charles Szlapak and Adinah Zola for their archival hunting on my behalf in Nairobi Jewish Congregation archives. Pierre Dansereau’s invaluable computer expertise rescued me on many occasions. I could not have managed without the excellent editorial assistance of Sally Taplin, Lisa Ferdman and especially Linda Shulman; Linda’s attention to the smallest details and her sharp editorial know-how finally began the birthing of this personal memoir. Dear friends Ted Cohen, Peggy Meyer and Jana Abramson provided valuable comments in the final stages of writing. And last, but definitely not least, editors Pat Dobie and Maureen Phillips nurtured the manuscript and added much clarity to it. My husband, Tom Szekely, deserves many accolades for his long-term support, late suppers and truly wonderful reader’s eye. And thank you to Rachelle Kanefsky and Carol Watterson of Behind the Book for their flair and polish.

May 2020

British East Africa, Philips’ Modern School Atlas, 1952.

Preface

Frequently, in a genuinely interested way, because of my accent, I am asked what part of the world I come from. Reticently, I reply Africa, or, if I am feeling communicative, I might say invitingly, Well, colonial East Africa, actually. With some surprise, the questioner exclaims, Oh! I could have sworn you had lived in England. After we have established that I am Jewish, knowingly, and after a moment of thought, the person continues brightly, Oh, the Abayudaya! I take in a big, mostly undisguised, breath and wonder how much information I should divulge. After all, most likely, I hardly know the person. Slowly and thoughtfully, I say, The European or Ashkenazi Jews who lived in Kampala. Really? the person replies. I had no idea about a European Jewish community on the equator. After we have established that the country is Uganda, most people are satisfied, and the tack of conversation moves toward more familiar ground. Inwardly, I am happy to be off the hook, draw myself up tall and remember a time when I would not have divulged even that much information, rather choosing to hide my accent and younger self in New Zealand, which is partially true.

Gradually, over the years, this internal dissonance came to a head and was further strengthened when I noted that many Canadians who exhibited varying degrees of knowledge about the Jewish diaspora knew about the Abayudaya blacks who had converted to Judaism but were almost completely unaware of a European Jewish community in Kampala. Recently, a Jewish woman told me that she could not ever imagine an Ashkenazi Jewish community being present there.¹

The general lack of knowledge that a European Jewish community had definitely existed on the African equator greatly increased my desire to remember and be a witness of my own small Jewish community—especially since now most references pertain only to the converted black Abayudaya Jews of Uganda. The two groups coexisted in the British Protectorate of Uganda before the Second World War. My community gathered a few Jewish souls during the Shoa or Holocaust and a handful more in the twenty or so years following this tragedy and before Ugandan independence in 1962.

Susan Gitelson, who spent a short time in Kampala in 1971, argued that it was not possible to live a full life as a Jew in Kampala.² From my childhood perspective, Kampala was an adequate Jewish community; however, in hindsight, it clearly appears to have been merely a stepping stone to elsewhere. My chance to rebut this premise occurred during a seniors’ course at Simon Fraser University when I could barely find any relevant research, or so it then appeared. Thus, the idea to document the existence, however brief, of a European Jewish community in Kampala, Uganda, was born.

The Jewish community there is a lost story, a faint scent, a low hum. Kampala in the 1950s, when I was a child there, was a mixture of curry, Mtoke bananas and Yorkshire pudding floating above the rich red earth neatly tucked under tropical green and wrapped around the equatorial edges of Lake Victoria. Once the end of a railway line, Kampala grew into an economic hub and flourished, becoming the Pearl of Africa, as Winston Churchill famously noted.

While thinking about my own story growing up in Kampala, I had glimpses of a Jewish presence in East Africa that raised my curiosity. When did European Jews first arrive in the East African interior? When did they begin to venture and trade inland? And, more importantly, when did Jews settle in Uganda? Why did the European Jewish community in Kampala fail to be recognized as an entity? What about Jewish individuals’ contributions to the British Empire? And, finally, why does this community no longer exist?

I share the results of my study here. This historical account (1949–61) is a tribute to that Kampala European Jewry.

Part 1. Jews Moving into Africa 1867–1949

1. Europeans Battle for African Resources

Trade, since earliest times, has always been the raison d’être for exploration, often with great personal peril and loss of life. Jewish communities dating back more than 2,700 years were among the oldest settlements in the modern North African countries of Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Sudan. Along the Mediterranean coast, ivory and other commodities played important roles in African trade with the ancient world. Over 2,000 years ago, Jews living in the Nile Delta in the district of Alexandria provided elephant tusks to the coastal ports of the Mediterranean and farther afield. There were successful Jewish settlements along both banks of the Nile, extending to the first rapids south of Aswan (in today’s Sudan). Papyri found on Elephantine Island (in the Nile River, across from the Aswan Dam) consist of caches of legal documents and letters written in Aramaic, attesting to the presence of a Jewish community there in the sixth century BC.³

Since earliest times, there has been a seafaring trade along the East African coast from Mogadishu in the north to Kilwa in the south. To support this mutually profitable coastal trading, Islamic trade cities dominated along the coast and became the centre of a massive trade network that brought Roman, Chinese, Indonesian, African and Persian products into their ports and markets. Arab dhows and Chinese junks as early as the eighth century were trading in lucrative ivory. In 1418, the Chinese, under the able seamanship of Zheng He, an admiral with a large armed fleet, sailed through the Strait of Malacca and arrived at Malindi, then an ancient Swahili kingdom ruled by a sultan just north of present-day Mombasa. Chinese pottery, silver and silk were exchanged for ivory, gold and exotic animals such as ostrich and giraffe. However, Robert Maxon, in his book East Africa: An Introductory History, makes the point that until the 1840s trade was limited to the coast because of the inhospitable arid plain separating the tropical interior of East Africa from the more fertile coastal strip.⁴

To avoid the growing Muslim domination over land spice trade routes from Asia to Europe, King John II of Portugal (1455–95) sought a new route to Asia. As a result, he funded the 1497 voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to encourage exploration of the African coast, both for trading and as a means to water and feed sailors en route to the Far East. Captain Vasco da Gama’s crew included two baptized Jewish sailors or Conversos.⁵ In 1798, Shalom Aharon Ovadiah Hacohen (born in Aleppo in 1762) and his son were the first Jews to document their trading business, using the monsoon winds between Calcutta and Zanzibar just south of Mombasa, off the modern Tanzanian or Tanganyikan coast.

Cloves were a crop specific to the island of Zanzibar, the scent of which wafted miles out to sea. Seyyid Said of Zanzibar, a Muslim, also known as Said ibn Sultan, a resourceful and energetic sultan of Oman, had moved his capital from Arabia to Zanzibar to better regulate his clove production. For this purpose, the sultan increased his population of slaves. It is also likely that Seyyid Said employed Jewish financiers from Calcutta, Bombay and Baghdad⁶ to manage his clove trade. Sephardic Jews lived everywhere in the Ottoman Empire, their loyalty unquestioned, and their European technology and valuable artisan knowledge aided the coffers of the ruling bey or sultan.

So, although Jews began to arrive on the African coast in the late 1400s, it was not until the Victorian era, soon after European nations began to battle each other for control over resources in other parts of Africa, that a larger influx of Jews began to arrive on the East African coast and later to venture inland. Tourists today can find engraved flowers, especially