Finding nourishment for the body and soul with the Jews of Uganda

Editor’s Note: This article appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy on March 31, 2025.

Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah taught: “If there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour” (Pirkei Avot 3:17). This aphorism is sometimes taught in relation to philanthropy: Learning cannot flourish without material support – and that’s true. But last summer, my appreciation for the relationship between physical and spiritual nourishment was enriched in the most unlikely of places. 

Last June, my family and I spent several days with a small but vibrant Jewish community in Eastern Uganda. The Abayudaya (literally “the Jews of Uganda”) number approximately 2,000 and boast 11 synagogues. For the most part, they are desperately poor; they survive on subsistence farming, which means they eat what they grow and grow just about everything they eat. Luckily, the hill country of Mbale is blessed with rich red soil. Nevertheless, Uganda’s level of food insecurity is ranked “serious” by the Global Food Index and 1 in 4 children are stunted, suffering from impaired growth due to malnutrition.

The Jews of Uganda are indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, having converted en masse in 1919. Their founder was Semei Kakungulu, a noted hunter and tribal chief with vast holdings in Buganda, the largest kingdom in the British colony. Kakungulu and his followers practiced Malakite Christianity. With his territory expanding and increasingly at odds with his British patrons, Kakungulu became a fierce anti-colonialist. His break from the British was also a break from Christianity. In 1919, after a period of self-imposed seclusion and contemplation, Kakungulu emerged with his copy of the Christian Bible in Luganda, ripped it in half and discarded the New Testament. “I like the first part,” he seemed to say. “The second part, I’m not so sure.” 

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