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- Pioneering Jewish Settlers in Kenya
- Shalom Kenya: History of Jewish Kenya
- The Jewish Communities of Kenya
Media
Nowhere in Africa (2001) "Nirgendwo in Afrika", DVD
Nowhere in Africa (Zeitgeist) wins the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Directed by Caroline Link, the movie is based on a novel—a thinly veiled memoir—by Stefanie Zweig about fleeing Germany, "the land of Goethe and Schiller," for Kenya in 1938. The German Jewish refugee family moves to and adjusts to a farm life in 1930s Kenya.
History
The Jewish community in Kenya dates back to 1899 when the first Jew, J. Marcus, arrived in Nairobi from India. He set up an export business for local produces. In 1903, the British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered the Zionists a part of the territory in Kenya and Uganda known as the Uganda Program for their own autonomous country at the Sixth Zionist Congress. The suggestion created much controversy among the international Jewish community, and was rejected at the Seventh Zionist Congress, in 1905. Although this proposal was reverted, several Jewish families immigrated to Kenya.
In 1913, there were 20 Jewish families living in Kenya. Most resided in Nairobi. When the Holocaust ended, some Jews started to immigrate to Kenya. The Jewish community also built a synagogue there. . . . Source
Unlike the pioneers, these Jews, considered refugees, were educated – they were lawyers, engineers, architects, teachers. But it was the 1930s in Kenya, and there was little to no market for their professions, so the most logical thing for them was to go into farming – which they did. Some became hands while others became managers for the British white settlers who had already found their way to the country.
After Kenyan Independence, most Jews left the country for fear of another Holocaust. Power was changing hands and there was uncertainty as to what would happen to the settlers, but the transition was a smooth one and peace prevailed. In this environment, Kenya’s Jewish community thrived.
The Jews coming to Kenya after Independence mainly hailed from Israel, as the two states had an amicable relationship. And through the Center for International Integration, Kenya sent hundreds of youths to Israel for training in the field of agriculture. Cooperation between the two nations led to the establishment of the Kibwezi Irrigation Project, a Jewish-funded initiative and Kenya’s most successful large-scale irrigation scheme to date.
Meanwhile in the flower industry, which has always been important in Kenya, Israeli-owned Amiran, launched in Kenya in 1963, is the largest horticultural and floricultural export earner in East Africa and has helped develop the trade here. Ninety percent of the greenhouses in Kenya are constructed by Amiran, which has branched out into water purification, generators and solar energy. . . . Source
In August 2012, Israel and Germany teamed up with Kenya to sign a trilateral agreement for a project to upgrade the commercial fishery and wastewater purification systems in Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake. As part of the agreements, members of MASHAV, Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation, will help to revitalize the tilapia population in fish ponds around the edges of Lake Victoria and will then train local fishermen on how to maintain the levels while also working at the modern fisheries. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga presided over the signing ceremony.
Today, approximately 400 Jews live in Kenya; most reside in Nairobi. There are regular Shabbat and holiday services held in the only synagogue in the country. While the majority of the congregation is not Orthodox, the services follow Orthodox traditions, including separate seating for men and women. The community is led by Rabbi Chananya Rogalsky, an American who is an African envoy for Chabad-Lubavitch. All kosher food is imported. The community center, in the Vermont Memorial Hall, is located adjacent to the synagogue, and holds many weekly educational and social events. . . . Source
The Kasuku Gathundia Jewish community
A Kikuyu-speaking Kasuku community of 60 members, calling itself the Kasuku Gathundia Jewish community, has developed among subsistence farmers in the Kenyan highlands, near Nyahururu. According to their patriarch, Yosef Ben Avraham Njogu, it grew from a split with Kenya’s sizeable Messianic Jewish congregation, when a purported visit from Nairobi Jews led to their understanding that what they practiced was Messianic and not Judaism. On learning of the distinction, he and Avraham Ndungu Mbugua broke away, and began to studied Judaism in depth. Circumcision, traditionally a puberty rite disallowed by law at birth, means that the community's children must travel to Uganda to have the rite performed by the Abayudaya. Nairobi's Hebrew Congregation has nothing to do with them.