Rural Ugandan Jewish community splits over conversion
NABUGOYE, Uganda (JTA) — On Fridays at sundown, the Jewish residents of this village set amid the lush hills of eastern Uganda gather in the synagogue to greet Shabbat.
The room is bare, the light is dim and the Conservative prayer books are worn. But the spare surroundings do little to diminish the enthusiasm of the men, women and children who sing psalms, clap and dance while a few in the front strum guitars and play drums.
Two days later and an hour away in the village of Putti, a handful of men wake at sunrise and trudge into a narrow room lit only by sunbeams streaming through the nearby banana trees. Those who have tefillin wrap them, while the rest sit on hard benches behind oblong wooden desks reading from traditional Orthodox prayer books with crumbling bindings. A sheet hung by a string demarcates an empty women’s section. At the front of the room hangs an Israeli flag.
Until the early 2000s, the two communities were one. Known as the Abayudaya, the 2,000-member group has practiced Judaism for about a century, owing to a former community leader who read the Bible and adopted the religion.
Now, despite being led by cousins and sharing other ties, the communities are split and barely speak to each other. Even in the mountains of rural East Africa, there’s the synagogue you go to and the one you don’t.
more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/rural-ugandan-jewish-community-splits-over-conversion/
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Long, interesting article, but I had the same reaction as some of the commenters in the comment section. Two Jews, three opinions! With all of those willing to kill us, destroy us, and make our lives hell; we tend to spend too much time attacking each others. When the trains started rolling in Germany, they didn't care what "kind of" Jew we were, they only cared we were Jews. We need to remember that fact.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Kidding!!!
An Israeli got shipwrecked, far from home, and ended up on a desert island, all by himself.
Decades later, a science exploration group landed on the island. Several of the crew were Chabadnicks. They found the man. He had built himself a house, wrote out scrolls for teffillin by memory, wove a kippah made of leaves, and had even built a shul.
The Chabadnicks were amazed at the man's level of observance, out there in the middle of nowhere.
They then looked around a bit, and found yet another building, deserted. They asked the Israeli, "what is this building?"
"Oh that!", he sneered. "That's my old shul. I got mad at them and left."
