"Struggle to Survive" - The Story of the Abayudaya Jewish Community in Uganda
- Event Type
- Lecture
- Sponsor
- Center for African Studies, Hillel at the University of Illinois, Program in Jewish Culture and Society, Champaign Urbana Jewish Federation, Champaign Urbana Jewish Endowment Foundation
- Date
- Feb 10, 2021 12:00 - 1:00 pm
- Speaker
- Rabbi Gershom Sizomu
- Cost
- Free
- Registration
- Registration
- Contact
- Erez Cohen
- erez@illinihillel.org
- Views
- 24
- Originating Calendar
- Campus Humanities Calendar
Rabbi Gershom Sizomu is the spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda. Gershom leads the 100-year old Abayudaya community of almost 2,000 Jews living in rural villages in Eastern Uganda. He is the grandson of community elder Rabbi Samson Mugombe and lives near the Moses Synagogue in the village of Nabugoya, which he and others from the community’s early 1980s “Kibbutz movement” built with their own hands. Their goal has been to gather what was left of the Abayudaya community back together after the devastating reign of Idi Amin Dada ended in 1979.