The Last Supper

I'm not very Jewish. I don't go to temple. I am anti-Israel. I never set foot in a synagogue. My knowledge of Yiddish is very limited. I don't have many Jewish friends. Most of what I know about passover I learned from Charleton Heston.. I didn't even get BarMitzvahed. And I definitely didn't know that they had Jews in Uganda. But there are, and I don't mean Holocaust escapees selling bagels in Kampala, these guys are actual Ugandan Jews. The reason I know this is because about a week ago I spent Passover with them.

You might be wondering how such a unJewish person such as me ended up spending Pesach with black Jews in Uganda.. You have to blame my friend Shira for that one. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but it was definitely an interesting cultural experience.

There were a fair amount of mzungus there, mostly Israeli but a bunch on Americans too. In reality there was quite a range of Juadism on display, many Israelis aren't religious and there were even some gentile junior-year-abroad (SIT) kids who were just there with their friends. This made me feel a little better about myself. Overall I felt about as out of place as I usualy do when I'm around real Jews on a high holiday; they were all using words I don't know mixed in with their regular conversations, and singing songs I didn't know the words to (or even the language). In fact with these things it's probably better I don't speak Hebrew, I would have felt more uncomfortable if I was more than passingly aware of the fact that all the throat clearing and babbling meant "O' God.." , "Master of the Universe.." etc.

There were some things that were different than your average American Seder (other than all the black people). They didn't give out yarmulkes at the door, not even the paper ones. There was no matzo-ball soup. There wasn't even any wine. Those last two really hurt. And many things were pretty similar to what I remember from their American counterparts; most people weren't listening to the rabbi, other people were just moving their lips during the songs too, and most of all we skipped 80% of the haggadah (just like home).

And that's how I ended up spending one of the holiest days of the year with the Jews of Uganda. Getting there was really the hardest part. I had to check out a VGIF site the day before, so I had split up with Shira and had to find my way there by myself. I got to the town of Mbale and asked a moto-taxi to take me to "Moses Synagogue", he said, "sure" we agreed on a price and of course he had no idea where we were going (in his defense, Jews are a few kilometers from town hidden away safe from the gentiles). Though he repeated "Moses Synagogue" like a pro, he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I told him, "take me to the Jews". He had at least heard about them, and we headed off in their general direction. It turned out that he was an Evangelical Christian and he spent most of the ride trying to convert me.. He didn't have much luck with that, but after asking "Which way to the Jews?" to a half-dozen people, and a couple wrong turns later I was staring at a big star of David, and I knew I was in Abayudaya..

Overall it was definitely an interesting experience. The location was great, beautiful sunset views I ate some Matzo. I am Jewish after all.