Abayudaya: The Jews of Uganda

In a world where television, cars, and multiple story buildings are conspicuous in their absence, there is a community of about six hundred people living in a remote area of Eastern Uganda called the Abayudaya.

Living in villages bordering the small town of Mbale, these poverty-stricken people worship and practice Judaism. Although they are surrounded by Muslims and Christians, and face hostility, they continue to celebrate Jewish holidays, observe the laws of the Sabbath, keep kosher, and pray in Hebrew.

During the rule of dictator Idi Amin, their synagogues were closed and the community prayed furtively. For four generations since their initial conversion in 1919, these people have preserved their Jewish lifestyle.

In the 1990's, free-lance photographer Richard Sobol, who received his BFA in the joint Tufts School of the Museum of Fine Arts degree program in 1976, traveled to Uganda to photograph African wildlife and became familiar with the Abayudaya.

"Within seconds, I felt completely at ease and welcomed. That feeling has been pervasive throughout the time I spent there," Sobol said. "They are very hospitable people."

He chronicled the lives of the Abayudaya in vibrant color images, and after hearing their music, requested that Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, associate university chaplain and executive director of the Tufts Hillel Foundation with a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, record the Jewish music with its African rhythms. The two traveled to Uganda together and lived with the people, slept in the local high school on air mattresses and sleeping bags, and ate the native rice, beans, bananas, and their own PowerBars.

In addition to recording their music, Summit was also able to expose the Abayudayans to other music from outside their own culture. When the Abayudayans got the opportunity to hear Tufts' Jewish a Cappella group, Shir Appeal, sing Abayudayan music on a recording in Hebrew and Ugandan, they cried, "Now we know we are connected to other Jews throughout the world."

Summit was so taken by the everyday life and music of the Abayudayans, his first reaction was that he needed to let others know of the beauty that he had found.

"I was so struck by how familiar this was to me," he said. "It was a part of my own culture and yet it was so far away from my community."

Summit got the opportunity to share his experiences with the Tufts community on Feb. 13, when his recordings, along with Sobol's photos, went on display in the Aidekman Art Gallery. With familiar but outlandish Jewish songs in the background of the gallery, the exhibit gives an authentic portrayal of Abayudayan life.

The pictures presented the Abayudayan everyday lifestyle, while also noting their fervent beliefs for their own culture.

"You can really sense how spiritual they are," sophomore Erica Weitz said. "This is really what they live for."

The vitality of the photos is so rich in color that one can indeed feel the softness of an Abayudayan mother's cheek pressed against her baby. Sobol catches a close-up of a tattered and well-used bible, dirt roads, bright garments, Kippahs and Talises, old grandmothers and young babies.

"This is an amazing exhibit and a great chance for people to learn about the hidden cultures of Judaism that most people do not see in the Western world," freshman Marc Katz said.

In one photo Ugandan Rabbi Gershom Sizomu and his daughter Daphne are shown lighting the Sabbath candles on Nabogoya hill. In another, two boys play with their own creation of a toy car, which Summit eventually bought for 2500 shillings, which is equivalent to about two dollars. This toy car is also presented in a glass encasement in the gallery.

In order to further educate people about the Abayudayan culture, Summit recently signed a contract with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and will release a CD of his recording this fall. Summit has signed all of the royalties over to the Abayudayan community and is also, in the interim, raising money for their school system. Sobol's photographs and Summit's field recordings and essay on the musical traditions of the Ugandan Jews were published last fall in Abayudaya, the Jews of Uganda. In addition, the exhibition will continue to run until Mar. 23.

"This blows apart our stereotypes about what it means to be a Jew or an African American or anything else," Summit said. "We can't put people in boxes and think that we know them."