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NEWS
Flurry of Anniversaries in Jewish Africa
by D. Saks
During the secular year 2004, a number of Jewish
organizations and communities on the African continent are
celebrating important anniversaries. These include the
marking of three centenaries, namely those of the Nairobi
Hebrew Congregation in Kenya, the Cape Council of the South
African Jewish Board of Deputies and the Claremont Hebrew
Congregation, also in Cape Town. Even older is the Oudtshoorn
Hebrew Congregation, which is preparing to celebrate its
120th birthday in style, while the Windhoek Hebrew
Congregation in Namibia turns 80.
Organized Jewish life south of the Sahara is of comparatively
recent origin, which lends added significance to the reaching
of these milestones. The 300-strong Jewish community in
Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, despite losing many members
since Kenya attained independence in the early 1960s, remains
the most viable sub-Saharan Jewish community outside of South
Africa and troubled Zimbabwe.
Kenya played other roles in modern Jewish history. It was
actually in the western part of that country, and not modern-
day Uganda, that the early Zionist leadership briefly
considered establishing a Jewish homeland. Following World
War II, the British interned Zionist activists in detention
camps in Kenya. A number of these were liberated and whisked
across the border into the Belgian Congo in a daring rescue
operation carried out by South African Jews.
Kenya also featured in the Entebbe raid of 1976. Israeli
airplanes were allowed to refuel at Nairobi airport, and
Israeli hospital planes were stationed on the tarmac to
attend to those injured in the raid. In 1982, terrorists
bombed a Kenyan hotel whose owner had hosted some of the
Israeli raiders at the time.
It was unfortunately not the last time Kenya was the object
of a major terrorist attack. In 1998, over 200 were killed in
an Al Qaeda bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi, and
in 2002, twelve people, including three Israelis, lost their
lives in the suicide car bombing of the Paradise Hotel in
Mombasa. The carnage could have been much greater. The
terrorists, who were also found to be linked to Al Qaeda,
also tried, and narrowly failed, to bring down an Israeli
passenger jet soon after takeoff.
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In Cape Town, the celebration of the centenary of the Cape
Council of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD)
formed the second part of the SAJBD's centenary celebrations.
The first took place last year, with the marking of the
centenary of the Board in the northern provinces of the
Transvaal (today Gauteng) and Natal. The conference itself
was marred by some controversy, with two of the speakers
straying from the subject on which they were supposed to
speak, and instead respectively attacking Israel for its
treatment of the Palestinians and attacking the mainstream
Orthodox community for its refusal to recognize Reform
converts as Jews.
The opening of the Cape conference was addressed by Ebrahaim
Rasool, Premier of the Western Cape Province. Rasool had been
criticized by the Jewish community for his overtly anti-
Zionist statements and for his participation at protest
rallies where Jews were overtly denigrated. He called for
moderates of all sides to find common ground and sideline
extremists and also acknowledged that there was a problem of
antisemitism in the 400,000-strong Muslim community in Cape
Town.
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The 120th anniversary of Oudtshoorn will be marked by a three-
day series of commemorative events in November. The sleepy
southern Cape Town, located in the arid, if picturesque, part
of the country known as the Karoo, was once known as the
Jerusalem of South Africa because of the size and vibrancy of
its Jewish community. At its height during the 1880-1914
period, when Oudtshoorn was benefiting from an international
ostrich feather boom, there were over 3,000 Jews living
there. The community shrunk rapidly following the collapse of
the ostrich feather industry, but an active core remained.
Today, the Oudtshoorn Jewish community consists of only 18
families, but it continues to be active, holding regular
shul services, maintaining a high level of
kashrus and ensuring that its institutions, including
its historic synagogue and Jewish cemetery, are kept in
excellent condition.
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