Jews' faith journey leads from Uganda to L.A. and back
The music was distinctly African, driven by pulsing drums and lively melodies.
But the lyrics were in Hebrew, sung by a diminutive rabbi with coal-black skin and a yarmulke as colorful as its history.
The high-spirited conga-line sashaying through Shomrei Torah Synagogue included dozens of Jews who had been teary-eyed moments before, but were now smiling and singing at the rabbi's cue.
For the congregants of the West Hills temple, the Sunday morning service was a celebration with an unlikely genesis in an African village 10,000 miles away -- a send-off for Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, ordained last month as the leader of Uganda's tiny band of Jews.
For me, it was one of those crazy-quilt, only-in-Los-Angeles moments that transcends color, culture and religion, and speaks volumes about faith and family.
The history of the Ugandan Jews is as unconventional as that Sunday scene.
A century ago, Christian missionaries trying to convert a tribal leader left Bibles for Mbale villagers. But it was the ritual of the Old Testament books that stuck, spawning the Abayudaya -- or People of Judah -- a tribe that reordered its lives around Torah teachings.
Sizomu's grandfather, then father, became its spiritual leaders. Villagers built a mud-brick synagogue and adorned it with a menorah and Star of David.
They circumcised their sons, studied donated holy books and learned snatches of Hebrew from passing travelers.
In the 1970s, the tribe dwindled to a few hundred, as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin destroyed the synagogue and outlawed Jewish rituals.
When Amin was overthrown, Sizomu made it his mission to rebuild the Abayudaya and connect the village to the international Jewish community.
He brought his wife and children to Los Angeles in 2003, with a scholarship for a five-year course at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. On May 19, he became the first black rabbi from sub-Saharan Africa.
For a family who had never lived outside of rural tribal lands, the Sizomus' new life here was startling.
In Mbale, most villagers live in mud-brick homes with no electricity or running water. Here, the Sizomus lived on the American Jewish University campus in Bel-Air, surrounded by unimaginable affluence.
They relied on San Fernando Valley families to help them navigate: They had never made a doctor's appointment, shopped in a supermarket or braved a school carpool line. That relationship spawned a connection that went beyond religious bounds.
