THE JEWS OF MOZAMBIQUE
| The Jewish community of Mozambique is more than 100 years
old. Throughout its existence, it has been small in number and diverse in origin. Before
the turn of the century, the Ashkenazim and Sephardim who first migrated to the
Indian Ocean port of Maputo (known before independence in 1975 as Lourenco Marques),
hailed from such places as Vilna, Marrakech, London, and Durban. For years, they met
for services in homes and reportedly often feuded on liturgical matters. Community
lore records a RoshHaShanah early in the century at which an innovative hazan
managed to please the whole congregation by alternating between Ashkenazic and Sephardic
style pronunciation and melodies for the length of the service. Despite their differences, in 1926 the two groups built a common synagogue. But the community was never large enough to |
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| support a rabbi, so services and other rituals were led by members. |
Despite an influx of Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied
Europe during the Second World War, the community seemed to be in a terminal demographic
decline. By the early 1970's the gabbai had to roust visiting South African Jews
from the city's tourist hotels to make a minyan on Friday
nights. At Mozambican independence in 1975, most of the remaining Jews, who were out of
sympathy with the collectivist economic policies of the new government, left the country.
The synagogue, along with many churches and mosques, was confiscated; it was turned into a
warehouse. The cemetery, once an urban oasis with its avenue of frangipani and a towering
mango tree, fell into disrepair and was badly vandalized. Without the synagogue, and in a
climate of official hostility to religion, organized Jewish life in Mozambique came to a
halt.
In 1989, however, a local non-Jewish businessman, Alkis Macropolous, organized a campaign
to have the synagogue returned to the community. An advertisement placed in the local
newspaper brought the few remaining Jews in the country back together. Gradually, small
contributions allowed clean-up and restoration work to begin. Alkis had expected the
synagogue to become a sort of
historical monument to the Mozambican Jewish community that had once worshipped there.
His expectations were justified. For Mozambique's few remaining Jews, isolation from
world Jewry had meant no exposure to Jewish culture and no availability of the ritual
requirements of Jewish life. The flame of Jewishness in Mozambique was all but
extinguished.
Despite these circumstances, the return of the synagogue to the Jews led the Jews to
return to synagogue. A handful of self-taught members started meeting in its single
bare room on Saturday afternoons to sing fold songs and study Hebrew.
Representatives of other religious groups in
Mozambique attended an Anne Frank memorial program. When I stepped inside the little white
sanctuary for the first time, I heard a group of twelve people singing "Am Yisrael
Hai," accompanied
on a portable keyboard by the gabbai-by-default, who happened to be a German Lutheran.
It was, as they say, from the heart. Since the 1989 recovery of the synagogue,
milestone has followed
milestone. The community's sifrei Torah, which were presumed lost when most of the
Jews scattered in 1975-76, were found in the safekeeping of the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies.
Because they were no longer kosher, the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Dr. Cyril Harris,
solicited the donation of another Torah scroll, and a congregation in Cape Town made that
extraordinary gift to the Maputo community. The day the rabbi delivered the Torah
happened to be Rosh Hodesh and hence an opportunity for a public reading from the scroll.
It was the first time the community's younger members had ever heard the Torah read.
They listened with rapt incomprehension. Since 1989, successive Passover
s'darim have incorporated as many local elements as possible. Mozambique's may be the only
Jewish community in the world where the haroset on the seder plate is based on cashews,
which are plentiful locally, and the maror is the herb nkakunda, which all agree is the
bitterest edible thing sold in the market. On Rosh HaShanah
in 1993, the shofar was blown in Maputo for the first time in at least 15 years. In
November of that year, Mozambique and Israel established diplomatic relations.
The community's single most unifying ritual is the Shabbat service held every Friday
night. Long gone is the competition between Ashkenazic and Sephardic liturgical
styles. The task today is to make the services accessible and
meaningful to those who speak only Portuguese (the first language of the community) and to
those who prefer English ( the common language of visiting foreigners). The
result is an idiosyncratic mixture of the two, plus lots of singing in Hebrew, the
language with which everyone struggles equally.
Jewish religious knowledge can lapse and culture evaporate, but Jewish identity lingers.
And so, from even a single spark, Jewish life can revive. Among the Mozambican
Jews, basic Jewish ideas and observances such as circumcision and kashrut are complete
novelties. One man's only
observance is to wear a yarmulke on Yom Kippur in an annual public affirmation of his
identity. Another young man was brought to synagogue for the first time
by an uncle at the age of 19. Ever since, he has attended Friday night services faithfully
and even spent his precious saving on a Christian bible because it was written in Hebrew.
Some months, later, he wanted to admit himself to the hospital in order to be circumcised,
having read on the reverse of a Jewish calendar about
the mitzvah of circumcision. The circumcision was put off pending some study of the
meaning of the ritual and consultation with rabbinic authorities.
The return to long-buried Jewish roots is not limited to the Mozambicans. Some of the most
active community members are non-Mozambican Jews who work on the staffs at embassies and
foreign aid organizations. Many of them were not synagogue-going Jews in their own
countries but became
Shabbat regulars in Maputo and began to share with their less-educated Mozambican
co-religionist.
The demand for Jewish knowledge in Maputo is greater than the supply. Books about Judaism,
especially in Portuguese, are particularly prized.
But, what the community lacks in religious instruction it makes up for in enthusiasm. One
of the projects that has made great headway is the restoration of the cemetery. The
community has met on Sunday mornings since 1992 to remove tons of trash from the cemetery
grounds, plant new
trees and raise the walls to discourage vandals. The cemetery is well on its
way to becoming the little urban garden it once was, and is again a fit resting place for
previous generations.
The revival of the Jewish community of Mozambique, remarkably, has been helped along to a
great extent by non-Jews. When you ask the key participants why they got involved,
the common threads in their replies seem to be personal friendships with Jews and esteem
for the principles of Judaism. In my year and a half in Mozambique, I found
only curiosity and warm feeling about Jews and Judaism among non-Jews. The government
ministries and the leadership of other religions have greeted the revival of the community
with delight and encouragement. Despite its small size,
the Jewish community has participated as a full equal in national ecumenical events
involving Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Hindus.
After a generation of civil war, socialism and recurring drought, an observer of
Mozambique might be excused for answering G-d's question to Ezekiel in the negative.
But peace is giving Mozambique new hope of reconstruction and development. One
small aspect of the more general
improvement of national fortunes is the unexpected revival of the country's Jewish
community.
That miraculous development augurs well for the nation's future.
E-mail: Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum
