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A small community in Uganda claiming to be Jewish fights for legitimacy. Box at end of text.
Perched atop Mulholland Drive in stately Bel Air sits the University of Judaism. Tucked away in one of the campus's modest apartments resides 35-year-old Gershom Sizomu, his wife Tzipporah, and their children, Igaal, 10, and Dafna, 8.
From their hilltop vantage point, the Sizomus have a breathtaking view of the Los Angeles landscape. Yet it's a long, long, way from home - Nabugoye Hill in Uganda. Inside the Sizomus' apartment there are telephones (which ring incessantly), a fancy I- mac computer and an ever-growing library of Jewish texts.
But back home in Nabugoye Hill, there is no running water and no electricity. And while the Nabugoye Hill high school teaches students how to use a computer keyboard, it's taught via a diagram.
But what Nabugoye Hill lacks in modern conveniences, it more than makes up for in tradition, practice and devotion to Jewish life.
Twelve months ago, Sizomu and his family packed their bags to move to California to take up a scholarship at the University of Judaism, where he is studying to receive his smicha (rabbinic ordination), funded by The Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco.
Up until then, Sizomu was busy as the spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda, a group of some 600 people which has been practicing Judaism for over 80 years.
The community was founded in 1919 when Semei Kakungulu, a military leader who had assisted the British in colonizing Uganda, rebelled against the Christian missionaries and declared that after careful consideration of both the New and Old Testaments, he believed in the Old Testament. And so, at the age of 59, he stated in Lugandan (the official Ugandan language), "From this day onwards, we are Jews (Abayudaya)."
Semei Kakungulu then went on to circumcise himself and all the male members of his community, practice kashrut, keep Shabbat and live their lives according to the only Jewish laws they knew - those of the Old Testament.
By 1920, some 3,000 males had been circumcised and by 1926, the Abayudaya community counted 8,000 men, women and children among its people. It was in the same year that...