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Just when you thought that vexing question -- Who is a Jew? -- has been answered satisfactorily, along comes another situation to test the limits.
This time, it's the Abayudaya, a small group of people from remote Uganda whose forebears adopted Judaism nearly a century ago and last year were converted officially by four Conservative rabbis.
Their story is truly fascinating. And for the first time, it can be seen through a remarkable documentary called Moving Heaven and Earth, which airs on Sunday, Oct. 5, at noon on the Hallmark Channel.
Here's the background: Unlike Jews who hail from Ethiopia and claim an ancient link to Judaism, the Abayudaya got their start in 1919 amid the social upheaval fomented by the British administration of the East African nation.
Aggressive proselytizing by missionaries from the United Kingdom and France led to extensive conversions to Christianity. But tensions with British authorities prompted one local governor, Semei Lulaklenzi Kakungulu, a renowned leader of the Buganda Kingdom, to leave politics and join a breakaway Protestant sect.
Eventually, he chose to acknowledge only the Old Testament; finally, he decided that he was a Jew. He and his sons underwent circumcision, and he urged his followers to do the same. He also built a synagogue and wrote a guidebook to Judaism.
During the ensuing decades, sporadic contact with Jews passing through...