The Lost Tribe of Israel: The Jewish Revival of the Lemba Community of Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Modreck Maeresera is a happy man these days. Growing up in rural Zimbabwe, Maeresera, 49, was constantly told about his unique Jewish roots, which set his Lemba community apart from the rest of their neighbors. However, there was nothing in sight to make him feel different.

Without distinguishing themselves from their neighbors and without open religious congregations of their own, many of Maeresera’s peers could not resist the lure of joining the normal Zimbabwean society in which they lived. This practice of the young members of the Lemba caused some to question themselves, which resulted in the decision to return to their original Jewish faith.

“The community was worried about the rate of assimilation that was happening especially when the young Lembas moved to the cities and interacted with people of different races,” Maeresera said. Religion Has Stoppedwhich describes the beginning of their journey back to Judaism.

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He added: “In the back of our minds it was recognized that we are Jews. However, we did not have what I would call ‘prayer tools.’ … We wanted to fill that void with an active and observant Jewish life, so we tried very hard to return to zealous Judaism as the official religion of the Lemba.”

The Lemba people, whose roots are from Israel, have lived among the peoples of the area for centuries, if not thousands of years, but mostly they have managed to preserve their religious practices and traditions. Jewish. These include wearing skull caps and practicing circumcision (not a traditional practice for most Zimbabweans); abstaining from eating pork and eating animal blood as forbidden in the Torah; and ritual slaughter of animals, among others.

According to oral tradition, the Lemba are descendants of seven Jewish men who left Judea 2,500 years ago and eventually married African women. It is said that the ancestors of this nation entered Africa through Yemen hundreds of years ago, and migrated south over the years, settling among many African nations, including the country that is today which is in Zimbabwe.

DNA tests confirm Jewish heritage

Driven by a collective desire to return to their original Jewish roots, the revival of Lemba Jews began to take place in earnest in the mid-1990s. At the same time, at the same time, their efforts were strengthened by the results of DNA research by Professor Tudor Parfitt, of the University of London, which confirmed that a community of 150,000 living in the center of Zimbabwe and in the north- Most of South Africa is Jewish. lineage.

Research has shown that Lemba men have the Cohen Modal Haplotype, which is a set of Y chromosome characteristics common to the Jewish priesthood, to a degree almost equal to that of the general Jewish population.

“This was amazing,” said Professor Parfitt BBC of the results of his twenty years of research. “It seems that the Jewish priesthood was continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in the same way it was continued by the Lemba priestly family. They have one ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in northern Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood began.”

Inspired by this confirmation of approval, Maeresera and his few Lemba leaders did not look back, looking for ways to ensure that their people could live a real Jewish life.

This revival of Judaism among the Lemba has worked. Today, there are six Jewish congregations around Zimbabwe where they are able to celebrate Shabbat freely and openly, and more recently, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in addition to regular worship services.

Kulanu’s help makes dreams come true

Maeresera says the Lemba’s desire to return to mainstream Judaism led to their connection with Kulanu (“all of us”), a US-based organization that supports isolated, emerging and established Jewish communities. back around the world.

“The relationship between the Lemba and the Kulanu started in 1996 when the Kulanu first contacted our Lemba brothers and sisters in South Africa… and later with us, the Lemba of Zimbabwe,” he said. Thus, we began our journey from a divided Jewish community to the path of renewal and with the hope of being reunited in mainstream Judaism, the religion of our ancestors.”

It was almost twenty years later, in 2012, that the Lemba had the opportunity to celebrate their first Pesach seder as a community.

“[Kulanu] they visited us and listened to our wishes, especially the desire to return to traditional Judaism, so they began to help us and in 2012 we had our first Pesach seder. [Passover holiday meal],” Maeresera said. “In 2013, we had two Pesachs in Harare and Masvingo and those were our first two Jewish congregations in Zimbabwe where we held Shabbat services as usual in any observant Jewish community.”

Since then, four other congregations have been established in the country. With the help of Kulanu, Malemba have started to build their own synagogue in Masvingo, the building has not yet been completed.

Kulanu has also facilitated visits by teachers living in Zimbabwe, book grants and trips to Israel and the United States by several Lemba members.

Also, through Kulanu, the Lemba were given a haggadah – a historical and traditional prayer book) – which they have since translated into the local Shona language.

“There are different types of these books called haggadot [plural for haggadah]. They have the same theme, but Jewish churches can add slightly different things to that haggadah, so we decided to come up with our Lemba haggadah, which tells – among other things – our history, songs ours, ours. traditions [and] it is combined with the traditions of the Jewish Passover, especially during the Passover celebration,” said Maeresera. “Now we have our opinion. It is written in Hebrew, English and Shona so that the people in the countryside can also understand and follow when we handle these Passover dishes.”

The same has been done with many songs composed by Lemba, which are based on broad Jewish themes and traditions.

“We composed songs from traditional Jewish Shabbat morning services,” Maeresera said. “Before that we had visitors from France, Israel and the US to teach us and there are many different songs for different prayers that we do in the Friday and Saturday morning services, so each teacher taught us his own songs. We had a singer in the congregation of Harare, Hamlet Zhou, who started making our own songs for the prayers. Hamlet led before that project. Most of our songs are composed this way.”

Why the challenges remain

Although there has been a lot of progress since the decision to return to mainstream Judaism, Maeresera, who is the president of the Harare Lemba Synagogue, said there is still a lot of work to do. which should be done.

As a minority in a country of about 16 million (Zimbabwe is about 70% Protestant), the Lemba people face many social pressures, some of which make it difficult for them to observe customs. their religious. For example, it is very difficult for them to find kosher food, schools that allow their children religious freedom or jobs with service conditions that are flexible enough to maintain their Jewish religious and cultural practices.

In order to prevent rapid adoption and to preserve their genetic heritage, Lemba men are not encouraged to marry non-Lemba, but other young men and women who move to urban areas and centers. Some of the economic ones sometimes marry outsiders, which increases the pressure on the society. Some members of the Lemba community are Christians or Muslims, they converted to these religions when there were no Jewish congregations in the country.

Saying that climate change is destroying the south of Africa, making millions of people without food, Maeresera said that it is the desire of the people to stop relying on the help of donors by accepting the concept of “food independence.”

In order to achieve this, they have started irrigation projects in all their rural congregations within their congregations and those around them.

“We need to work another six days for our Shabbat break to have real meaning,” said Maeresera.