‘We came back with a stronger understanding of who we are’
When David Freiman and 12 others stepped off the bus at Uganda’s main synagogue at Nabugoye Hill, they were greeted by a handful of young children with huge grins on their faces.
These children are part of a Jewish community known as the Abayudaya, a community of more than 2,000 Jews in eastern Uganda who live in rural villages.
A group of Jewish community members from Maryland, Virginia and New York traveled to Uganda for five days in December 2024 to visit the Abayudaya. Members of the delegation ranged in age from 14 to 71.
David Freiman, a member of Shaare Torah in Gaithersburg, has taken it upon himself to spread the word about the Abayudaya, a largely underrepresented group.
“There’s very little like them in the Jewish world,” said Freiman, who organized the trip. “So much of our focus in the United States or Jewish philanthropy revolves around schools, around Israel, around antisemitism.”
Freiman is the Abayudaya liaison for the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs. In that role, he coordinates between the FJMC and the Abayudaya Men’s Club and has led fundraising efforts for the Abayudaya, including donations for food, schools and synagogue materials, for the past decade.
When Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the Abayudaya’s spiritual leader, visited Washington, D.C., in 2023, Freiman coordinated his synagogue visits and speeches. Sizomu mentioned that his youngest daughter’s bat mitzvah was coming up: “‘You should come and bring some people.’”
“I started circulating the idea,” Freiman said. “I started putting together an itinerary of what I would want to do, the people we would meet.”
He began planning with Joanne Trangle, who runs a tour company called Select Treks, in March 2024. Before the trip, Freiman and other travelers — including members of Shaare Torah, Congregation Olam Tikvah and Temple Rodef Shalom — collectively raised $40,000 to support the Abayudaya.
Gary Robinson, a Shaare Torah member and Gaithersburg resident on the trip, had always wanted to visit Uganda after hearing about the Abayudaya from Freiman.
“My purpose was to connect with the people, to learn more about them and to celebrate the bat mitzvah,” he said.
The trip was marked by music, community and Jewish tradition. On the first night of Chanukah, Freiman had planned for the group to have an early night because there was a big day planned the following day. But someone from the synagogue encouraged Freiman to join in the candle lighting tradition.
“We all got together. We have a number of menorahs and candles and prayers,” Freiman recalled. “We sang all the post-candle lighting songs that we knew from growing up.”
He said the group enjoyed beautiful weather and Chanukah tunes, awash with the glow of a large electric menorah donated by a Maryland synagogue.
“I look over and I see Gary Robinson has a little Abayudaya child, probably three years old, on his shoulders, singing and dancing,” Freiman said. “I mean, it was just perfect.”
Rabbi Gershom’s youngest daughter, Zivah Sizomu, celebrated her bat mitzvah on Dec. 27 and 28.
“[Zivah] is pretty tiny, but she really led well [at her] service,” said Bob Watts, a member of Olam Tikvah and the FJMC executive committee who went on the trip.
Watts noted that some members of the Abayudaya came from far away, driving up to five hours over “very bad roads” to attend. Rabbi Gershom’s son-in-law and older daughter flew in from Los Angeles to Mbale for the celebration.
“It was an opportunity to meet so many people within the whole Abayudaya community,” Watts said. “We celebrated all of Friday night, Saturday, because in a culture where people have very little electronic media to distract them, perhaps it’s a lot easier to be Shomer Shabbos.”
While sticking to the “standard” Conservative rituals, Abayudaya services are unique in that they’re conducted in three languages: Hebrew, Luganda — the language most commonly spoken in Uganda — and the tribal language, Watts said.
“They bring African melodies and rhythm into their prayers that force you to clap and dance,” Robinson said, adding that Rabbi Gershom plays the guitar as community members sing and play the drums.
Watts said one of the most memorable parts of the trip was being able to sing with the community.
“I came back and still had the drums in my head from Shabbat morning,” Watts added. “They literally had a drumline in the front row of people playing African drums and guitars.”
He hopes to incorporate some of the Abayudaya melodies into services at Olam Tikvah back home in Fairfax, but isn’t sure yet how that will work.
In addition to visiting Abayudaya schools in the area and some small-scale economic developments, such as goat and chicken farms, the travelers spent some days as tourists. Members of the group hiked to Sipi Falls, rappelled down the waterfalls, rode rapids on the Nile River and trekked with gorillas at the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.
The experience that sticks with many of the travelers, however, is the community. Seeing how another Jewish community lives, with some differences but many similarities to the American Jewish community, was transformative for Freiman and Robinson.
Many American Jewish synagogues have a kitchen where a team of staff cook meals; the Abayudaya cook outside. Some American synagogues are large, ornate buildings, whereas some of Uganda’s synagogues are “bare bones” structures with dirt floors and no air conditioning, according to Robinson. But community members recite the same prayers and largely participate in the same rituals.
“We are part of a giant Jewish tapestry,” Freiman said. “We have an obligation to support a whole diverse group of Jews that have always been there, but [that] we’ve just been blind to. … We came back with a deeper understanding of who we are.”
He said he believes that Jewish philanthropic organizations should consider supporting the Abayudaya, as Jewish people worldwide are responsible for one another.
“Despite the geographical and cultural distances between our native countries, our shared Jewish heritage brought us together,” Robinson and Freiman wrote in an article after the trip.
