Northern Virginia native Samantha Mandeles experienced a full-circle moment when an exhibit of her photography was displayed in the Pozez JCC in the very halls she walked as a kid.
The exhibit, “The Abayudaya: Portrait of an African Jewish Community,” is a solo show of Mandeles’ photography from her 2021 trip to Namutumba, Uganda, displayed from Aug. 19 to Oct. 6. Through Ezra Uganda Assistance, a nonprofit organization in Frederick, Maryland, she embarked on a mission to bring the Abayudaya their first kosher Torah.
Mandeles double-majored in Middle East studies and bioarcheology at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, then went to graduate school in Israel for her master’s in counterterrorism and homeland security, which she earned in 2017. She has worked with various organizations in Israel advocacy.
Mandeles is an open source intelligence researcher who works in counterterrorism and countering antisemitism, national and international hate movements and violent extremism. She lives in Arlington with her husband and belongs to Beth El Hebrew Congregation.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
My mother is second-generation from Poland and my father is third-generation Russian and Ukrainian. We’re super Ashkenazi. My father is a kohen. [Growing up], I understood exactly who I was. My mother and both of her parents were Jewish, and both of my father’s parents were Jewish. It was second nature, really. That was a huge defining part of who they are, and of my childhood. I went to Gesher Jewish Day School from kindergarten all the way through eighth grade. Probably one of the biggest pieces of my identity is Jewishness and Israel.
What are your responsibilities as a board member of Ezra Uganda Assistance?
I built [their] new website, and when I have time, I try to post on social media. The photos in the exhibit came from my trip in late 2021 to Uganda. I brought the Jewish community of Namutumba their first kosher Torah — that was a schlep. … The Torah came from a synagogue in Hammonton, New Jersey, that sadly was closing its doors, and it had three Torahs. The president of EUA, [Rabbi] Leila [Berner], was in touch with the rabbi of this synagogue and procured one of the Torahs. I believe the Torah was circa 1935 … and it’s about 45 pounds. It was an unbelievable journey.
Tell me about your trip to Namutumba and meeting the Jewish community there.
It was an incredible experience. The community lives on subsistence farming, so they have no running water and there is no electricity aside from what they can get from small solar panels. Some of the community lives in small concrete box homes, and some live in thatched-roof, tiny little huts made out of mud. … They don’t have a lot, the community is very poor, but they were so excited; they were absolutely thrilled.
The Jewish community there brought me to a number of whole-village events over the weeks that I was there. They were so thrilled and so welcoming and warm and kind. We went to almost every single home in the Jewish community because they all wanted to meet me, show me their homes, and give me some tea or coffee. It was amazing.
What is it like to have a solo show of your photography displayed at the Pozez JCC?
When I went to Gesher, most of the time I was there, [it] was located in the basement of the Pozez JCC, so I would come through the hallways, and there was always art there. I always enjoyed looking at the different exhibits, and the JCC was instrumental in the formulation of my Jewish identity. It was really cool to come full circle, and, as an adult, having come back after many, many years, having my own show at the JCC.
I think that it was really meaningful because the work we do with Ezra Uganda is really important to me. Not a lot of people know about this Jewish community, the Abayudaya, and I worry that because people aren’t super aware of them, it’s almost like they’ve been abandoned by world Jewry. It has never been easy to be a Jew, but they really have it hard. They have all the challenges of being a Jew, but they’re Jews in Uganda.
Their community has survived [former President] Idi Amin … who nearly destroyed the community by murdering, exiling or forcibly converting most of the members from 1970 to 1979 and they have worked so hard to reconstitute their community. It is hard to be Jewish; it is really hard to be Jewish in Uganda, and yet they make this conscious choice: “Not only are we going to be Jewish; we’re going to be Jewish in Uganda. We’re going to be Jewish despite poverty that a lot of people in the United States can barely imagine, despite medical maladies that we’ve eradicated in the U.S.” … all of these challenges they have that are unique to their situation. And they choose us: world Jewry. They choose Jewishness anyway. I think it’s crucial that we communicate to them Jews are one big tribe; we are one big family. … We are a family, and family takes care of one another.
