Modern Communities of European Descent
- There is a substantial, mostly Ashkenazic Jewish community in South Africa. These Jews arrived mostly from Lithuania prior to World War II, though others have origins in Britain, Germany, and Eastern Europe. To a lesser extent, Sephardic Jews, primarily originating from the Island of Rhodes also settled in sub-Saharan Africa, in territories such as the Belgian Congo. Subsequently, members of these Jewish communities migrated to South Africa. Connected to them were the small European Jewish communities in Namibia (South West Africa), Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia), Lesotho (Basutuland), Swaziland, Botswana (Bechuanaland), Zaire (Belgian Congo, mostly Sephardim), Kenya, Malawi (Nyasaland), Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) all of which had synagogues and even formal Jewish schools usually based in the capitals of these countries. (See History of the Jews in South Africa.)
- Historically, there was a Jewish community in Maputo, Mozambique, but after the independence of the country, most left. The government has officially returned the Maputo synagogue to the Jewish community, but "little or no Jewish community remains to reclaim it."
Read more about this topic: African Jews
Famous quotes containing the words modern, communities, european and/or descent:
“Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
—A.J. (Arthur James)
“Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)
“And every stone shall cry,
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)