Early Life and Education
Gamedze was one of eight children born to his parents in Swaziland. He grew up in Swaziland until the age of eight and was educated in private schools there and in London. He went on to earn his Honours at Oxford University, earning his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in Modern Languages and Translations, majoring in German, Italian, and French. He received his masters degree at University of the Witwatersrand in 1987. By 1988 he was an official translator of the German language for the Supreme Court of South Africa. He is fluent in 14 languages, half of them European and the other half African.
In an Italian literature class at Wits, he noticed someone writing backwards in his notebook and found out that the language was Hebrew. Later he decided to take a Hebrew language course at that university, which sparked his interest in Jewish texts. Upon the invitation of Moshe Sharon, a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he came to Israel to study for a doctorate in Hebrew language. While in Israel, he took philosophy classes at Ohr Somayach Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and converted to Judaism in 1991. He continued to learn at Ohr Somayach for another four years. From 1995 to 2000 he took advanced Talmudic classes at the Brisk yeshiva in Jerusalem's Old City, where he received his rabbinic ordination.
Toward the end of his time at Brisk, Gamzede was introduced to his wife, Shayna Golda Gordon, a white baalat teshuva (returnee to Orthodox Judaism) from New York who had studied at Neve Yerushalayim. They lived in Beitar Illit for the first two years of their marriage, where Gamzede learned in a kollel. For the next five years they resided in Safed, where Rabbi Gamzede taught at Yeshivat Shalom Rav and the Shaarei Bina seminary. Then Gamzede began lecturing for an international kiruv organization. The couple now lives in Jerusalem with their two children.
In 2008, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a documentary about Rabbi Gamzede's life titled Compass: The Black Jew of Swaziland.
Read more about this topic: Natan Gamedze
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