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May 31, 2013

Namibia’s Jewish community

JANICE MASUR

After planning to make the trip since 2011, my husband Thomas and I finally had a chance to visit Namibia for five weeks this past February and March. A country of approximately two million people in southern Africa, Namibia shares borders with Angola, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa and, in the west, the Atlantic Ocean.

Here we were, on the eve of travel, and I searched for “Jews in Namibia” on the Internet. It was a surprise to find that the capital, Windhoek (pronounced Vinhook), Namibia’s largest city, only counts 45 Jewish souls, down from 450 Jews in 1965. “Oh dear,” I thought, thinking of my own European Jewish community in Kampala, Uganda, where I grew up, which had formally been designated “non-existent” in 1987.

Indeed, at one time, Windhoek did have a cohesive and viable community. Enjoying close-knit ties to the South African community, Namibia’s Jews had prospered since 1924, when the Windhoek Hebrew Congregation synagogue was built in a prominent location in downtown Windhoek. Land had been donated for the synagogue and two cemeteries by an open-minded city council.

Earlier that afternoon, Zvi (Gorlick), our Jewish contact, had picked us up to show us the town where he was born and bred. It turned out that he is half-Canadian; his mother had come alone from Montreal in 1948 to attend a family bar mitzvah, an almost unheard of travel adventure for a single young woman at that time. Ziv’s father caught her eye and, a week later, they were married. She never returned to Montreal.

Zvi drove us around Windhoek and up to a high hilltop vantage point to observe stunning rain clouds and a wonderful overview of the city, which lies in two valleys, in the Khomas Highland plateau area. He showed us where the zoo used to be, and pointed out a theatre and some delightful colonial-style buildings, all remnants of German colonization from 1884 to the end of the First World War. We saw numerous banking establishments, shopping malls, an art gallery and a museum in a city centre bustling with German tourists and pedestrians of many nationalities in traditional or modern dress. We passed a street market and a well-maintained green and treed park (there is a drought in Namibia and issues with the overgrazing of cattle and goats in the countryside). An elegant statue of the first president of Namibia, Dr. Samuel Nujoma, stood on a prominent street intersection. Namibia obtained independence on March 21, 1990, after a long period of South African rule, which was administered under a policy of apartheid. We noted various embassies, but not an Israeli or Canadian one.

Zvi is the main caretaker of the two Jewish cemeteries in Windhoek and he took us to visit one of them. There, nestled under the large spreading branches of a 1,200-year-old camel-thorn tree (in the acacia family) were many gravestones, all in excellent condition. Zvi told us that a third cemetery was being prepared, but that it’s been difficult to maintain the graves because of a lack of funding. I explained that in Asmara, Eritrea, where I visited in 2008, the Sephardi cemetery was also cared for by a single man.

Later, Zvi unlocked the synagogue gates adorned with two modest Stars of David.  I could almost hear the synagogue’s labored breath of life, full of expectancy at this unusual gathering at the gate. We stepped inside and immediately I could feel the essence of a once proud Jewish community. The peace and quiet that suddenly hit as we entered the sanctuary touched my soul. We followed Zvi around the synagogue and he explained that, sadly, this place of worship is in the last throes of religious use. An observant man, he said the decline of Windhoek’s Jewish community broke his heart, and he tried to be cheerful and upbeat as the lights were switched on to reveal the well-cared-for wooden pews, an elevated carved wooden bimah and a beautifully decorated holy ark. Siddurim waited to be picked up and read.

Imagine a synagogue rich enough to own 11 sifrei Torah! There must have been much sadness in having to give them away as the community dwindled.  Now, only three Torahs remain. Zvi told us that seldom is a minyan present for reading the Torah. According to the World Jewish Congress, the community has access to a chazzan for festivals, courtesy of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.

Once, the synagogue also had a well-tended garden surrounding the building where the children used to run and play. Today, the whole compound is fenced in by a wall, fortified with electric wires and a gate secured with a large padlock. This synagogue once stood confidently out in the open, as do other places of worship in Windhoek today. Now, it is dwarfed by an adjacent shopping mall and is under an overpass.

I had traveled to Windhoek to give a talk about the now-extinct Jewish community in Kampala. Instead, I became the facilitator for a discussion about the viability of this community in Namibia. How could they engage the young Israeli families posted in southern Namibia for the diamond workings in Rosh Pina? Why were the local Jews disinterested in synagogue services? How should they educate youth about Jewish life? Who will be responsible for organizing a communal Passover seder? How will they be able to maintain a community with only 45 members?

Even the hot wind blowing a curtain at an open but barred window did not warm the discussion of the only eight people present in the small meeting room surrounded by many photographs of past presidents. Zvi was grateful for the help in tidying up in the tiny kitchen and it was obviously pleasing to see the synagogue in use.

I found the reality facing Windhoek’s Jews disheartening and sad. However, I was pleased to learn that the community will shortly be publishing a history to commemorate 80 years of Jewish life there. Hopefully, this book will preserve awareness of this small but once vital community in southwest Africa for the benefit of global Jewry.

Janice Masur is a Vancouver freelancer writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

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