The Igbo Jews of Abuja

(Left to right) Ariel Ngene, Shai Afsai, and Elder Pinchas Ogbukaa outside Gihon Synagogue in Abuja, Nigeria. /Shai Afsai

The following aired on Rhode Island Public Radio on Jan. 21, 2014

The Igbo Jews of Nigeria, 2014.

Surely you know the Biblical tale about the Tower of Babel in which, according to tradition, God punishes humankind’s arrogance by scattering them and destroying people’s ability to understand one another’s language.  In our modern lives, we certainly struggle to communicate across continents and cultures, knowing full well that the stakes are high.

Both international conflict and genuine peace depend heavily on our ability to connect with people whose lives and vocabulary are profoundly different from our own.  And as we hear from Shai Afsai, sometimes our well-meaning efforts to connect indeed bear wonderful, wonderful fruit.

– Frederic Reamer

There’s a popular tradition among the Igbo people, whose homeland is in southeastern Nigeria, that they’re descendants of the tribes of Israel. Due to missionary activity and colonialism, today most Igbo are Christian, but even while practicing Christianity many consider themselves ethnically Jewish. In the past few decades, several thousand Igbo have taken this self-identification a step further and embraced Judaism, viewing it as their lost heritage.

Wanting to learn more about this isolated community numbering perhaps two to five thousand, last winter I traveled to Abuja, the Federal Capital of Nigeria, to celebrate Purim with its Igbo Jews.

When I returned to Rhode Island, I began consulting with local rabbis about how their isolation might be broken. Before long Obadia Agbai and Pinchas Ogbukaa, two leaders of Abuja’s Gihon Synagogue, received an invitation from two synagogues in Providence – Congregation Beth Sholom and Temple Emanu-El – to travel to Rhode Island. An especially moving moment of their 12-day visit took place a couple of days after their arrival. 

On our way to morning services at Beth Sholom, I’d asked Pinchas if he’d be willing to speak. 

He replied that he’d be happy to. However, when it came time for his talk and he stood in front of the congregation, Pinchas had to fight back tears, and I wondered if he’d be able to regain his composure.

Afterward, I told him that I’d had a similar experience when I was asked to speak before the members of Abuja’s Tikvat Israel Synagogue. There was something about being half way across the world, among people who looked very different from me and spoke a different native tongue – but were praying in the same Hebrew language and following the same traditional Sabbath service – that made words difficult and tears easy. 

Eventually, Pinchas collected himself. Before concluding his talk, he asked to share one of the Igbo Jewish prayer melodies sung during services at Gihon Synagogue. Pinchas possesses a deep and sonorous voice. The highs and lows of his Hebrew song took me by surprise. When I escorted him back to his seat at the conclusion of his talk, it was evident that many of the people in the synagogue, including its rabbi, had been moved to tears by Pinchas’s words and by his melody. 

I believe in the power of faith and song to span the distance between people, connecting them across continents and cultures.

SHAI AFSAI (ggbi@juno.com) has published articles on Ethiopian, Israeli, Nigerian, and Rhode Island Jews, as well as Jewish-themed short fiction, in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, The Jerusalem Post, Rhode Island History, The Providence Journal, and Midstream: A Jewish Review. Afsai was the recipient of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association’s 2013 Horvitz Award. This is reprinted with permission.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Shai Afsai’s photographs from his visits to the Abuja community are on display through Nov. 16 in the gallery at Brown RISD Hillel, 80 Brown St., Providence