Challah and mashed bananas: Ugandan Jews celebrate Rosh Hashana
Ziporah Naisi began preparing Rosh Hashana dinner in her isolated village in the foothills of Mount Elgon Thursday evening. Greasing her hands with palm oil, she peeled the bananas for matooke – a staple Ugandan mashed vegetable paste – until midnight. “It was work which I love doing,” she says. “When you love doing it, it becomes easier.”
Ms. Naisi is a member of the Abayudaya – meaning “the Jews of Uganda” in the Luganda language – a century-old, 2,000-strong community of Black Africans who have adopted the Jewish faith. The wife of Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, Ms. Naisi was leading a brigade of women making enough food for the hundreds of worshippers who would soon fill her home to
