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Mike Pence and the Jews: What to know as he begins a presidential campaign

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Until the Jan. 6 insurrection, Mike Pence made sure to stay on the same page as Donald Trump — except, sometimes, when it came to the Jews. 

Both men delighted the pro-Israel establishment — Trump by fulfilling a long wishlist of Israel’s right-wing government, Pence by proving himself as a stalwart Christian Zionist through years in elected office. But just weeks after Trump assumed office, the difference in how each man approached Jewish anxieties was already stark. 

Jewish community centers and other Jewish institutions were getting bomb threats, and a Jewish journalist asked the president what he planned to do about antisemitism. Trump lashed out, accusing the reporter of lying and quipping, “Welcome to the world of the media.”

A week later, Jews in St. Louis were reeling after a vandal knocked over over 150 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery. Pence was in town and took the opportunity to condemn the bomb threats and the vandalism as “a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” Then, he headed over to the cemetery, picked up a rake and helped clean up the mess.

Pence’s bid is the longest of shots. He polls in the low single digits, while Trump leads in the polls. The former president routinely depicts Pence as a traitor for not trying to hand him the election when Pence presided over the certification of the electoral vote on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence, meanwhile, has said Trump’s behavior that day endangered his family. If Pence does succeed in unseating his old boss, it will be because he’s tapped into a deep thirst among some Republicans for a more conventional candidate to wean the party off Trump. 

No matter how he does in the race, here’s what you need to know about Mike Pence and the Jews.

He has been pro-Israel from the get-go

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as an Indiana Republican in 2000, Pence made clear from the outset that defending Israel was among his priorities.

“My support for Israel stems largely from my personal faith,” he told Congressional Quarterly in 2002. “God promises Abraham, ‘those who bless you, I will bless, and those who curse you, I will curse.’”

In his autobiography published last year, “So Help me God,” he credits his interest in Israel and in Jewish issues to his late sister-in-law, Judy, “an elegant, sophisticated young woman from a prominent Jewish family in Milwaukee” who married his brother, Thomas, “a pickup-driving, dirt bike-riding, banjo-playing country boy from southern Indiana.” Pence wrote, “She made him a better man.”

For years, he has placed a quote from the Biblical book of Jeremiah above the fireplace in his personal and then his official residences — in the governor’s mansion in Indiana and then in the vice president’s residence in Washington, D.C: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope, and a future.”

“They’re words to which my family has repaired to as generations of Americans have done so throughout our history, and the people of Israel through all their storied history have clung,” Pence told a conference of Christians United for Israel in 2017.

In Congress, Pence took the lead in advancing pro-Israel legislation, especially in defending the barrier Israel built cutting through portions of the West Bank to shield Israel and some of its settlements from terrorist attacks. Together with Rep. Ron Klein, a Florida Democrat, and the late Tom Lantos, a California Democrat who was the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, he co-founded the House’s antisemitism task force. 

Lantos, Pence said in his autobiography, had a profound influence on him. “He and I almost always disagreed on politics, but I was always inspired by his moral clarity and courage,” he wrote. Klein now chairs the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

As Indiana governor in 2016, Pence enacted the first state law banning state business with firms that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel, known as BDS. The bill also applied to businesses that boycott Israel’s settlements — one of the first pieces of legislation to erase the line between Israel and the West Bank.

Later that year, the Republican Jewish Coalition effusively praised Pence’s selection as Trump’s running mate, calling him “a critical leader and important voice regarding Israel during his time in the House and as governor.”

He attended every policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee during the Trump administration; Trump avoided all of them.

His evangelical beliefs shape his domestic policy

One of the most prominent issues of the 2024 election will be abortion, following the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade last year. The decision gave states the authority to determine reproductive rights and led to the swift narrowing of abortion access in many states. On abortion and other issues including LGBTQ rights, Pence departs from most of the Jewish community, where support for abortion access and LGBTQ issues are high. 

A number of Republicans — chief among them Trump — believe that the party should take the win and not pursue further abortion restrictions, arguing that the decision last year contributed to Republican losses in the midterm elections.

Not Pence: he wants to ban abortion nationwide. “Having been given this second chance for life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land,” he said after the court’s decision.

Pence also has a long career of opposing LGBTQ rights. When he was governor, he sought to exempt Indiana from a Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriages. As a congressman, he opposed funding for outreach to HIV patients that he said promoted gay lifestyles. (His handling of an HIV outbreak in Indiana is understood to have worsened it.)

As Indiana governor in 2015, Pence signed one of the most far-reaching state laws allowing businesses to decline to serve LGBTQ customers. Businesses threatened to boycott the state, and he soon signed modified legislation that increased protections for LGBTQ people. 

Months later, Pence was facing questions about why he pushed through the law from the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group that trends moderate on social issues and whose director said members had “a lot of questions” about the legislation. His tone was apologetic. “Ultimately we adopted a few reforms and made it clear this was a shield, not a sword,” he said of the bill.

He was the Trump administration’s top trauma whisperer for the Jews

During his time as vice president, Pence was often the favored spokesman when tragedy befell the Jews. 

In 2018, at a Trump administration religious freedom event, Pence singled out the threats of violence faced by Jews in Europe, including in countries seen as allies by Trump.

“While religious freedom is always in danger in authoritarian regimes, threats to religious minorities are not confined to autocracies or dictatorships,” he said “They can, and do, arise in free societies, as well — not from government persecution but from prejudice and hatred.”

The same year, he said he was “sickened and appalled” at Nazi graffiti on an Indiana synagogue he knew well. 

In 2019, he and his wife visited the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, after a deadly attack by a white supremacist. “We had to come,” he told the rabbi.  

The same year, he toured Auschwitz and the next year, he attended the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.  

Some efforts to mark Jewish tragedy went awry. In 2018, when Pence marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish figures chided him for imbuing Christian imagery in his celebration of Israel’s founding in the wake of the Holocaust. “A few days ago, Karen & I paid our respects at Yad Vashem to honor the 6 million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust who 3 years after walking beneath the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to resurrect themselves to reclaim a Jewish future,” he said on Twitter.

It was not the last time a Pence event would bring Christian themes into Jewish mourning. Pence was scheduled on Oct. 29, 2018, to campaign in Michigan for a Jewish Republican running for Congress, Leah Epstein. 

Two days earlier, a gunman massacred 11 Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the worst-ever attack on Jews in U.S. history. Epstein invited a Messianic Jewish leader to deliver a prayer. Messianic Jews, who call their spiritual leaders rabbis, believe in the divinity of Jesus, and Jewish groups took offense. That led Pence’s folks to scramble to tell reporters that he was unaware that the rabbi was not, in fact, Jewish.

Pence was not among the many Trump administration figures and supporters who urged the president to walk back his “very fine people on both sides” equivocation after a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 in which a counter-protester was killed. The vice president defended his boss: “I stand with the president,” he said when asked about Trump’s statements.

Trump-Pence vs. Trump

Pence, increasingly at odds with his former boss since their Jan. 6, 2021, falling-out, has a unique way of distinguishing Good Trump from Bad Trump: He portrays the administration’s wins as “Trump-Pence” policies, while the not-so-salutary stuff is Trump’s alone. 

That dynamic was in evidence last November at the annual conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, when Pence was among an array of presidential prospective candidates to speak, including DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Trump himself.

Moving the embassy to Jerusalem? “Trump-Pence.” “It was the Trump-Pence administration that kept our word to the American people and our most cherished ally, when we moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the state of Israel,” Pence said.

As for Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election? Pence didn’t directly name the former president, but differentiated himself from him.

“The American people must know that our party keeps our oath to the Constitution even when political expediency may suggest that we do otherwise,” Pence said then. “We must be the leaders to keep our oath even when it hurts.”

Will he get Jewish funding?

Until filing papers on Monday, Pence’s main vehicle for fundraising has been a 501(c)4, a political advocacy group that is not required to reveal donors or extensive financial information. Advancing American Freedom has said its aim is to raise tens of millions of dollars to promote Pence’s favored conservative causes.

Now that he’s in the race, it will be interesting to watch where Pence draws Jewish support. One clue may be in a plane ride: Last year, Pence went on a campaign style tour of Israel and Ukraine. Loaning him the plane was Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate and Republican kingmaker Sheldon Adelson. 

Adelson has since said she’s not planning to get involved in the GOP primaries.


The post Mike Pence and the Jews: What to know as he begins a presidential campaign appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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I was there when the lights went out and New York was plunged into darkness

I’m the lifelong resident of a vast and complicated metropolis that smugly prides itself on never stopping. Subways, buses and cabs running day and night, bodegas and diners open 24/7, hundreds of thousands of people at work or out partying somewhere, bike couriers and truck drivers making deliveries — all in a town with a million moving parts, where the show always goes on — until, suddenly, it doesn’t.

I was reminded of that one evening not long ago in a drab Chinese restaurant uptown on Broadway, clutching a pair of wooden chopsticks poised to shovel another mound of chicken and walnuts into my mouth.

Music was playing softly over the house PA system. The melody suddenly sounded strangely familiar, but oddly out of place in those surroundings. I froze mid-bite, trying to place what I was hearing. Then it hit me. I glanced at my dinner companion Ann Aptaker, author of the Cantor Gold noir crime novels.

“Wow,” I said. “Do you hear that?”

She paused, tilted her head slightly, then raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s Threepenny Opera!

Sure enough, the song drifting through the room was Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s wickedly jaunty tango, “Ballad of Immoral Earnings.” Even stranger, it was a track from my favorite production of the show: the Lincoln Center revival from decades ago, starring the late, great Raul Julia as Mack the Knife and Ellen Greene as his favorite prostitute, Jenny Diver.

“Of all things! What a weird song to play while people are eating,” I mused.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in a restaurant before,” she agreed. “And certainly not a Chinese place.”

“They must have good taste in musicals.”

Shrugging, we resumed picking away at our dinner. A minute later another song from the same show began to play. We gaped at each other.

“They’re playing the whole album!” I sputtered. “What are the odds?”

Ann frowned and paused. then suddenly whirled to reach into the pocket of her denim jacket hanging behind her chair. She pulled out her phone, and the music instantly grew louder. We both laughed. She must have leaned back against her jacket and set off her music app. Whew — mystery solved!

But hearing those distinctive strains of Weill’s score transported me back to one of the hottest summers New York City had ever endured.

A scene from the NYC blackout of 1977. Photo by Getty Images

It was 1977, the year I attended an outdoor performance of Threepenny Opera at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. My mother and a roommate from Pratt had joined me that night.

The Delacorte sits beneath the stone towers of Belvedere Castle, lit by floodlamps like a fairytale illustration, open to the sky and the sounds of the city beyond the trees. On a good night it can feel magical. On this particularly sweltering night, the air hung over us in the audience like a damp blanket as Philip Bosco, who had replaced Raul Julia for this summer staging, swaggered across the stage as Mack the Knife, and Ellen Greene reprised her role as Jenny.

And then — just as she was belting out her furious solo number, Pirate Jenny — all the lights shut off. Greene’s mic abruptly went dead, and the band lurched sourly out of tune before grinding to a halt.

We were plunged into pitch darkness. For a moment, there was silence.

Then the crowd began to buzz nervously. Was this part of the show? I’d seen the play several times before, and knew that it most definitely was not.

A few awkward minutes later, some of the cast reappeared wielding flashlights. While the tech crew worked on the electricity, the band filled the darkness with some lively jazz. Rubber-limbed dancer Tony Azito pranced around jovially in the flickering beams, easing the mood for a spell. But that age-old theater adage, the show must go on, was about to bite the dust.

The house manager finally stepped up on stage to make an announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, we just learned that there’s been a massive power failure at Con Edison. It’s not just us; the whole city is dark!”

We didn’t know it yet, but this was the Big Blackout of July 13, 1977, and there we were, thousands of us stranded smack in the middle of Central Park. There wasn’t even much of a moon out that night, so it was really, really dark.

“Well, this is some pickle,” Mom said.

We wondered how the hell we were going to get out of there.

Crowds line up to use payphones at Penn Station in Manhattan during the blackout on November 9, 1965. Photo by John Curran/Newsday RM via Getty Images

I vividly recalled the last big blackout in New York City, the one in 1965. I was just a young kid back then and safely at home, so it had actually been fun. While my mother lit a few Sabbath candles, my little sister and I roamed from room to room pretending we were in a haunted house. Meanwhile, our poor Dad had to trudge back to Brooklyn from midtown Manhattan — a five-hour hike in hot leather shoes.

But this time felt very different. I was far from the safety of home, trapped in the middle of what might as well have been a forest at night. Central Park is beautiful when you can see it. In pitch darkness it’s downright hazardous.

“Guess we’ll all just have to sleep in the park tonight,” I cracked. Neither Mom nor my Pratt roomie were laughing.

Thankfully, a phalanx of city cops eventually arrived to help guide us out. Audience members, cast and crew all joined hands as we carefully made our way along the park’s winding paths, stepping over roots and curbs, catching one another when someone stumbled. Our only illumination came from a few scattered police car headlights.

A walk that normally takes ten minutes took forever, but eventually we emerged onto Central Park West.

The scene was eerie. Streetlamps were dark. Traffic lights were out. Cars sat frozen in the intersections. Not a single apartment window was lit. For a city that never sleeps, it felt as if someone had suddenly flipped off the master switch.

Then I spotted something: “Look, the buses are still running!”

A city bus was rumbling slowly toward us, brightly lit inside. With the subways dead, getting back to my dorm in Brooklyn would have been impossible, so Mom’s place on the Upper East Side looked like the safest destination. She had temporarily split with my Dad and was living there with a roommate at the time.

The three of us squeezed aboard along with what felt like half the audience, and somehow made it across town to First Avenue. As we approached my mother’s high-rise, a dreadful thought suddenly hit me.

“Mom, what floor are you on again?”

“Twenty-five,” she replied grimly.

Of course both elevators were dead. We trudged up 25 flights of stairs in complete darkness, arriving exhausted and panting. My mother fumbled with her key, finally opening the door to reveal Sylvia, her gravel-voiced, seen-it-all Long Island roommate, standing there with her ever-present cigarette tip glowing in the dark.

“Come on in, darlings,” she rasped dryly. “Join the party.”

Sylvia had lit a few candles around the apartment, the only light we’d see that night.

Outside, the city was far from peaceful. While we tried to sleep on sofa cushions on the floor, one of the worst nights of unrest in New York history was unfolding in the streets below. Store windows were smashed. Shops were looted. Garbage cans were set on fire.

Lying there in the dim glow of flickering candlelight, hearing distant sirens punctuated by the sudden crash of breaking glass somewhere in the darkness below, I felt a growing sense of dread. An evening that had begun with music and theater had improbably ended with Manhattan plunged into darkness, its fragile machinery suddenly exposed.

By morning the city looked as though it had survived a world war.

This resilient burg has been battered and bruised over the years, enduring terrorist attacks, blackouts, blizzards, hurricanes, floods, garbage strikes, transit strikes, and the occasional collapse of its aging infrastructure. Yet somehow it manages to reset and lurch forward each time, improvising solutions the way Tony Azito danced in the dark that night at the Delacorte.

The post I was there when the lights went out and New York was plunged into darkness appeared first on The Forward.

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Lindsey Graham, pro-Israel Trump confidant in the Senate, dies suddenly at 71

(JTA) — Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who has been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Congress, has died at 71.

Graham’s office announced his death in a statement early Sunday morning, saying that he had died late Saturday after “a brief and sudden illness.” Graham had returned from Ukraine, where he met with Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky, the day before.

Graham’s death means the Senate and Republican Party have lost one of its most durable pro-Israel voices at a time when anti-Israel sentiment is on the rise in both places. In his more than three decades in Congress, first in the House and then in the Senate since 2003, Graham aggressively backed U.S. aid to Israel, advanced a hawkish line on Iran and met repeatedly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in both Israel and the United States.

Netanyahu repeatedly said Israel had “no greater friend” than Graham in the United States. Graham’s most recent visit to Israel was in February, ahead of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, which he later took credit for urging. “They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” he said of Israeli officials at the time.

Graham was also a vocal backer of Israel’s military responses to attacks by Hamas, including during the 2014 and after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza and augured a period of declining support for Israel. On Oct. 8, he issued a statement calling for Israel to defeat Hamas “by any and all means necessary” and in the subsequent weeks drew attention for calling on Israel to “flatten the place.”

Graham continued to promote a two-state solution as it receded as a U.S. priority, but he also adjusted to reflect the mounting isolationist streak in his party. Last year, he made news for embracing Netanyahu’s announcement of a plan to “taper” U.S. aid to Israel, saying it should be done sooner than Netanyahu’s 10-year timeline.

Graham’s outlook on Israel fit into a broad portfolio that included helming the Senate Budget Committee and pushing for a stronger U.S. response to Russia. Graham, who never married and had no children, was up for reelection in November.

This obituary will be updated.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Lindsey Graham, pro-Israel Trump confidant in the Senate, dies suddenly at 71 appeared first on The Forward.

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Mozambique’s only synagogue has been keeping Judaism alive in the country for a century

Inside the Honen Dalim synagogue in Maputo, Mozambique, a security team of men in suits wearing colorful kippot swept the inside of the small chapel, while members and visitors milled about on the lawn outside. Security had to be thorough; the president was coming.

For the rest of the city, it was a normal day. The sidewalks near the synagogue were crowded with vendors selling clothes, fruit and candy. Across the street, students hung out in the courtyard of the technical college the Instituto Comercial de Maputo. But for the city’s small Jewish community, it was a momentous occasion.

On June 11, Honen Dalim celebrated the centenary of the synagogue, which was officially inaugurated on Aug. 29, 1926. Congregation leaders and government officials gave speeches. Camera crews from three different TV stations — including the Mozambican state news channel — crowded in the small chapel to capture every moment.

Mozambique President Daniel Chapo signs the centenary guest book as Honen Dalim President Samuel Levy watches. Photo by Kerry Haynie

Lay leader Marcos Vaena told me that celebrating the synagogue is not just about the building, but what it represents for Mozambique’s Jewish community, which consists of only a couple dozen families.

“It’s a sense of pride and historical heritage,” he said, adding that the synagogue has endured “profound changes in society — the liberation struggle that the country went through, the independence movement — and it still remains.”

It hasn’t been easy to keep the synagogue alive for a century, but Honen Dalim’s small congregation has persisted without a permanent rabbi or any local Jewish institutions to rely on.

Maputo is a multicultural city with a history of religious partnership, and the celebration’s 100 attendees were a diverse mix of government officials and community members. Among them were the country’s Christian president, Daniel Chapo, whose election in 2024 was marred by accusations of corruption and fatal clashes between security forces and protesters. Across the aisle, sat the German ambassador to Mozambique Ronald Münch and Sheik Aminudin, the President of the Islamic Council of Mozambique. Manuela Soeiro, Honen Dalim’s longest member and “the mother of Mozambican theater,” spoke about being involved with the synagogue since in the 1940s.

Samuel Levy listening to Manuela Soeiro’s speech. Photo by Kerry Haynie

Longtime lay leader Samuel Levy gave an opening speech in Portuguese on the spirit of religious tolerance in Mozambique. Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, chief rabbi of the African Jewish Congress, which supports Jewish communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and AJC president Nahum Gorelick recited from Psalm 92 — which describes the fruitful life granted to those who are devoted to God — in Hebrew and English. The crowd sang “Hosi Katekisa Afrika,” a Tsonga version of a hymn meaning “God Bless Africa.” Around 50 more people watched on Zoom.

President Daniel Chapo speaks at centenary. Photo by Kerry Haynie

“This date is much more than a chronological milestone,” Chapo said in his speech. “We recognize, with appreciation and admiration, the enduring presence of the Jewish community in the religious, historical, and cultural fabric of our country, Mozambique.”

A long Jewish history

Although the synagogue is 100 years old, the presence of Jews in Mozambique dates back even further. Levy, a New York-born lawyer who has been part of the congregation since the ‘90s, told me the oldest grave in Maputo’s Jewish cemetery, located a few blocks from the synagogue, dates back to 1899.

Global events have always shaped Honen Dalim’s story. Levy said some of the earliest Jews migrated to Maputo due to the Witwatersrand Gold Rush that began in 1886 and helped develop Johannesburg, South Africa. Maputo — known then as Lourenço Marques, after the Portuguese explorer — was critical in the export process due to its coastal location, making it an ideal location for Jewish merchants.

Early Jewish arrivals came from around the world — including Morocco, Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and Portugal, which ruled Mozambique from 1505 to 1975 — often by way of South Africa. In 1906, they established themselves as a community under the name Honen Dalim — meaning “He who is charitable to the poor” — and prayed in each other’s homes.

During the Second Boer War in South Africa, which lasted from 1899 to 1902, the chief rabbi of Johannesburg, Joseph Herman Hertz, was expelled for his pro-British leanings and opposition to the government’s restrictions on Jews and Roman Catholics. During his years-long expulsion — the next time he came to South Africa, it was as the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom in 1920 — he spent a few days in Lourenço Marques and encouraged the Jews there to finally build a synagogue.


Levy said the “community waxes and wanes” but that many hundreds were there during the Second World War. Because Portugal was a neutral country, Mozambique was a place where European Jews could find refuge, although they didn’t have full economic freedom and suffered from religious segregation.

Manuela Soeiro, who founded the first Mozambican theater troupe Mutumbela Gogo in 1986, told me at the centenary celebration about her experiences being a Jew at a Salesian Catholic boarding school in the ‘40s and ‘50s. When the nuns saw her hug her Jewish grandfather, they made her and her two sisters sleep in a cold bathtub as punishment for engaging with “the devil.”

After World War II, many Jews immigrated from Mozambique to South Africa, which was experiencing an economic boom.

The Jewish community took another hit when, in 1975, Mozambique gained independence from Portugal due to the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique’s (FRELIMO) successful guerilla campaign. A communist government led by President Samora Machel took over and restricted religious practice.

“All of the religious buildings, not only the synagogue — mosques, churches, everything — was expropriated by the government,” Levy told me.

Post-independence, the synagogue was used as a warehouse. Courtesy of Larry and Diane Herman

The majority of the Portuguese in Mozambique left, some by force and some by choice, and many Jews were among those who emigrated. The country was hit hard by economic destabilization. Concrete shells of building projects abandoned by Portuguese builders after independence dot the city skyline.

Only two years after independence, the country’s socialist and anti-communist factions waged a civil war that ravaged the country for 15 years. Honen Dalim’s synagogue fell into disrepair and became a warehouse for the Red Cross.

The synagogue’s address ties the building both to the country’s colonial and post-independence eras. Avenida 24 de Julho — July 24th Street — was named after the date in 1875 when Portugal took full possession of Maputo. Exactly 100 years later, on July 24, Machel nationalized almost every sector of Mozambican society.

Revitalizing the community

Nuno Soeiro remembers his mom Manula continuing to look after the synagogue, along with his uncles, even though they weren’t allowed to practice religion there in the communist era.

“Some people from the American embassy, they used to do some lessons,” Nuno Soeiro told me, saying they went to embassy officials’ houses to observe Jewish holidays.

The newspaper announcement from 1990 inviting Jews back to the synagogue. Courtesy of Larry and Diane Herman

In 1989, the synagogue had an unexpected savior: Alkis Macropolous, a Greek, and not Jewish, businessman. His Jewish colleagues in Johannesburg encouraged him to help preserve the building. He ensured that the dilapidated structure was not torn down and arranged for an ad to be placed in the paper asking for any remaining Jews to claim the synagogue — and they did. The defeat of the communist government in 1990 — which was replaced by a presidential republic — allowed religious communities to be active again.

When Samuel Levy arrived in 1993, the synagogue didn’t have enough people for a minyan and wasn’t having official services, but on Saturday afternoons, Jewish and non-Jewish members gathered together to sing folk songs. Although it wasn’t a traditional service, Levy found it spiritually fulfilling.

“Those songs were maybe the most simplest prayers I’ve ever heard,” Levy told me. “But also the deepest.”

For Larry and Diane Herman, Conservative Jews from Detroit who arrived in Maputo in 1999, practicing Judaism without a large community was nothing new. Larry’s work as an economist took them around the globe, including to Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Uganda.

“We were the center of the Jewish community in Ouagadougou from 1975 to 1977, which simply means the three or four or five other Jewish Peace Corps volunteers,” Larry told me.

The Hermans took on leadership roles and Diane put together a spiral-bound siddur for services that includes prayers in Hebrew, English and Portuguese. They wrote a prayer for Mozambique based on the prayer for the country found in many U.S. prayer books. Levy also led services, even while away.

Natalie Tenzer-Silva, who moved from South Africa to Mozambique with her family in 1993, told me Levy would send cassette recordings of Kol Nidre when he couldn’t be there to lead High Holiday services himself.

“He would blow the shofar over a cell phone or send a recording of it,” Tenzer-Silva said. “He really is the pillar, making sure that we have all the writings and the readings and all of that ready for the holidays and for the Friday nights.”

The curtain in the ark is dedicated to Larry and Diane Herman for all they’ve done for Honen Dalim. Photo by Olivia Haynie

The Hermans were the only Shabbat-observant and kosher members of the synagogue at the time. To buy kosher food, they went to Johannesburg, often bringing things back for the congregation. These imports were critical around Passover, when the Hermans hosted seders at their home, sometimes for as many as 50 people.

Not big enough to have a full executive board or leadership team, the synagogue members had to set their own guidelines.

“We sat for like four hours trying to hash out the rules,” Diane Herman said.

“When you already don’t have a minyan of Jews, let alone males, and you’ve got all these intermarried couples, what do you do about the spouse? And what do you do about these people who aren’t Jewish at all, but want to participate?” said Diane. “We hashed out how to create a community there. It was fascinating.”

“When Jews come there from other places, they realize if they’re going to give any expression to their Jewish identity, they need to work on it,” Levy said. “If you want your kids to know something, well, you’re going to have to start a Sunday school or really participate in it. If you want the holidays to happen, you’re going to have to organize to import matzo and kosher wine for Passover because we can’t make it.”

Rebuilding the synagogue

Considered one of the poorest countries in the world, Mozambique attracts many people from abroad who work in diplomacy, aid, or international development. As more Jews arrived to work in these sectors, it became clear the synagogue needed physical improvements.

“When I arrived, there were poles supporting the roof,” Tenzer-Silva told me. “And every time we would go to services, if the wind blew, my children would think the roof was going to fall in.”

Larry Herman remembered one Shabbat where a corner did fall in — and another where a rat fell from the rafters.

In 2009, congregant Juliana Becker decided she wanted a bat mitzvah — the first to happen in the country — and turned to Larry for tutoring. A Torah was brought in from South Africa, since the synagogue lacked its own, and 125 people attended from Maputo and from abroad. The event prompted Honen Dalim’s leaders to successfully file for official recognition from the government in 2010, making them the legal owners of the synagogue.

Five years later, in preparation for the bar mitzvah of Tenzer-Silva’s older son, Jordan, the congregation decided to replace the roof. But this could not be done safely without updating the walls and flooring. Tenzer-Silve said what was originally supposed to be a $25,000 bill became more than $120,000.

With help from the local community, and friends and family abroad, Honen Dalim managed to raise the money — just in the nick of time for Jordan.

“The Friday of his bar mitzvah, they had finished painting the walls,” Tenzer-Silva said.

The members of Honen Dalim after rebuilding the synagogue in 2013. Samuel Levy is in the front row, second from the left. To the right are Larry and Diane Herman. Immediately behind Levy is Natalie Tenzer-Silva. Courtesy of Larry and Diane Herman

In 2013, Honen Dalim held a rededication ceremony celebrating the rebuild. Ann Harris, then-President of the African Jewish Congress, and Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft gave the congregation a kosher Sefer Torah — something they had lacked before. Other faith leaders and government representatives attended, including then-Minister of Justice Maria Benvinda Levi, who now serves as the country’s Prime Minister and has Jewish ancestry.

Multiple members of Honen Dalim described the environment of Maputo as extremely tolerant and supportive of the Jewish community.

“The entire time I lived in Mozambique, I wore a kippah on the streets and never had any problems,” Larry Herman told me.

Honen Dalim handed out kippot and challah covers at the centenary celebration. Photo by Olivia Haynie

Many attribute this respect for religion to the role faith leaders played in dissuading violence during the civil war. A wing of the city’s central church is dedicated to Pope John Paull II, who made a famed visit in 1988 advocating for peace. Ultimately, the Catholic lay movement, the Community of Sant’Egisio, brokered peace. Tenzer-Silva and others remarked that the civil war made people tired of conflict.

Honen Dalim is part of the COREM — the Council of Religions in Mozambique. Its President, Moisés Chiziane, spoke at the centenary event, urging continued coexistence.

“Peace is not built only by the absence of conflicts,” he said. “Peace is built by respect, listening, acceptance of diversity and recognition of the dignity of every human being.”

Levy told me Honen Dalim has hosted a Muslim adult study group at the synagogue to learn about Jewish practices, such as putting on tefillin.

Sheik Aminudin, the President of the Islamic Council of Mozambique, signs the centenary guest book. Photo by Kerry Haynie

“The people who run the different faith organizations,” Levy said, “they make it an article of faith that they need to actively get along — not tolerate, but learn about the faith of other people.”

In recent years, a branch of ISIS has established itself in the northern part of Mozambique, displacing local residents and leaving other religious groups — and non-affiliated Muslims — fearful of being attacked. But Natalie Tenzer-Silva said that type of extremism has not been seen in Maputo.

“It won’t come down south,” she told me confidently. “People wouldn’t tolerate it.”

A tenuous position

Although the community is still active, members described Honen Dalim as “fragile.” Tenzer-Silva said there could be anywhere “between three and 12 people” at a Friday service — the turnout isn’t big or consistent. They also lack the type of programming that bigger synagogues offer.

“I would like to take my kids to synagogue to learn Hebrew,” Nuno Soeiro said. “We don’t have that.”

Individuals like Levy can help organize lessons for kids like Soeiro’s daughter to be on track to become bar or bat mitzvahs. But the number of people with that type of knowledge is limited.

According to Levy, COVID was “a big blow to the Jewish community.”

“At that point we had Sunday school with eight kids,” he said. “After that, things kind of became a little more tenuous and they’re a little more tenuous today, but we try to keep going.”

The congregation’s reliance on expats also puts it in a delicate position. Synagogue leaders say only around a third of congregants are permanent residents. While some expats find a permanent home in Maputo, others leave due to work or family. After 16 years in Maputo, the Hermans left and now live in Los Angeles. Levy divides his time between Maputo and Dubai, although all three help manage things from a distance.

The recent cuts to USAID programs to Mozambique will likely diminish the number of American Jews who have jobs that require them to move there. And a hidden debt scandal in the mid-2010s that cost the country nearly $2.2 billion broke the trust of investors from around the world who may have sent Jewish employees to Mozambique.

“A lot of the international community withdrew support for many years,” Marcos Vaena said. “It was 10 years of economic crisis.”

Vaena, who grew up in Brazil in a Sephardic family with Turkish roots, first moved to Maputo in 2006 as a UN volunteer for a development program. He left in 2010 to work in other developing countries, but returned in 2024. He told me he saw “a diminished community” compared to the Honen Dalim he’d left behind. He decided to start leading Shabbat services a couple times a month.

Marcos Vaeana (left) and Samuel Levy (to the immediate right) leading the centenary celebration. Courtesy of the Universal Church of Maputo

“I wanted to make sure that my kids have continued exposure to a Jewish tradition and education,” he said.

It’s not just expats, however, who want a more formal way to be involved in Judaism.

“There’s a regular interest from Mozambicans that are seeking spiritual connection through Judaism,” Vaena said. “But then you need, I think, a more structured process and support for those who are there.”

“There were a lot of people who had been happy to convert, and that just wasn’t possible,” Diane Herman added. “There was no rabbi around.”

“We have a lot of people who were, I call, ‘lovers of Zion’ as opposed to Jews,” Larry Herman told me. “They were some of the biggest supporters.” He recounted what happened when he and Diane lost their fathers. ”Both of us went to the funerals in the United States and came back, and we were in our period of mourning — it was the non-Jews who supported us by coming to every service.”

There is also no mikveh, the ritual bath needed for conversions. Diane said some people go to South Africa for the rite, but they tend to be those with money. In a country where half of all workers earn less than 60,000 Metical a year — less than $1,000 — it’s not a viable option for the vast majority of Mozambicans.

Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, chief rabbi for the AJC, occasionally helps the congregation with critical events, but Silberhaft serves nine different countries and cannot be everywhere at once. Tenzer-Silva told me that bringing in a permanent rabbi for such a small congregation would be difficult, especially with the lack of kosher food options. Vaena said he himself has considered seminary training.

“That experience leading the services and being more engaged on a daily basis has really brought me a lot of joy,” he said.

Perseverance

Despite the struggles the community faces, the 100th anniversary ceremony did not feel like a pity party for a dying congregation. Kids ran around the lawn during the reception, which was stocked with bagels and cakes from a kosher caterer in South Africa. Tenzer-Silva’s son Jordan, who’s in his late twenties now, helped usher people at the event and recited “Tzadik Katamar” alongside other synagogue leaders. The younger generation of the synagogue is small, but present.

Members and guests of Honen Dalim socialize at the centenary celebration. Photo by Kerry Haynie

And those who have moved away don’t really leave Honen Dalim behind. From Los Angeles, Larry Herman serves as the president of the Friends of the Jewish Community of Mozambique, helping garner international support for Honen Dalim. Although he and his wife haven’t lived in Maputo in 10 years, they spoke of it with great reverence.

“It’s a wonderful community,” Larry said. “I’m very proud of it.”

Honen Dalim continues to welcome new members and serve as a place where Jewish visitors can have a home. Members told me that travelers have come from America, Paris, Israel and other parts of the world. For Jews who end up in Maputo — whether for a few days, a few years, or the rest of their lives — Honen Dalim serves as a vital source of community. Several people said they had never been more Jewish than they had been in Mozambique.

“May the next hundred years be of peace, prosperity, and abundant blessings for all,” Chapo said toward the end of his speech. Although his words were practically all in Portuguese, he closed with a message Jews around the world could understand: “Shalom. Shalom. Shalom.”

The post Mozambique’s only synagogue has been keeping Judaism alive in the country for a century appeared first on The Forward.

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