The Abayudaya Jewish Communities of Uganda

Co-sponsored by Penn Department of Cinema & Media Studies and Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and its Goldhirsh-Yellin fund for the study of Jewish life in the land of Israel.

6 PM: RECEPTION + EXHIBITION
7 PM: SHORT FILMS + PANEL

Peter Decherney’s recent photographs and films of the Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda are exhibited, followed by a panel of experts discussing Abayudaya history, religion, and culture. The films were produced by the University of Pennsylvania’s new Global Documentary Institute in partnership with the Abayudaya communities.

Uganda’s Abayudaya community started in 1919 when a local leader converted himself to Judaism. Today, Eastern Uganda has over a dozen synagogues with a combined membership of around 7,000 congregants. They practice forms of Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, and a nascent Reform movement is growing.

The photographs and films explore the intersection of being African and Jewish. What does it mean to be Jewish in Uganda, connected to Jewish communities in the United States and Israel, and also, increasingly, to the growing Jewish communities across Africa? The photographic portraits include Uganda’s first woman rabbi, the first Ugandan to become an Israeli citizen, and the first Abayudaya doctor. The films explore the life of Grammy-nominated singer Rachel Namadosi and the cave synagogue where the Abyudaya prayed secretly after dictatorial President Idi Amin outlawed Judaism in the 1970s.

FILMS:

• THE CAVE SYNAGOGUE
  Documentary Short | USA | 2024 | 8 min | Luganda
• DAYS BETWEEN REST
  Documentary Short | USA | 2024 | 12 min | English

SPECIAL GUESTS:

• Peter Decherney (Photographer, Filmmaker)
• Sara Byala (Historian, Producer)
• Rabbi Shoshana Nambi (first Ugandan woman to be ordained as rabbi)
• Rabbi Gershom Sizomu (Chief Rabbi of Uganda)
• Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky (Moderator)

Director’s Bio

Peter Decherney is an award-winning fine art photographer, filmmaker, and author. He holds the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Chair in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is Professor of Cinema & Media Studies and Director of the Penn Global Documentary Institute. Peter is the author or editor of seven books including Hollywood’s Copyright Wars: From Edison to the Internet and Hollywood: A Very Short Introduction. He has also written for The New York Times, Forbes, and Inside Higher Ed, among many other publications. His photographs of global Jewish communities have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and universities. His book of photography and history, Endless Exodus: The Jewish Experience in Ethiopia, is forthcoming. Peter’s films focus on migration and the political role of artists. His virtual reality docuseries, The Heart of Puerto Rico, about artists in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria (co-directed with Jean Lee), won the Best VR Experience and Best Director awards at the AT&T Film Awards. His documentary, Dreaming of Jerusalem (co-directed with Sosena Solomon), about the Jewish Community in Gondar, Ethiopia, is a Discovery+ original. Is It Because I’m a Girl, about the South Sudanese Hip-Hop Dancer Nao.G, premiered at the Miami Film Festival and has won five top festival awards. His most recent films are two short documentaries about the Abayudaya Jewish communities in Uganda. Peter has been an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scholar, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and a U.S. State Department Arts Envoy to Myanmar. He is an award-winning teacher, whose open online course on the history of Hollywood has enrolled more than 80,000 learners. He also holds a secondary appointment at the Annenberg School for Communication and an affiliation with the Penn Law Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition.