It's easy to guess why some people on the beach in Ghana are there. It's usually easy to spot the volunteers and to guess where they're from (usually somewhere in Europe). Vacationing European families stand out because they are dressed somehow like tourists and they are often multi-generational. Ghanaians are either local from the village or wealthy and from Accra. And there is usually someone in the middle of doing something crazy.
This day I met someone who started in Romania and had made his way by bus and hitchhiking to Ghana (although he took a boat to Morocco from Gibraltar). Last time I met two people who were driving around the world – starting in Europe, going down Africa and back up, through Asia, up to Russia, across the Bering Strait, down to Chile and then by boat to Australia. One of them was writing a book about it and the other was along for the 5-year ride.
On this day there were also no less than three large truck/bus things that were on their way to Cape Town from Morocco and then were heading back up on the east side of the continent. Each bus had 25 people who had paid about $10k each to be part of the group tour. Lame. Hopping on a tour bus and letting someone else figure everything out for you may be fine for senior citizens in Europe or non-New Yorkers in New York, but traveling down Africa is serious business. And if you're going to go from Morocco to Cape Town to Cairo, do it yourself or don't do it at all.
The village with the beach is a fishing village. There are always boats in the water, nets being pulled in, women selling fish off of their heads, etc. On this day, a shouting match broke out on the beach and spilled over into the hotel area. It continued for some time between two large groups of people until an old woman came over and broke it up. Justice is generally a locally enforced thing. But then the police came and it never escalated to violence.
Turns out they were fighting about sea turtles. These creatures, which measure several feet in diameter, can fetch $15, but catching them is illegal. During this time of the year, fishermen are more likely to catch one in their nets or even see them on the beach because it's egg-laying season. So some fisherman caught a turtle and someone else told him to throw it back. People started taking sides, some intense yelling and intimidation followed, and it was the most exciting fight about turtles I have ever seen.
I was hanging out with a Ghanaian friend and he could not find his case of CDs. He accused one of the "hotel" (I use that word liberally here…surely no American would consider this a hotel) workers of stealing it. The worker claimed that he did not steal it and to prove his innocence he poured some local alcohol on the ground, cracked an egg over it, and then swore on his ancestors. That's apparently how you do it when you really mean something.
Turns out, however, that he was lying. Later that night, we heard one of the CDs playing at the bar. Apparently, the hotel worker had taken the CDs and given them along with 20,000 cedis to a prostitute in exchange for her services.
Ahhhh…the beach...
Addendum #1: Kofi Annan returned to Ghana the other day. This was a really big day here (well, at least in the media). He is now Busumuru Kofi Annan. Busumuru is the highest title ever given to anyone by the chief of the Ashanti, Ghana's most powerful tribe/group. Previously, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, considered the father of Ghana and the country's first president, held the highest title. ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments
Sorry, this is a long story…
Ghana's only synagogue serves about twenty families and has hosted dozens of "strangers" who have helped to shape the community into what it is today. The community, which calls itself House of Israel, dates back to the 1970s, and the Ghanaian Jews' practices seem to closely resemble those of modern liberal Conservadoxism. The community is currently split into two over the issue of leadership.
The House of Israel is in the remote town of Sefwi Wiawso (pronounced Se-shwee Wee-oh-so) in Ghana's Western Region. Although it is less than 150 miles straight line distance from my house, the journey took me almost 11 hours. I was met at the tro station by Alex Armah, the 30-something current leader of the community. He brought me to his house where I would spend the weekend.
Sabbath began an hour later. The family, which consisted of Alex, his older brother Joseph who is the community chairman, Joseph's wife, and their numerous children, sat around a coffee table draped with a white table cloth in the family living room. The table had a few small flowers, a covered loaf of bread, two lit candles, and two bottles of Coke.
Alex led the proceedings, which began with a song in Twi. I was told later that this was Psalm 92 (mizmor shi l'yom hashabbat). Alex then began to read from a book written for recent converts that was given by one of the "strangers" or "visitors." He read Shalom Aleichem and Eishet Chayil in English and then put his hand on the children to bless them. He read Kiddush in English and a transliterated borei pri hagefen. Coke, in lieu of Kosher wine, was poured into a cup which was passed around generally in age order (although as the new stranger I was given second). Then the motzi was recited and bread was cut and eaten. After rice and tomato/fish stew, Alex led an English version of Grace After Meals.
The strangest moment of the weekend for me was that as we were sitting around talking, two of the younger kids began to sing songs. Having spent two months living with a Ghanaian family and five more months living in a village, seeing singing Ghanaian children is pretty standard. But these kids were singing Dovid Melech Yisroel (complete with hand motions), Mayim v'sasson, and the Shabbat Shalom Hey! song. Of all the things I've seen in Ghana, this was the most unexpected.
These songs had been taught by a recent stranger or visitor, as Joseph and Alex called the numerous white people who had come to the community them over the past several years. Most of them are from the UK, US, and Israel (add another point to the US column). Some stay as long as two months and they occasionally come in groups of six or more. They have brought books, menorahs, havdalah sets, mezuzahs and even a printed sefer torah. Last year, Joseph told me that the community had 80 visitors, compared to just 17 visitors the year before.
The strangers also have provided some education to the community, and some members of the community showed an active interest in learning more. No one in the community that I met knows how to read Hebrew (although some know the aleph bet), but Joseph, Alex, and others want to learn.
Services the next morning, which started on Ghanaian time (aka once everyone arrived), took place in the synagogue, named Tifereth Israel because a synagogue of the same name in Des Moines donated a couple hundred Siddurim (Sim Shalom, 1985 edition). It is a small cement building painted blue and white with 5 rows by 2 columns of benches. Alex, the leader, stood in the front with his back to the congregation, except during Torah reading. The morning I was there, services were attended by about a dozen adults and at least as many children. Women sat on one column of benches and men on the other. The men wore yarmulkes and tallitot. Everyone washed their hands outside before entering the building.
The Shabbat service was a shortened version of a typical American conservative Saturday morning service, except nearly everything was in English. The only Hebrew recited was the shema during the Torah service, and there were a few prayers in Twi, which I think were psalms. The biggest departure from a traditional service was the torah reading. Because no one can read Hebrew, a reading from the scroll was not possible. Instead, someone read from a Twi Bible (probably not translated by a Rabbi). After each verse, Alex explained something in Twi. They read less than an aliya from the Torah portion and a few verses from the haftorah, which sounds like about the right amount to me.
After services but before everyone walked around shaking hands and wishing each other a Shabbat Shalom, announcements were made and I became briefly and slightly involved in the community's leadership controversy.
Harriet of the organization Kulanu was my first point of contact to the community. I know little about the organization, but I think they reach out to remote Jewish communities and work with them on income generating activities. According to Joseph, my main source of knowledge about the community, Harriet has been involved for approximately five years. With her guidance, the community now makes challah covers and tallitot and sells them over the Internet. Harriet also donated two computers which are no longer working.
When I wrote to Harriet in December, I told her that I was a Peace Corps computer teacher in Ghana and wanted to know how I could contact the community. This message was relayed back to Alex and Joseph who saw an opportunity for their broken computers to get fixed. During announcements, they asked me to introduce myself. I stood up and told the congregation my name, where I was from, and what I was doing in Ghana (in Twi). Joseph then told the rest of the community that I could fix the broken computers, but David was holding the two machines hostage and would not release them until after the community's date in court. Some heated comments followed and I tried to calm them down by suggesting that the computers are probably obsolete anyway (that's not really what I said).
The current fight can be traced back to the community's Founder who died about twelve years ago. Sometime in the 1970s, possibly 1972, the Founder, named Eron (probably spelled incorrectly here), had a vision. His idea involved gathering the ten lost tribes of Israel, the truth of the Old Testament, and Jesus being a false Messiah. He began to preach his revelation to neighboring villages and he amassed a small following, including current members of the community. The Founder also "had an address" (a very Ghanaian term which literally means he had a mailing address but really means much more) of a man named Yaakov in Israel. The Founder wrote to Yaakov who was very happy to hear of Jews living in Ghana. Apparently, Yaakov, the first white man to encounter the fledgling community, also provided some advice to the community and thus began their Jewish journey.
When the Founder died, a member of the community (possibly named Joseph Nippah) gathered the disparate believers to Sefwi Wiawso. David apparently claims that before he died the Founder named David community leader for life. Joseph, who was elected chairman at an initial meeting of the elders, says that David was similarly elected to the leadership position and has no right to be leader forever.
Recently, tensions between David (with another elder named Kofi) and the rest of the community boiled over, and the community expelled them from the synagogue. Now, David, Kofi and two other families hold their own services each Saturday. There's potentially more at stake here then just leadership of the community, including the synagogue building, bank accounts, the relationship with Kulanu, and control of the business of welcoming strangers into the community and selling locally-made Judaica over the Internet. Joseph mentioned a few incidents that led to the expulsion, including a debate over the construction of a $1,000 guesthouse for visitors, an attempt by David to attend a conference in Israel or America, and the handling of visitors. It is all a bit unclear to me.
In an attempt to resolve the conflict, David took the community to court. The court referred the matter to a council of Anglican leaders who have met with the community several times. They ordered the synagogue to draft a constitution and vote for leadership positions. Apparently David did not agree to this resolution. The community's next date in court is February 9.
Other accounts of the Sefwi Wiawso Jewish community on the Internet are told from David's perspective. As the former leader, he had hosted the strangers. But I was hosted by Joseph, so most of what I know about the community comes from him.
Joseph was one of the Founder's original followers. Before he met the Founder, Joseph says he was a Christian, and other members of the community were also Christian. I asked a few people what they found so compelling about the Founder's preaching. I was not given much of an answer, but this may have been an unfair question to people with limited English. Joseph said that the community had plans to write down the history of the Founder but have not done it yet.
Whether by coincidence or not, Saturday was the traditional day of rest in the larger Sefwi area. The punishment for going to farm on Saturday was stoning. Sometime in the area's recent history, the paramount chief changed the day to Sunday and abolished the rather severe punishment.
I asked about some common Jewish laws. Joseph does not eat any meat or fish that is not kosher. One member of the community learned how to slaughter an animal by simply reading the Bible, and every Passover this man slaughters chickens. Anyone who goes to a cemetery is not allowed into the synagogue for one week, and similarly women are not allowed into the building during their period of menstruation (he brought that one up). There is currently no Jewish cemetery because apparently no one has died in the community, but they do have land when the need arises (the Founder apparently attracted a young following).
Joseph said that he wants his children to marry Jews. Later I talked to two 35-45 year old men who are long-time members and are both married to non-Jews. They said they would like their wives to convert, but it takes time to learn about Judaism and conversion is not something to rush into. One of the men has two children who he takes regularly to synagogue.
I did not see any mezuzahs in the synagogue, so I asked Joseph about it. He showed me one at his house and said he had more but did not know the blessing. I told him that after Shabbat I could help him hang up a mezuzah and we could say the blessing together, if he wanted. He seemed interested, so I reminded him again after Sabbath. He took out three mezuzahs, which were given to him by a visitor some time ago.
He also showed me a copy of The Code of Jewish Law in English, and the ninth grade gemara student inside of me quickly looked up the laws of mezuzah. Joseph asked me if he could hang the mezuzah on the outside part of the doorpost so more people would be able to see it. Extra Gemara Class on Thursday Nights told him that it is preferable to hang it on the inside. I read the blessing in Hebrew and he repeated each word. Then he hammered it to the doorpost, and I kept my mouth shut and did not tell him that according to the Shulchan Aruch the mezuzah should actually be angled the other way. I do think, however, that he wanted to do it according to the Law.
The next morning I went to the synagogue to take a few pictures and left early…
The sign outside of the synagogue has two pictures on it. To the left, there is a crown with a Jewish star over it. On the right side, there is a picture of the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell. When I asked members of the community why these are depicted on the synagogue sign I was told that the artist who made it saw these American icons in a history book and liked the stories that accompanied them.
A synagogue in rural Ghana struck me as a similar non-sequitor. But it's here, and the community will continue by the determination of its members. With no knowledge of Judaism, the community has relied on the generosity and advice of well-intentioned white people (and yet they showed almost no interest in my practices, leading me to think that they either have white man fatigue or just are not as curious about me as I was about them).
There is little about their Judaism that is uniquely Ghanaian, yet somehow that would seem Jewishly appropriate. Because the community has a rather short history, the law has not been adapted and new customs have not been adopted. Rather, it is they who have accepted the customs of others and received the law as it has been interpreted by the larger Jewish world. The community's uniqueness is the members themselves who lack Jewish education but seem genuine and devout in their beliefs. They are friendly and welcoming, and I hope I can visit them again soon, but it's a rough journey…
Addendum #1: Pictures of the synagogue and Joseph's house are posted. Follow the link at the top right.
Addendum #2: One thing the community urgently needs is over-sized satin yarmulkes. I know that there was a great abundance of these produced in the 1980s and 90s and freely distributed at weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs up and down the eastern seaboard. Preferably, they would cover about 75% of the head and they must be hot pink. I can't stress that enough. It's something of a national color here. If you can find any, even just one, please contact me immediately. Your gift of just one hot pink satin yarmulke can cover a child's uncovered head.
Addendum #3: Addendum #2 is not serious.
Addendum #4: Alex wants to learn how to read Hebrew. If anyone has a good idea about how to teach someone Hebrew without a teacher, please let me know. A good book? A book with a CD? Are there MP3s available? There is someone going to community for a few months. The easiest solution would be for her to teach him. I will try and find out what her plans are.
¶ 5:40 PM 1 comments