Happy New Year to Everyone!
I received a greetings card from Tommy Joseph over the festive season. Some of you will have known him in Kenya, where he grew up and went to school. He’s the author of an interesting book – Why There Were Jews in Nakuru (Haifa, 1998). Tommy now lives in Israel and I enjoy his lively and regular emails.
We know quite a lot about Christian missionaries in Kenya, but not so much about Jewish settlement. We had quite a few Jewish girls in our class and house at the Kenya High School in the 1950s. Looking into the matter, I have found that there were many Jews in Kenya in the early years of white settlement, but numbers increased at the end of the 1930s. The Nairobi Hebrew Congregation was founded as early as 1904, and by 1913 a synagogue had been built for the twenty Jewish families in Nairobi. By 1931 there were 305 Jews in Kenya – most in business or the professions, but there were a few farmers too.
I see that in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (1943) under Kenya it is recorded that Mark Wischnitzer, general secretary of the Hilsverein der Deutschen Juden (Society to Help German Jews) visited Kenya in 1936 on behalf of Jewish organizations wishing to assist German Jews to emigrate. His findings resulted in the migration of many Jews to Kenya in the following years. A committee was set up in Nairobi to help them. There was also the Plough Settlement Association, founded by the Council for Germany Jewry in Great Britain, which enabled a number of German refugees to settle in Kenya in early 1939. The war interrupted further settlement, although many Polish Jews found their way to Kenya via Palestine and were put in a camp at Maseno in Uganda.
In March 1947 the British set up a camp at Gilgil to hold captured members of Jewish underground organizations. They were released in 1948.
Notable among the very early arrivals were, Michael Hartz (1901), James (actually Ignatius) Marcus (Romanian, 1902), Otto Markus (Austrian, 1903), Abraham Block (Lithuanian, via South Africa, 1903), Isaac Hotzi (1904), M.J. London (1904), Simon Medicks (Polish, 1904), Wolf Sulsky (1904), Simon Haller (1904), John Rifkin (1904) and H. Fein (1905). In 1906 Sammy and Gertie Jacobs founded S. Jacobs Pty Ltd – East Africa’s largest department store. There were also Alec, Sam and Jack Lazarus, and S. Rosenblum. Israel Somen, the president of the Board of Kenya Jewry, was elected Mayor of Nairobi in 1957.
As well as Tommy Joseph, Julius Carlebach, Cynthia Salvadori, Naomi Musiker, Ariel Schreib and Saul Issroff have all written about Jews in Kenya.
Can anyone let us know about other Jewish settlers in Kenya?
Please visit Christine’s website at www.csnicholls.co.uk
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