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Jewish Cemetery at Khartoum

Description

A HISTORY OF JEWS IN THE SUDAN

Jewish history in the Sudan can be traced back to a small community formed in the late nineteenth century. There were eight Sephardic families living under  Ottoman rule in Turco-Egyptian Sudan (1820-1885). It is unknown how these families originated in the Sudan; however, they were free to practice Judaism throughout the mid-to-late 1800s until the Ottoman Empire was overthrown and the Sudanese Mahdiyya was established in 1885. Under Mahdist rule, the Sudanese Jewish community was forced to convert to Islam under threat of death. In 1898, the British claimed the Sudan as a colony, opening up new trade and travel opportunities that brought more Jews into the country.

After British rule had been established, the eight Jewish families reverted to Judaism and were quickly joined by other Jewish families seeking new economic opportunities .  Many Jewish textile and silk merchants from all over the Middle East and North Africa settled along Nile River towns. 

In 1926, the community opened a synagogue on a central street in Khartoum. The Jewish community was overseen by the Egyptian Beth-Din (Jewish court of law) and Moroccan born Rabbi Malka. Between 1930 and 1950, the community reached its peak membership, with 250 families totaling around 1,000 Jews. Though the community was spread out across four towns, it was tight-knit and centered around the synagogue in Khartoum.

The Sudan gained its independence in 1956; however, the Suez Crisis later that year contributed greatly to a rise in antisemitism. As antisemitism intensified, many community members began to leave the Sudan for Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Much of the community had left by 1960. In 1967, Jewish men were arrested en masse, and Sudanese newspapers advocated for the arrest and torture of Jewish community leaders. Jewish emigration intensified, and the last members of the Jewish community left Sudan in the early 1970s.

DESCRIPTION

The Jewish cemetery in Khartoum was created in the nineteenth century. It is located in the center of the city and is about 800 square meters in size. It is the only Jewish cemetery in the Sudan. It was abandoned in the 1970s when the country’s Jewish community fled due to rising antisemitism and Islamic extremism. In the following decades, the cemetery was vandalized and desecrated. Many gravestones were smashed into pieces; thereafter, the cemetery became used as a local garbage dump and, over time, accumulated decades of waste. 

Chaim Motzen, who develops renewable energy products throughout Africa, discovered the cemetery in 2000 and returned again in 2019 to begin his restoration project. He immediately got permission from the Minister of Religious Affairs, Nasr Eldeen Mofarih, to restore the site. Motzen provided funding for a Sudanese archeologist and dozens of workers to rid the site of waste. Within weeks they had filled 14 trucks with nearly five  metric tons of garbage that had been accumulated since the mid-1970s. 

Eventually, the team discovered 71 graves, though they were so destroyed that they were nearly unreadable. For months, they excavated the site and painstakingly placed the Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions together as they belonged. The restoration of these gravestones has been hugely meaningful for the community in Khartoum, and the descendants of those buried in the graveyard. Today, most of the headstones have been repaired and there is round-the-clock security at the cemetery. Motzen hopes that the site will serve to remind young Sudanese of their complex heritage and history.

Images of the cemetery can be found below:

https://www.sudanmemory.org/image/TJS-0000058/1/LOG_0000/

https://www.facebook.com/KhartoumJewishCemetery/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/khartoums-secret-cemetery-piecing-together-fragments-lost-jewish/

 

Khartoum, Sudan