The House of Israel Community of Ghana

History

In 1976 a Ghanaian man named Aaron Ahomtre Toakyirafa had a vision. Sitting deep in the Ghanaian bush, in the village of Sefwi Sui, a seventeen hour drive from the capital of Accra and much further away from the mainstream of the international Jewish community, Toakyirafa “spoke with spirits” which inspired him to believe that he and his fellow villagers were actually descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.

Toakyirafa realized that the traditions of his ancestors were very similar to traditions of ancient Jews. Before Christian missionaries had come to convert much of Ghana nearly a hundred year ago, the Sefwi people followed many “unusual” traditions. Though they were farmers like most others in their region, the Sefwi strictly adhered to a Saturday day of rest. Community leaders punished members who broke the prohibition against work on the day of rest, sometimes even by death. Members of the Sefwi community followed dietary restrictions that forbade them from eating pork. Male community members were circumcised in youth; women in the community were forced into isolation during their menstrual period, just as ancient Jews were according to the Torah. As Toakyirafa did more research he became more and more convinced that his Sefwi ancestors had a direct connection to ancient Jews.

Toakyirafa, neighbor David Ahenkorah and others from the surrounding area traveled to the Ivory Coast to investigate the history of their people. They discovered that indeed the Sefwi people had migrated south through the land that is now the Ivory Coast. Their investigation stopped there but they are convinced that the former Jewish community of the Ivory Coast had migrated there from other places, perhaps even Timbuktu, where there is a historically documented Jewish community.

The convinced members of the Sefwi Sui community and another area called Adiembra began to learn about Jewish practices. They called themselves the House of Israel and began to preach about Judaism. Christians in the Adiembra area did not appreciate the introduction of a new religion. They beat and imprisoned House of Israel leaders. A judge released them from prison but many of them decided to move from Adiembra. After Toakyirafa died in a stabbing incident while he was working in the Ivory Coast, David Ahenkorah became the primary leader of the community. He and other members of the House of Israel community moved to a newly developed area outside of the small city of Sefwi Wiawso. They called their area New Adiembra and have since built a synagogue and several family compounds.

The Setting

Most members of the House of Israel community of Ghana live in Sefwi Wiawso, a small city in the southwestern corner of Ghana, somewhat near the nation’s border with the Ivory Coast. There is one main street in Sefwi Wiawso, a dirty road that runs along the top of a ridge overlooking the green hills of the region. Small shops line either side of the main strip, including a general goods store owned by community member Kofi Kwateng and a photography operation, “Vote for God Photos,” run by community leader David Ahenkorah. Other members of the community live in a small farming village called Sefwi Sui, which is approximately twenty miles from Wiawso.

Though the main street of Sefwi Wiawso is paved, the road leading the couple miles down to the New Adiembra neighborhood, the center of the Jewish community, is dirt and scattered with holes. Groves of coconut and plantain trees line either side of the road, and fields of cassava and yams are tucked behind them. There are also small, brick houses along the road, out of which little children run to greet visitors with a happy “brunei!” (white man).

New Adiembra is a small, close collection of houses. The Sefwi Wiawso Jews moved there after neighbors in their old area, Adiembra, beat and imprisoned them for preaching Judaism. Most of the community’s hundred or so members live in New Adiembra, including David Ahenkorah, Brother Isaiah, and the extensive Armah family. The Jews live within walking distance of each other, of Brother Isiah’s house where they meet every night to discuss Judaism, and of the new synagogue where they meet to pray.

The air in Sefwi Wiawso is thick and hot. Even so, children run around all day, playing games and reciting lessons they’ve learned in school. Goats and chickens wander the streets freely, bah-ing and clucking respectively. There are few cars but when one goes by it often chugs due to a failing engine. Only at night does the cacophony of rural life recede into a comfortable silence.

Secular Life

Life for members of the House of Israel Community of Ghana is very similar to life of other local Ghanaians. Most members of the community are farmers, raising cash crops such as cocoa or sustenance crops like yams, cassava and fruits like mangos and coconuts. Though non-farming work is difficult to find, some community elders have been to school and are now professionals – “Rabbi” Alex has graduated university as an engineer, for example, and David Ahenkorah is a photographer. Community elder Kofi Kwateng owns a small shop on the main strip of town which is close enough to the post office for him to double as the community’s communications officer, fielding the community’s telephone calls (there are no telephones in the Jewish community so all calls come there) and retrieving mail from its post box. There is an unspoken yet distinct division of labor between men and women – women work in the house, cooking, cleaning and taking care of their many children. Both male and female children attend school though, and woman are not discouraged from speaking their minds in public. There is no Jewish instruction in public school, though the Jewish children appear to be well-received by their non-Jewish neighbors. People are poor in this part of Ghana and there is rarely enough money for books. In the absence of writing materials most children learn their lessons by heart.

Daily life in this part of Ghana is slow and simple. Everyone works hard, from dawn to dusk, on the farm or in the store or at home preparing meals and looking after the house. Shabbat is a particularly welcome break from the monotony of the week’s work, as are the evening meetings at which the community members gather to learn about Judaism and sing songs. Ghanaians appreciate a hard day’s work, but they also understand the importance of taking time to greet friends and neighbors and to enjoy life with their children.

Non-Jewish neighbors are curious about the House of Israel’s practices, especially now that they have begun to have visitors from the West. Local tribal chiefs, impressed by the community’s ability to bring in visitors from outside Ghana, have begun to consider the group’s claim that traditional Sefwi culture is actually a remnant of ancient Judaism. Local chiefs have granted the House of Israel community a large stretch of land along the river. The land floods during the rainy season and is too dry during the rest of the year for planting crops, but community leaders hope connection with the West will yield them enough support to buy water pumps so they may farm market-ready vegetables on the fertile land, therefore raising the economic level of the community.

Religious Life

Members of the House of Israel community are both serious and playful about their Judaism. On one hand they take Jewish religious observances very seriously. Every night the community gathers at the house of Brother Isaiah to study Judaism from books that Western donors have sent. “Rabbi” Alex reads the passages in English and David Ahenkorah explains each passage to the men, women and children who sit before him. They study hard because they know they have much to learn. On the other hand, they realize that Judaism is a living religion that they must interpret according to the needs of their community. When they debate the community’s religious decision they do so with some degree of playful excitement, feeling a conscious part of the Judaic debates that they know Rabbis have had throughout the ages.

Jews in Sefwi Wiawso live amongst non-Jews and only separate themselves due to their religious observances. The Sefwi Wiawso Jews keep kosher – they do not eat pork and kasher meat according to Jewish custom. Women in the community follow Biblical restrictions during their menstrual periods and are not allowed to cook or be part of religious observances until they are considered “clean.” The predominantly Christian neighbors don’t know what to make of the long, flowing robes the men don for the Sabbath, nor the “strange” holidays the community follows.

On Shabbat the Sefwi Wiawso community sets itself particularly apart. Each family celebrates the evening of Shabbat with its own celebration. The Armah family celebrates in the small television room of their house, all ten children gathering around a tiny table and around their father, Jacob, and twenty-three year old “Rabbi” Alex Armah. Alex blesses the lit candles and the wine (the community does not have kosher wine so the replace it in their rituals with bottles of Coke). He reads several prayers in English (from an English/Hebrew prayer book – community members are just learning how to speak Hebrew), then allows Jacob to bless both the children and his wife, for her tireless work. From the moment the Shabbat lights are kindled the community uses no electricity.

Saturday morning community members wake up early, bathe using cold water in a bucket (there is no running water), then meet in the synagogue for prayer. Men wear long, flowing white robes and traditional kippot. Women wear their best dress, usually a flowered, hand-made creation. The community elders sit at the front of the synagogue facing the rest of the community. Women and men sit separately on the synagogue’s wooden benches, and children sit on benches running along the synagogue’s side. The synagogue of recent visitor Mike Gershowitz has donated plentiful Sim Shalom prayerbooks, but David and Alex do not quite know yet how to sculpt a Shabbat service from them, so they draw upon a fraying Union prayer book intended for the High Holy days that someone had sent them. They have memorized prayers word for word from that prayer book, and recite them back in order with near perfection. The community has no Torah but it does have an English/Hebrew Tanach from which Alex reads the week’s parsha in English as David explains every line in some what of a rolling sermon.

After about 1 ½ hours of services, community members return to their homes for breakfast. Local families host the visitors from the far off farming community of Sefwi Sui who regularly come twenty miles to join in the services. After breakfast the community again convenes at the synagogue for a study session and some more prayers. Later in the afternoon the services break up and families return to their own houses where they discuss Judaism, teach prayers verbatim to their children, and ponder the long week of work behind them and the next that is coming. As the sun sets each family celebrates Havdallah its own way. The Armah family gathers once again in the small television room and Rabbi Alex leads a traditional Havdallah service, ending the Shabbat observance by dipping a twisted, three wicked candle into a cup of Coke that is substituting for wine. After Shabbat has gone Jacob flips on the electricity that powers the TV room’s glowing green light bulb and its slow, churning overhead fan.

©2000 Jay Sand