Photo Exhibit of Ugandan Jews at Mandell JCC
By Stacey Dresner
Young members of the Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda.
Photo by Lisa Kassow
WEST HARTFORD – Last winter Lisa Pleskow Kassow, director of Trinity College Hillel, and two other college advisors took a group of students to eastern rural Uganda to meet and volunteer with the Abayudaya Jewish community. Kassow’s photos from that journey will be on display next month at the Mandell JCC in West Hartford.
“The Abayudaya – People of Judah” will run in the JCC’s Chase Family Gallery from Sept. 2 – 15.
Kassow was accompanied to Uganda by Patti Sheinman, Wellesley Hillel Director and Denning Aaris, assistant director of Multifaith Programs at Babson College, who all led groups of students from the three schools on the trip.
The group included three students from Trinity College – Shawna Berk ’13, Rebecca Levy ’12, and Jillian Zieff ’14, three students from Wellesley College – Christine Lee ’14, Emily Wood ’13, and Katie Hargreaves ’12; and from Babson College, Alan Klipper ’14. Kassow’s daughter Miri Kassow, a junior at Muhlenberg College, also went on the trip. Miri spent seven weeks in Uganda volunteering with American Jewish World Service.
The Abayudaya (which means “People of Judah” in Lugandan, the Ugandan language) community is comprised of approximately 1,500 people who maintain their Jewish identity in several villages throughout eastern Uganda. The community has five active synagogues.
Prior to becoming Hillel Director in 2001, Kassow spent many years in Israel as an award-winning photojournalist. Kassow’s photo exhibit focuses on the Hadassah Primary School, an elementary school that serves Jewish, Christian and Muslim children where the group volunteered, as well as the Delicious Peace Coffee Cooperative – known as “Mirembe Kawomera,” an interfaith collective of coffee farmers, who share their profits to raise the standard of living for its member families.
The Peace Kawomera Cooperative has grown to over 1,000 members. Due to their collective efforts, the standard of living has risen for its member families, especially in the areas of health care and education, and plans are under way to expand beyond coffee into vanilla and cocoa.
Lisa Kassow with some of her photographic subjects in Uganda
“I have heard of this man and this project for years. JJ is considered a very good farmer, and a tzaddik, a very righteous man.,” Kassow said. “He explains the genesis of this cooperative project – JJ was in New York City on September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of the disaster, he understood what people were saying and feeling about Muslims – the enemy, the other. In his life, on his land, Muslim, Christian and Abayudaya (Jews) live next to each other in peace. It is a simple life of living from the land. Over 80% of Ugandans work in agriculture. They eat what they grow. JJ decided to establish an interfaith cooperative with his neighbors and thus, the Coffee Peace Collective – Mirembe Kawomera – was born.”
Page 1 of 2 | Next page