he Jewish community in Arusha is descended from Yemenite and Moroccan Jews who went to eastern Africa in the 1880s. There was a good number of Yemenite and Omani Jews in Tanganyika. Among them were Jews from Mawza and Sanaa, as well as Jews who immigrated from Ethiopia down south up to Tanzania. In the 1930s, more than 5,000 Polish Jews who came as refugees also added to the number of Jews of Arusha.

The Jews of Arusha have endured many difficult years. In the 1970s, their synagogue was nationalized and turned into a church. The population dispersed throughout the city and concealed evidence of their Jewish identities. They lost their one Torah in the upheaval. Since the 1970s, the community shrank, and it was scattered, but at least some of its members never stopped practicing Judaism, and never stopped hoping for the freedom to be openly Jewish, and to reconnect.

That Torah had been brought over the mountains from Ethiopia on a donkey by the grandfather of Yehudah Amir Kahalani, who now leads the Jewish community of Arusha. Kahalani is a lawyer by profession and, the son of the last leader. Along with his partner Efrat, he has dedicated himself to rebuilding Jewish life in Arusha. When the Tanzanian government offered land to the Jews of Arusha in restitution for the seizures of the 1970s, Kahalani obtained a portion of the site where another synagogue previously stood. There, he built a tiny chapel. A number of people from the Jewish community also live nearby and attend services on Shabbat. Other Jews in Arusha live too far away to walk to the shule. The Mayanot Yehudim (Mayahudim) community of Arusha, consists of 70  people.

There  is also a group of American Jews in Tanzania as well as an Israeli community  – about 40 people from 10 families. One of the families owns a Middle Eastern restaurant called Nargila.

There is also a Jewish presence in humanitarian aid. Surgeon Dr Godwin Godfrey is Tanzania’s first and only pediatric heart surgeon. He is assisted by Dr. Lior Sasson, the head cardiothoracic surgeon at Israel’s Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, the troupe of Israeli operating-room and intensive-care nurses, anesthesiologists, perfusionists and intensive-care doctors.It’s all part of the Israel-based Save a Child’s Heart program for providing cardiac care to children from developing countries. SACH teams travel to remote destinations where they screen children, perform heart surgery and hand-pick medical candidates for specialized medical training in Israel.