Growing up Jewish in Uganda

Shoshana Nambi grew up in Uganda’s Abayudaya Jewish community in the village of Nabweya, learning Hebrew at her synagogue and teaching children songs and the Torah portion. She is now a rabbinic intern at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York, where she lives with her daughter, Emunah. Shoshana’s first trip to the US in 2012 was to attend Brandeis Collegiate Institute, a leadership summer camp for Jewish young adults around the world. Learning more about Judaism there paved the way for her dream of becoming a rabbi. She traveled across the USA in the fall of 2013 and 2014 teaching about her Jewish community with an emphasis on the role of women in her villages. After a year of studying Hebrew and Jewish texts at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, she was offered admission to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City and spent her first year at its Jerusalem campus. She recently authored a children’s book, The Very Best Sukkah, about the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and the joyful way it is celebrated in her community. Shoshana humbly says, “Most importantly, I am on my way to becoming a Jewish leader myself, just like the leaders who inspired me growing up.”