Maputo synagogue still active 100 years later

As more than 100 members of Mozambique’s Jewish community, past and present, gather on 11 June to celebrate the centenary of the Maputo Synagogue, they hope to highlight that their community is still alive. 

Community President Sam Levy says although most people assume it doesn’t exist, there is still a small but active Jewish community in Mozambique. So much so that more than 100 people are to gather in person on Thursday and about 100 will join online. Among them are people who live or lived in Mozambique. They are to be joined by the President of Mozambique, Daniel Francisco Chapo. 

“There’s been a Jewish community here for many years now,” says Levy, who lives in Maputo. “It waxes and wanes because some of the people are Mozambican, but some are from outside and come and go. So, there’s a community and we have services and observe the chaggim.” 

For Levy, the celebration this week is about far more than the survival of a building, although that is important. 

“The synagogue kept going until independence,” he says. “Then most of the Jews left. The synagogue, along with many other places of worship, was closed because religion was not in favour at the time.” 

The years following independence in 1975 proved difficult. As much of the Jewish population emigrated, organised Jewish life came to a standstill and the synagogue was nationalised. “It was used as a warehouse, unfortunately,” Levy says. “It was always either a synagogue or, when it wasn’t a synagogue, a warehouse waiting to be a synagogue again.” 

That wait ended in 1989 when businessman Alkis Macropolous helped secure the building’s return to the Jewish community. “The government said, ‘Of course’, and gave it back,” he recalls. “The Jewish community reformed around the synagogue and its restoration from that time.” 

The Jewish story in Mozambique began long before the synagogue’s doors first opened. According to community records, Jewish immigrants arrived in Lourenço Marques during the late 19th century. Drawn by growing commercial opportunities, they established a congregation in 1899 before eventually building the synagogue, which was consecrated in 1926. 

Levy traces the communal origins to the close relationship between Mozambique and South Africa. “The community really got started when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand because Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, was the railhead for all the supplies going in and out of the country. There was always a very strong connection between Maputo and Johannesburg and the Jewish communities in the two places.” 

One of the community’s early champions was British-born Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz. “He told the Jews here to organise themselves into a proper community,’” Levy says. “It took 20 years, but they did, and that’s when the synagogue was finally inaugurated.” 

Today, maintaining Jewish life in Maputo remains a challenge. The community numbers just 35 to 40 people. 

“We rarely get a minyan,” Levy says. Yet that has never stopped the community from practising Judaism. “If there’s no minyan, there’s no minyan. But that doesn’t mean you can’t pray,” he says. “There are prayers you can’t do, and we don’t do those prayers. We do what we can under the circumstances.” 

The community grew to around 70 or 80 people before the COVID-19 pandemic, even operating a small cheder (school). While numbers have declined, Levy believes the community remains strong. 

“There’s a critical mass between Mozambicans and foreigners to celebrate the chaggim and to be together for Shabbat,” he said. As the community gathers on Thursday, Levy sees the celebration as a reminder that Jewish life in Mozambique has endured against the odds. 

More than 100 years after its establishment, and decades after many thought the community had disappeared altogether, the Maputo Synagogue continues to fulfil the purpose for which it was built.