‘Jewish community in Ghana built from scratch’

Chabad conference in Morocco highlights 50 years since first emissaries arrived

Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries and chief rabbis from across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East gathered this past week in Morocco for a three-day conference aimed at strengthening Jewish life, awareness and practice in Muslim-majority countries, as well as in those with relatively small Jewish populations, and to celebrate the renaissance of Jewish life in these regions.

It was the largest rabbinic conference in the Middle East (outside Israel) and is the first since Morocco joined the Abraham Accords in late 2020.

The conference spotlighted Chabad-Lubavitch’s broad and growing impact in the region, while also highlighting Chabad’s long history there – as the conference marks more than 70 years since the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson began sending his emissaries around the world, with the first to Morocco in 1950.

One of the participants was Rabbi Noach Majeski, who, together with his wife Alti and six children, has lived in Ghana for the past six years.

Majeski told The Jerusalem Post during the conference there are about 50 Jewish families who live in Ghana, “in addition to a lot of single Jews who come there.” He explained that “about 95% of the Jews living in our country are expats who arrive for periods of about five years or more.”

He said that since arriving in Ghana, between “400 to 500 Jews have been part of the Jewish community in this west African country.

“Because we are living in a developing country, we have all the logistical difficulties such as challenges with running water, electricity and obviously, from a Jewish perspective, it isn’t easy to find kosher food and kosher meat, as well as dairy products that we can eat,” Majeski explained.

He slaughters his own chickens according to Halacha, but there are other challenges facing a hassidic family in an African country: “Educating our kids is a challenge. Giving them a good solid Jewish education doesn’t come easily, [and] we put a lot of effort into that. We have the emissaries online school, which helps and other programs that help as well, but it’s a challenge.”

Majeski confided that because there was no Jewish community when he came to Ghana it “meant that we had to create something from nothing. Our community is composed of a lot of different types of people, with different dynamics – we are trying to make everyone feel part of one community.”

He said that the conference “has been absolutely incredible; the highlight of the year. In a way, it’s even more inspiring than the big conference that happens in New York every year. Coming together with so many other rabbis that are going through the same challenges that we are, coming from some very small communities, all scattered around the world, is absolutely inspiring.”

He explained that being in Morocco was even more special because of the Chabad connection. “It’s coming full circle since it’s been more than 70 years since the Rebbe sent the first emissaries – to Morocco.”

Majeski said that at the conference there was “a lot of focus on helping to create Jewish continuity, fighting assimilation and ideas of how to get the younger generation excited and involved in Judaism”.

Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, who serves as the Rabbi of the Ashkenazi Jewish

community of Turkey and the chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, was present as well.

He told the Post that “it was beautiful seeing Chabad rabbis walking the streets of Morocco and learning from the work that these rabbis and their wives have been putting in [the Jewish community of] Morocco, investing in the infrastructure of the Jewish community for more than 70 years.” He said that even though Morocco consists of a small community, “it’s a very vibrant community, very much attached to the traditions, and extremely patriotic.”

The gathering opened at the historic home of Maimonides – in the city of Fez, where the gathered held a ceremony marking the completion of the study of Maimonides’ magnum opus, Mishneh Torah. The study of Rambam, and the completion, or “siyum”, of his work, resonates as Jews around the world just completed its study cycle as part of an initiative to strengthen Jewish unity launched by the Rebbe, in 1984.

Traveling from Montreal, Rabbi David Banon, a prominent rabbi within the global Moroccan Jewish community, recited the traditional blessing upon seeing a monarch to the king of Morocco during the ceremony. The Rebbe’s popularization of the study of Rambam, perhaps the most prominent Sephardic rabbi, also represents a unifying factor among Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews.

The conference included presentations and meetings with Serge Bardugo, president of Morocco’s Jewish communities and the rabbis of Morocco’s religious court.

The conference was hosted by Casablanca-born Rabbi Levi and Chana Banon, who have led Chabad’s activities in Morocco since 2009.