In Uganda, a new synagogue for remote Jewish community

They are unlike any other group of Jews in the world, and they are growing in what may seem an unlikely place: a remote collection of villages in eastern Uganda.

The Abayudaya (which means “people of Judah” in Luganda, the group’s language) live in a country where Jews represent less than one one-hundredth of 1 percent of the population and where Judaism was banned in the 1970s under Hitler-admiring dictator Idi Amin. Now, they are opening a new, larger synagogue September 16.

The Stern Synagogue is named after Southern Californian philanthropists Ralph Stern, who was born in South Africa, and his wife, Sue Stern. The building, which they helped finance, will serve the 2,000 or so Abayudaya, who have grown since they numbered about 300 under Amin’s persecution. Its 7,000 square feet include a main sanctuary, an ancillary prayer room, and a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath.