In 1901, two Jewish brothers from Lithuania crossed Africa’s Zambezi River in dugout canoes, hoping to make their fortune in what is now Zambia.
Elie and Harry Susman traveled north to meet King Lewanika of Barotseland and seek permission to buy cattle. Despite the dangers posed by crocodiles, lions and disease, their venture succeeded, laying the foundations for a commercial enterprise that would grow to encompass agriculture, transportation and retail.
The brothers were among the early Jewish pioneers of Northern Rhodesia, as Zambia was then known. Over the decades that followed, Jewish immigrants would help develop the region’s economy, govern its towns and participate in its struggle for independence.
The first Jewish settlers arrived in the late 19th century, mainly from Lithuania and Latvia, fleeing poverty and antisemitism in the Russian Empire.
Many possessed little more than determination. Some became itinerant peddlers, traveling vast distances to sell clothing and household goods. Others established butcher shops, trading posts and small businesses.
Livingstone, near Victoria Falls and then the capital of British-ruled Northern Rhodesia, became the center of Jewish life. A congregation was established there in 1905, and five years later its 38 members celebrated their first Jewish wedding. As immigration increased, Jewish communities emerged in Lusaka and the Copperbelt towns of Ndola, Kitwe, Mufulira and Luanshya.
Maintaining Jewish traditions in central Africa was hardly straightforward. Kosher meat was difficult to obtain; religious functionaries were scarce; and parents sometimes sent their children hundreds of miles away for Jewish schooling.
Saul Radunsky, who grew up in Livingstone, recalled attending a small heder before being sent at age 11 to a Jewish school in Cape Town, a three-day train journey away. His father chaired the local Jewish community, while his mother was active in WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Organization.
Over time, Jewish religious life gradually became more organized.
The Lusaka Hebrew Congregation, founded in 1910, initially held services in the home of Benjamin and Friedah Glasser. A Torah scroll was acquired in 1914, and construction of a permanent synagogue began during World War II. Cantor Feivel Metzger, a Polish-born Jewish refugee who arrived in 1939, played a central role in the synagogue and in strengthening communal observance.
Meanwhile, Jewish entrepreneurs were transforming the local economy.
The Susman brothers pioneered long-distance cattle trading, moving herds hundreds of miles across difficult terrain. Elie later moved to South Africa, where he helped establish the Woolworths retail chain with Max Sonnenberg.
Another immigrant, Harry Wulfsohn, arrived from Latvia in 1929 at just 14 years old. He possessed only 10 British pounds and spoke no English. Harry Susman gave him work, and Wulfsohn eventually helped build an enterprise encompassing vast farmland, thousands of cattle, butcher shops and retail stores.
Abraham “Abe” Galaun achieved similar success. Arriving shortly before World War II, he developed agricultural holdings that eventually included eight farms covering approximately 25,000 acres, along with shops and other businesses. Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda reportedly called him “the man who feeds the nation.”
Galaun remained deeply involved in Jewish affairs, chairing the Lusaka Hebrew Congregation and helping establish the Council for Zambia Jewry.
The traditions Jewish immigrants brought with them are now being passed on to another generation.
In the late 1930s, Northern Rhodesia provided refuge to approximately 300 Jews escaping Nazi Germany and Austria, although British colonial authorities turned many others away. Their arrival strengthened Jewish communal life, and by the mid-1950s the population had reached its peak of roughly 1,200.
Despite its modest size, the community’s influence extended well beyond commerce.
Hyan Schulman became mayor of Ndola in 1937; Maurice Rabb served as mayor of Livingstone; and Dennis Figov held the same position in Luanshya.
Perhaps the most extraordinary political figure, however, was Simon Zukas. Born in Lithuania, Zukas arrived as a Jewish refugee and became an outspoken opponent of British colonial rule.
His activism resulted in his deportation in 1952, but he returned and, after independence, Zukas helped lead the movement that restored multiparty democracy in 1991. He subsequently served as a government minister.
When Zukas died in September 2021 at age 96, Zambia honored him with an official funeral and a day of national mourning. It was a remarkable tribute to a Jewish immigrant once expelled for challenging the authorities.
Another Zambian-born Jew achieved international prominence: Stanley Fischer, born in Mazabuka in 1943, grew up in a family that operated a general store. He later became one of the world’s leading economists, serving as governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013 and vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017.
Zambia’s Jewish connections also extend to its diplomatic relationship with Israel.
Following independence in 1964, President Kaunda cultivated relations with the Jewish state, drawing on Israeli agricultural expertise. Golda Meir visited Zambia that year.
But in 1973, following the Yom Kippur War and amid pressure from the Organization of African Unity, Zambia severed diplomatic relations with Israel. Ties were restored, however, in 1991 under President Frederick Chiluba, and Zambia opened an embassy in Israel in 2015.
More recently, relations have strengthened considerably. President Hakainde Hichilema visited Israel in 2023, meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. In August 2025, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar inaugurated an embassy in Lusaka, restoring Israel’s resident diplomatic presence after more than half a century.
Herzog visited Zambia three months later, discussing cooperation in agriculture, water management, technology and food security. In May 2026, the countries signed an agreement restructuring $460 million in Zambian debt connected to earlier Israeli-backed financing.
However, while diplomatic ties have deepened, Zambia’s historic Jewish community has dwindled.
Following independence, economic uncertainty and political changes prompted many families to emigrate to South Africa, Britain and Israel. Synagogues closed, including the one built in Livingstone in 1928, which now serves as a church. The historic Lusaka synagogue was eventually sold, leaving the remaining Jews without a permanent communal house of worship.
For decades, Jewish religious life depended largely on visiting rabbis, particularly Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft of the African Jewish Congress.
But in March 2023, that began to change when Rabbi Mendy Hertzel and his wife Rivky arrived in Lusaka to establish a permanent Chabad presence, bringing the country its first resident rabbi in decades. They began organizing Shabbat prayers, kosher meals, holiday celebrations and Jewish education, bringing together longtime residents, Israelis and other Jewish expatriates.
According to Chabad, about 40 Jewish families currently live in and around Lusaka, more than half permanently. Some community gatherings attract 60 or 70 participants. Chabad’s Jewish center provides a place for synagogue services and communal activities, restoring a measure of Jewish religious life that had been missing for years.
Among those supporting the revival is Saul Radunsky, whose childhood memories of heder in Livingstone connect Zambia’s Jewish past with its present.
The community’s contributions have also taken on another form: Rather than distribute the proceeds from the sale of communal property, the Council for Zambia Jewry decided to invest them in medical education.
It contributed $1 million to Copperbelt University in Ndola and another $1 million to Tel Aviv University’s School of Public Health, helping establish cooperation between Zambian and Israeli medical professionals.
One of those involved was Aviva Ron, who grew up in Ndola before emigrating to Israel in 1960. After building a career in public health, she returned to Zambia to help promote an Israeli partnership and teach future healthcare professionals.
At Copperbelt University in Ndola, a medical-school building now bears the name of the Hebrew Congregation, while a lecture theater honors Simon Zukas and his wife, Cynthia.
In Livingstone, meanwhile, the Gateway Jewish Museum, opened in 2013, preserves the community’s photographs, religious artifacts and historical records. The museum was supported in part by David Susman, a descendant of the pioneering brothers who crossed the Zambezi more than a century earlier.
Today, Zambia’s Jewish population is vastly smaller than it once was, but the contributions of its early settlers remain visible in the country’s businesses, hospitals and universities. And in Lusaka, where Jewish prayer services are once again being held regularly, the traditions those immigrants brought with them are being passed on to another generation.
More than 125 years after the Susman brothers crossed the Zambezi, Jewish life in Zambia continues.
