History of the Jews in Sudan

Sudan's modern Jewish history has two principal strands. A small, mostly Sephardi resident community developed under British-Egyptian rule, centered on Khartoum and Omdurman, and reached about 250 families before antisemitism and political pressure drove most members abroad after 1956 and especially after the 1967 Six-Day War.[2][6]

Separately, during the 1980s, Sudanese refugee camps, Red Sea routes, and airfields became part of covert operations that brought thousands of Beta Israel from Ethiopia to Israel.[7][8] The transit history involved a refugee population passing through Sudan and was distinct from the history of Sudan's settled Jewish community.

No archaeological traces or historical references to Jewish communities in Sudan predate the nineteenth century.[1] Individual Jews were present in small numbers in the region before any organized community formed: when the Mahdist forces captured Khartoum in 1885, seven or eight Jews were found in the city, described at the time as foreigners.[9] Researcher Daisy Abboudi has noted references to isolated individual Jews in Sudan from around the 1500s, while cautioning that these do not establish a community and that the source material for the earliest period is explicitly incomplete.[10]

The Mahdist government, which took control of Khartoum in 1885 and remained in power until the British-Egyptian reconquest in 1898, required residents to convert to Islam.[9][2] After British control began, some families returned to Judaism, while others remained Muslim.[2][11] The construction of a railway linking Egypt and Khartoum helped make Sudan accessible to Jewish families seeking commercial opportunities, and several early arrivals settled in Khartoum and Omdurman during this period.[5]

By 1906, the community had grown sufficiently to invite Rabbi Solomon Malka — a Moroccan rabbi ordained in British Mandate Palestine — to serve as its spiritual leader.[5] Malka performed the roles of rabbi, ritual slaughterer, and circumcisor, and also acquired manufacturing plants producing sesame oil and macaroni; his son Eli later wrote a history of Sudan's Jews.[5] When British census-takers arrived in 1898, 36 people declared themselves Jewish, though Abboudi cautions that this figure may not account for everyone.[10] By 1908 the community comprised approximately twenty families.[1]

The community grew in successive waves during the early twentieth century. Merchants from Iraq, Syria, and Egypt arrived seeking economic opportunity and settled in Khartoum, Omdurman, and Wad Medani.[10] Jews from the broader Arab world joined them during the 1920s, followed by a smaller number of Ashkenazi Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in the 1930s.[1] A few Jews also arrived from Egypt in 1956, after large numbers of Egyptian Jews departed in the wake of the Suez Crisis.[10] At its peak in the 1950s, the community comprised about 250 families; other estimates place that population at roughly 800 to 1,000 people.[2][4] Most lived in Khartoum, Khartoum North, and Omdurman, with smaller groups in Wad Medani and Port Sudan.[4]

The community was overwhelmingly Sephardi in character.[1] Members spoke Arabic, English, and Ladino or Judeo-Arabic, and many were trilingual in Egyptian-Sudanese, Arabic, and English.[1][4] Trade was the principal occupation: Jewish merchants worked in textiles, gum arabic, and import-export commerce, and many owned large wholesale businesses.[4][6] Their standard of living was generally high, and prominent families included the Coshti, Gaon, Malka, and Shua families.[1][4]

The community's most visible institution was the Ohel Shlomo Synagogue, built on Victoria Street in Khartoum in 1926 and named for Rabbi Shlomo Malka.[1][4] The building could hold several hundred people — approximately the full size of the community at its peak.[1] It hosted weddings, holiday celebrations, Torah classes, and communal gatherings, and both the synagogue and the rabbi's home contained a mikvah.[10][4]

During the 1940s the community acquired adjacent land and constructed a social hall used for youth activities, celebrations, and conferences, which also housed a kosher cafeteria.[1] A Jewish club was built in Khartoum in 1947.[5] The community maintained two cemeteries but did not establish a Jewish school; children attended Catholic or English-language missionary schools and received Hebrew and religious instruction through the synagogue.[1][10]

Socially, the community was tightly knit but well integrated into Sudanese civic life. Jewish residents met regularly at the Khartoum synagogue and the Jewish Recreational Club, and former members recall Sabbath and New Year gatherings alongside easy relations with Muslim and Christian neighbors.[11][4] David Gabra, a former resident, recalled joining Sudanese friends in fasting during Ramadan; Regina Cohen remembered communal Sabbath celebrations; others attended the University of Khartoum and supported the Al-Hilal football team.[11] Though Sudanese Jews maintained ties with Jewish communities elsewhere in the Arab world and supported the newly established State of Israel, they were not involved in Sudanese politics.[1][2] After Israel's establishment in 1948, Sudanese Jews raised money to help some community members seek opportunities in Israel — a voluntary, economically motivated migration distinct from the later flight under pressure.[5]

The dismantling of the community unfolded across roughly two decades, driven by political events that made Jewish life in Sudan increasingly precarious. A small number of poorer Jews had left for Israel between 1948 and 1950 for economic reasons.[10] Antisemitism began increasing after Sudan's independence and its accession to the Arab League in 1956, and by 1958 a steady trickle of departures had begun.[10][5] During the 1956 Suez Crisis, tensions rose sharply: one episode from that year illustrates the climate — a Jewish woman who had won the Miss Khartoum contest was stripped of her title and prevented from competing for Miss Egypt after organizers discovered she was Jewish.[10] Anti-Israel protests and rhetoric increasingly spilled into anti-Jewish sentiment; David Ben-David recalled a crowd throwing stones at his aunt's house during the 1956 war.[11]

The rise of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and pan-Arab nationalism accelerated hostility toward Jewish businesses and brought accusations of dual loyalty and Zionist sympathies.[4] In 1960, the Sudanese government revoked the citizenship of Jews who had already left Sudan.[5] The 1964 revolution added to the sense of instability, and exit visas grew harder to obtain, particularly for business and property owners.[5][5] Discrimination in commercial life, forced detentions, and interrogations compounded the sense of exclusion, though widespread physical violence was generally not the pattern during this earlier period.[10]

The June 1967 Six-Day War marked the decisive turning point. Radio broadcasts incited hostility, Jewish men were arrested and later released, and graffiti appeared at Jewish sites.[2] Former residents also recalled anti-Jewish chants in the streets.[5]

One resident recalled that her brother was interrogated and imprisoned overnight after seeking papers to leave. He appealed to the Swiss ambassador with the words: “Can you help? I need to go. I am a Jew and I need to leave this country.” He left for Geneva as a refugee, and the rest of the family subsequently abandoned their shop and home, giving the house to a neighbor who had sold them eggs and pigeons.[6]

Because the government had never formally expelled or evicted its Jews, obtaining exit visas and transferring assets remained officially possible but practically very difficult.[6] Many left under the pretense of vacations or business trips, departing without being able to sell property or move their money.[6] Lily Ben-David left in 1964 and Regina Cohen in 1966; Flore Eleini and her daughter Diana were among the last to leave Khartoum, departing in 1968 for Geneva.[11][5] Abboudi described 1967 as the effective turning point, after which the vast majority of Jews departed; the last Jews left in the early 1970s, a period when nationalization of large businesses added further uncertainty about the community's future.[10][11] Destinations included Israel, Britain, Switzerland, and the United States; most refugees arrived in Israel or Switzerland as stateless persons.[10][11]

The August 1967 Khartoum Conference, attended by leaders of eight Arab states and held in Sudan's capital, produced the “Three No's” declaration — no recognition, no negotiations, and no peace with Israel — cementing Sudan's formal position in the Arab-Israeli conflict and closing off any prospect of normalization for decades.[2][12]

After the community's departure, its physical legacy in Sudan eroded rapidly. Ohel Shlomo was sold to a commercial bank, converted to banking use, and eventually demolished or replaced; one account dates the sale to 1986, while another places it more generally in the 1980s.[4][2] Community archives and movable property were transferred or preserved abroad where possible: Torah scrolls were relocated to Israel, the United States, and Geneva, and many communal records were lost or rendered inaccessible when families fled.[4][2]

In 1977, some remains were moved from Khartoum's Jewish cemetery for reburial in Jerusalem.[6] The transfer was coordinated by Nessim Gaon, who was born in Khartoum in 1922 to a Sephardic family of Iraqi-Turkish origin and later became an internationally prominent financier, philanthropist, and president of the World Sephardi Federation.[5][4] Many graves remained in poor condition in Sudan after the transfer.[6]

A 2006 U.S. Department of State report said mass emigration had led to the closure of Khartoum's synagogue, although a small group of Jews still lived in the capital at that time.[13] The 2014 U.S. International Religious Freedom Report stated that a very small Jewish community was believed to remain in the Khartoum area, but that its presence could not be confirmed, as members did not publicly identify themselves or their places of worship.[14]

By 2019, at least one Jewish family was reported to remain in the Khartoum area, and Sudan's Religious Affairs Minister Nasreddine Mufreh appealed to Jews and Christians who had left to return, describing the country as “pluralistic in thought, culture, ideology, and religion.”[15] The 2020 U.S. human-rights report counted the known Jewish community as two individuals in the Khartoum area and noted that societal attitudes were generally not tolerant of Jewish persons, though antisemitic acts were rare.[16] The 2023 U.S. International Religious Freedom Report described a statistically small Jewish community in the Khartoum area, most of whose members had sought shelter in surrounding communities after fighting began in April of that year.[17] By 2024, the U.S. Department of State reported there was “no known Jewish community in the country.”[18]

Sudan's transitional government, following the country's entry into the Abraham Accords process, began restoring the Jewish cemetery in Khartoum — leaving it, alongside the memory carried by the diaspora, as the primary surviving physical remnant of Sudan's Jewish past.[2]

A chapter of Sudan's Jewish history entirely separate from its resident community concerns the country's role as a transit and refuge corridor for the Beta Israel — Ethiopian Jews — making their way to Israel. This story unfolded across the late 1970s and 1980s under conditions of extreme danger and required covert cooperation among Israeli intelligence, American agencies, and, tacitly, certain Sudanese officials.[7][8]

The thread began in 1977, when Ethiopian Jewish educator and activist Farede Aklum fled to Sudan after Ethiopia severed ties with Israel and branded Zionists as traitors.[19][20] Stranded in Khartoum without money, Aklum sold his gold wedding ring to pay for a telegram to the Israeli Consulate in Geneva, sending a simple request: to be sent home.[19] A Mossad agent was dispatched to find him; Aklum subsequently helped identify the escape route from Ethiopia through Sudan and led the first group along it.[20] Around the same time, Howard Lenhoff of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews, working with Baruch Tanganya, developed a plan to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews from villages near Gondar to the Sudanese border, transport them by truck or train to Port Sudan, and take them by ship to Israel; elements of this proposal were later incorporated into Israel's actual rescue efforts.[21]

Starting in 1980, Jews from the Ethiopian regions of Tigre and Walqayit began moving to refugee camps in Sudan; as news of the Sudan route spread, Jews from the Gondar region followed.[22] Many traveled on foot, and one Ynet account described the route from Gondar to the camps as roughly 500 kilometers.[8] Some waited in Sudanese refugee camps for months or years before onward passage became possible.[22][23]

The camps were dangerous: those waiting there endured epidemics, hunger, lack of clean water, assaults, and robbery.[23] An estimated 4,000 Ethiopian Jews died on the journey before reaching Israel, many from starvation or cholera in the Sudanese camps, although another reported estimate placed the death toll as low as 1,400.[8][24]

The passage through Sudan depended on secrecy and a covert understanding with Sudanese authorities, the details of which were known to only a small number of senior Sudanese officials.[23] Mossad agents at border camps instructed refugees to conceal their Jewish identity so that they could be moved onward toward Khartoum or through other clandestine routes.[23] By the end of 1983, the entire Jewish population of Tigre and Walqayit — more than 4,000 people — had been brought to Israel via this route; as news of the Sudan passage spread, Jews from the Gondar region also began moving toward the border.[22]

From 1981, Mossad teams used the Arous holiday resort on Sudan's Red Sea coast — built in 1972, abandoned before opening, and leased and restored by Mossad agents posing as European investors — as cover for maritime evacuations in what became known as Operation Brothers.[8][25] Ethiopian Jewish organizers helped assemble groups at the Gedaref camp; these groups were transported by truck through eight to ten Sudanese military checkpoints along the road to the coast, then moved by Israeli naval commandos from Shayetet 13 in inflatable boats to the Israeli navy vessel Bat Galim for transport to Israel.[8] Approximately 900 people reached Israel by this sea route before Sudanese troops spotted a beach operation in March 1982 and the maritime route was closed.[8][25]

The largest and most dramatic rescue effort was Operation Moses, which ran from November 21, 1984, to January 5, 1985.[21][7] Conducted in cooperation with the Mossad, the CIA, and Sudanese State Security, the operation flew Ethiopian Jews from Sudanese refugee camps through Khartoum and Brussels to Israel, using more than 30 aircraft.[7] At its peak the airlift moved roughly 250 people per day.[21] By the time it was halted, between approximately 6,500 and 8,000 Ethiopian Jews had reached Israel — accounts differ on the precise figure, reflecting different definitions and counting methods.[7][21]

The operation's secrecy was its essential condition. Mossad chief Nahum Admoni acknowledged that Sudanese consent had been obtained indirectly and depended entirely on the operation remaining unpublicized.[21] After press reports exposed the airlift, Sudan halted its cooperation on January 5, 1985. At a January 6 cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Shimon Peres told ministers that the operation had stopped and urged officials to lower its public profile.[21][7]

A U.S.-organized follow-up — known as Operation Joshua in American usage and Operation Sheba in Israeli usage — flew remaining refugees directly to Israel in early 1985; accounts give the number rescued as between approximately 494 and 800 people, depending on the source.[7][21][12]

Covert air operations from Sudan resumed in February 1987 and continued until March 1990, when two Ethiopian Jewish organizers, Tesfa Imar and Dessa Aramias, were arrested and tortured by Sudanese intelligence.[8] Businessman Tiny Rowland intervened with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, after which the two men were taken out of Sudan for medical treatment in Nairobi.[8] The Sudan route ultimately enabled thousands of Ethiopian Jews to reach Israel over roughly a decade of operations, at enormous personal cost to those who made the journey.[8][8]

The collective memory of those who died on the way to Israel is honored through a commemoration called Hazkarah, first observed in Jerusalem in 1986. It marks the deaths of approximately one-fifth of the estimated 20,000 Ethiopian Jews who left their villages between 1977 and 1985 — most of whom perished from starvation or cholera while waiting in Sudanese refugee camps.[24]

The Sudanese Jewish diaspora is today concentrated in the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, and Switzerland.[2] Many families left Sudan as stateless refugees, having been unable in practice to sell property or transfer assets, and rebuilt their lives abroad carrying little more than their memories.[6][10] Former residents remember with nostalgia a community defined by cosmopolitan warmth — Shabbat and festival celebrations, Arabic music alongside Sephardic melodies at weddings, and decades of cordial relations with Muslim and Christian neighbors — while acknowledging the discrimination and fear that ultimately made their continued presence impossible.[4][11]

Nessim Gaon, born in Khartoum in 1922, went on to become one of the most prominent Sephardic figures of the twentieth century: an internationally recognized financier, philanthropist, and president of the World Sephardi Federation. He also organized the reburial of remains from Khartoum's Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem in the 1970s, preserving a tangible link between the diaspora and those left behind.[5][4] Torah scrolls and other communal artifacts relocated to Israel, the United States, and Geneva serve as further connections between the scattered diaspora and the community's history.[4]

The physical traces of Jewish life in central Khartoum have largely vanished. Ohel Shlomo Synagogue was sold, repurposed, and demolished or replaced; communal records were lost or scattered when members fled.[2][4] The Khartoum Jewish cemetery, described as the only surviving physical remnant of the community, has been identified as a site warranting restoration, and Sudan's transitional government took steps toward that end following the Abraham Accords.[2]

Whether normalization between Sudan and Israel ultimately advances, Sudanese Jewry forms part of the broader history of the Jewish exodus from Arab lands: a community that flourished briefly and disappeared under mounting pressure from Arab nationalism, antisemitism, and successive Arab-Israeli wars, rather than through a single formal expulsion decree.[2][6]

Several details in the historical record of Sudanese Jewry remain contested or unclear. Sources give different figures for the community at its height: the World Jewish Congress describes a peak of roughly 250 families in the 1950s, while a separate 2015 account describes the community as 1,000 strong in 1967 — figures that refer to different dates and measures and should not be treated as contradictory.[1][6]

Accounts also differ on timing. The Jewish Virtual Library places the community's dissolution after Sudanese independence and its entry into the Arab League in 1956.[3] Other sources describe most departures as occurring after the 1967 war, with virtually no Jews remaining by the early 1970s.[2][4]

For Operation Moses and the subsequent airlifts, reported figures for those rescued range from approximately 6,500 to 8,000, and the follow-up operation accounts give totals between roughly 494 and 800; the sources do not reconcile these differences, which likely reflect varying definitions of what each operation encompassed.[7][21] Estimated deaths among Ethiopian Jews during the journey through Sudan range from about 1,400 to approximately 4,000, a gap that reflects the difficulty of documenting deaths in remote refugee camps under wartime conditions.[8][24]

The documentary record for the earliest period of Jewish presence in Sudan is thin by the sources' own acknowledgment. Researcher Daisy Abboudi has noted that references to individual Jews before 1898 do not establish an organized community, and that the source material for this period is incomplete.[10] These limitations mean that some aspects of the community's origins and the transition from forced conversion under the Mahdi to renewed Jewish practice under British rule cannot be fully reconstructed from the available record.