The University of Nairobi was recently closed over security issues after a planned riot by students was put on ice by paramilitary members of ‘Kenya Rungu’ (anti-riot police) last week.
The students at the Main Campus are known to cause havoc on people, cars and structures around them, but they never touch the neighbouring Nairobi Jewish Synagogue.
It is the only synagogue in the city and for strange reasons, one of the most feared buildings.
It is one of Nairobi’s earliest buildings, having been erected in 1912 on a piece of land which had been allocated to the small Jewish community which had trooped to what was the British East Africa Protectorate.
The community, 30 members in total, had an Annual General Meeting the previous year and putting up a synagogue was on the cards. It was to cost not more than £300 (Sh42,000 at current exchange rates), excluding furniture and fittings.
The African Standard (now the Standard) covered news of the new building thus: “On Thursday (June 20, 1912) afternoon, H.E. C.C. Bowring, C.M.G., laid the foundation stone of the new synagogue which is to be erected by the Nairobi Hebrew Congregation. The ceremony was based on Masonic Ritual, prominent Royal Arch Masons being present in regalia.”
Charles Calvert Bowring was the Acting Governor of Kenya. But it was the British Colonial Secretary in Uganda, Joseph Chamberlain, who had offered both countries land for the establishment of an autonomous Jewish state following the massacre of Jewish immigrants in Russia in 1903.
Uasin Gishu County had been earmarked for their resettlement, but most were teachers, lawyers, architects, yet Uasin Gishu was a farm land. The plan flopped.
But they immigrated, beginning with businessman J Marcus from India, and 10 years later, there were 30 Jews in Kenya, an undeveloped, desolate frontier.
All 30 of them attended the laying of the foundation stone of the synagogue — the first in East Africa — built on the edges of Kirk Road, then a dirt road (Nyerere Road) and Charing Cross (University Way) and on a plot they had bought.
Miller Robertson of Robertson, Gow and Davidson, an architectural firm based in Nairobi, was the project architect with his cost standing at £500 (Sh70,000) with W.A. Gain winning construction tender for 7,443 Rupees (Sh12,000). The synagogue was completed by the end of October 1913. The onset of World War II saw an upsurge of Jewish immigrants spurred by the booming war economy and by the 1950s, the synagogue became too small and so dilapidated that it “continued to absorb large sums in constant and continuous repairs.”
In July of 1950, “a special general meeting resolved to demolish the old synagogue and to build a new one” at a cost of “between £8,000 (Sh1.1 million) and £10,000 (Sh1.4 million.” The design of the new synagogue was done by a Hungarian born Jewish architect, Imre Rosza, with Sir Evelyn Baring, the Governor of Kenya, laying the foundation stone.
Imre’s wife, Lisa, landscaped its park like gardens before the family left for the USA after Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978. Imre died at 80 in 1991, Lisa in 2012 at 94.
Did you know the area where the synagogue sits was nicknamed ‘God’s Corner’? Reason was that just across the road there was St Paul’s Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, St Andrew’s Church and up the road is the Freemason’s Lodge and across it, the All Saint’s Cathedral.
The Nairobi Jewish Synagogue remains the only one in Kenya. While Jewish interests have been threatened by terror attacks in Kenya — The Norfolk Hotel (1980, but has since changed ownership), Kikambala Paradise Hotel (2002) and the Westgate Mall in 2013 —, the Synagogue has been spared and you have to sign a visitor and security application form prior to visiting. Membership of the Synagogue is limited to Jews only.
