Yosef Kibita, Lover of Zion

By Professor Michael Chernick

Yosef Kibita, a 32 year-old man who is a member of a Jewish community, is little known to American Jews. He is an Abayudaya, a Ugandan Jew. His community was founded over a hundred years ago and originally observed a Judaism based solely on the Bible. Its first knowledge of generally observed Judaism came in the 1920’s.

As the community became more aware of the world Jewish community, the more it wanted to be part of it. Therefore, the community took the step of formerly converting with a recognized Jewish religious movement, the Masorti/Conservative Movement. The community’s choice of this movement reflected the Abayudaya’s basically egalitarian culture and its Jewish traditionalism.

Yosef converted in 2008. He applied to a Jewish educational program called Masa in 2016 and was denied permission to join the program because “he wasn’t Jewish.” After much wrangling, Yosef was granted a student visa and studied at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. It was there that his love of Israel bloomed into a desire to make Aliyah. At the end of his studies at the Yeshiva, he moved to Kibbutz Ketura, a Masorti/Conservative kibbutz, where he has lived for four years.

Yosef filed an Aliyah application in 2017. The Ministry of the Interior denied it in 2018 and issued a deportation order, which set in motion legal action on his behalf. It was not until 2020 that Yosef’s day in court arrived. The Ministry’s position was that Yosef’s conversion was invalid because it had not taken place in a recognized Jewish community. Supreme Court Justice Mazuz agreed with the Ministry on the technical grounds that Yosef had converted before 2009 when the Abayudaya were recognized as a Jewish community by the Jewish Agency for Israel. The court suggested that Yosef re-convert and apply for Aliyah again.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court ruled that Masorti/Conservative and Reform conversions performed in Israel for persons already there would qualify them for Aliyah under the Law of Return. So, Yosef re-converted with the Masorti Movement’s rabbinical court. Now the Ministry of the Interior is claiming this conversion is invalid because it didn’t have a sufficient curriculum. But after having received a Jewish education in Uganda, studying at the Conservative Yeshiva, and living an observant life at Ketura, how much more did he have to learn?

Yosef has become the symbol of the many people who have been prevented by the Ministry of the Interior from making their lives in Israel. A decision about his status will be made on May 2 when he goes to court for a second time, now with a post-2009 conversion.

Depending on the outcome of his case, the Abayudaya and others will either have the gateway to Israeli citizenship open wide for them or possibly be prevented from ever having their Aliyah dream come true.

Those of us who know Yosef are closely watching his case. American Jewry as a whole should be too.