House of Israel (Sefwi)

In the hollows of the verdant hills of southwestern Ghana, in a remote region crisscrossed by cocoa and sugarcane plantations, lives a community that has for half a century questioned the very boundaries of Jewish belonging. The House of Israel community of Sefwi Wiawso and Sefwi Sui, in western Ghana, is a Jewish community in full development [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com]. Its members, largely from the Sefwi ethnic group, do not present themselves as converts come from elsewhere, but as the heirs of a buried memory: that of ancestors whom they hold to be descendants of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

This claim places the House of Israel from the outset at the intersection of two orders of knowledge that do not always coincide. On one side, an oral tradition and a visionary experience; on the other, the demands of the archive and of historical research, which struggle to document a migration so ancient and so distant. According to filmmaker Gabrielle Zilkha, the absence of historical traces makes verification of the group's claims difficult, but there exists an oral tradition reaching back about two hundred years [Wikipedia, House of Israel (Ghana)].

The present work proposes to retrace, with all due caution, the history of this community: its emergence in the 1970s around the figure of a visionary, the consolidation of its practices, the building of its synagogue in 1998, and its gradual insertion into a transnational Jewish network. It scrupulously distinguishes what belongs to transmitted memory, what the archive establishes, and the zones where the two answer one another. For the House of Israel is not merely an ethnographic curiosity: it is an exemplary case of how the myth of the Ten Lost Tribes was able, at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, to become a powerful instrument of self-identification for African populations.

Before becoming a Jewish community, the House of Israel was first a precise geographic and ethnic reality. The Sefwi are an Akan people settled in southwestern Ghana, today in the Western North Region. Sefwi Sui is a small farming community in Ghana of around 3,000 inhabitants; a Jewish community of the House of Israel lives there, while other Jews of the House of Israel live in Sefwi Wiawso, a larger locality situated some twenty kilometers from Sefwi Sui [Wikipedia, Sefwi Sui].

The isolation of this land is one of its defining features, and it weighs heavily on the community's history. As the photography book Scattered Among the Nations documents, this West African community is more than remote—a two-day bus ride from Ghana's capital, and still without running water [Jewish Telegraphic Agency]. Most members of the Ghanaian community live in Sefwi Wiawso, a small town in the southwestern corner of the country, near the Ivorian border [Scattered Among the Nations].

Daily life there is that of a hardworking peasantry. Everyday life in this part of Ghana is slow and simple: everyone works hard, from dawn to dusk, on the farm, in the shop, or at home [Scattered Among the Nations]. This agrarian and landlocked setting is not merely a backdrop: it allowed ancient practices to be transmitted relatively apart from the great religious upheavals, and it explains the community's long invisibility in the eyes of the Jewish world. It also shapes the economic dimension of community life, oriented toward cocoa, sugarcane, and small trade. Among its members are Kofi Kwateng, owner of a general goods store, and the leader David Ahenkorah, who runs a photography business [Scattered Among the Nations].

It was in this rural world, gathered upon its hills and crops, that the founding event the community places at the origin of its modern Jewish consciousness would occur, in the mid-1970s.

The founding narrative of the House of Israel rests entirely on the experience of one man. The community was born in 1976 after a Ghanaian named Aaron Ahotre Toakyirafa had a vision that convinced him his Sefwi ancestors had a direct connection to the ancient Jews and descended from one of the Lost Tribes [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com]. The sources vary slightly on the exact date: the House of Israel congregation in Ghana began in 1977, when a man from Sefwi Wiaso named Aaron Ahotre Toakyirafa had a vision that he was Jewish, part of the lost tribe of Israel [Times of Israel].

The decisive element of this narrative is not only the personal revelation, but the rereading of the collective past that it authorizes. He is said to have claimed he remembered that, before the arrival of Christian missionaries, the Sefwi had strictly observed Jewish beliefs, just like the ancient Jews according to the Torah [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com]. The vision thus operates as a key of interpretation: it converts local customs, until then perceived as "the laws of the land," into vestiges of an original Jewishness. As one collected testimony summarizes, a member confided that his grandfathers practiced usages similar to those taught in the Bible, without knowing that it was called Judaism [Jewish Telegraphic Agency].

Around this man a first core formed. Toakyirafa slowly gathered a small community of faithful who strove to follow Judaism as closely as possible, relying on the Old Testament [Times of Israel]. This purely memorial and visionary status of the origin must be honestly emphasized: there exists, to this day, no archival document establishing the migratory chain that the vision postulates. The narrative belongs to the register of transmitted memory, and it is as such that it structures the community's identity.

The argumentative heart of the community rests on a cluster of practices its members consider to predate any missionary influence and to conform to biblical prescriptions. Kofi Kwartengy, head of the community since 1992, highlights ancient Sefwi traditions such as celebrating the Sabbath on Saturday rather than Sunday and the prohibition of all forms of work during the Sabbath [Times of Israel]. To these observances are added other markers: the Sefwi also observe circumcision on the eighth day, the laws of menstrual purity, and ceremonies marking the passage into adulthood at thirteen [Times of Israel].

These convergences with normative Judaism are real and striking; they ground the group's internal conviction. The House of Israel possesses a one-room synagogue and a miniature Torah placed in a special wooden box; all work ceases on Shabbat, boys are circumcised a week after birth, and women separate from the male community during their menstrual cycle [Jewish Telegraphic Agency].

There remains the question of the historical itinerary. The hypotheses put forward by the members themselves are numerous and acknowledged as such. There are many theories as to how these customs were transmitted to the some two hundred faithful of today: perhaps ancient Israelites fleeing persecution, perhaps Jewish merchants come from Timbuktu [Jewish Telegraphic Agency]. The most widespread tradition favors this latter route: the Sefwi would be the descendants of Jews who migrated southward through the Ivory Coast, perhaps originally from Timbuktu, bringing with them ancient Jewish observances [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com].

On the level of research, however, these parallels do not establish a filiation. The similarity of customs may result from independent convergences or from a retrospective rereading; and, as we have seen, the absence of written record forbids verification [Wikipedia, House of Israel (Ghana)]. The chapter thus stands at the intersection: tradition and the archive answer one another here without confirming one another, the one asserting a continuity that the other can neither support nor refute.

While the distant origins remain conjectural, the construction of a place of worship is a dated and observable fact. The group, composed mainly of the Sefwi tribe, built a synagogue in 1998 [Wikipedia, House of Israel (Ghana)]. In 1998, the House of Israel community erected a modest synagogue at the foot of the Sefwi Wiawso mountain, in a secluded and quiet neighborhood of the town called New Adiembra [africansynagogues.org].

The description of this sanctuary speaks volumes about the material and theological condition of the group. The building is plain, marked above all by the colors and emblems of the State of Israel. A few Israeli flags and blue and white ribbons hang in the sanctuary, with no other decoration specific to this Black African community; men and women sit separately there according to Orthodox Jewish custom, although there is no mehitsa dividing the sexes [africansynagogues.org].

The most significant object there reveals an essential limit of the practice. In a small adjoining storeroom is a small Torah, printed on paper and not inscribed on parchment according to kosher tradition, in a case of wood and glass; it was handed over in person to the community some time ago by an Israeli businessman passing through Ghana [africansynagogues.org]. This Torah is moreover not used in the service. Although a Torah scroll can be seen there, it is not used because no one in the community reads Hebrew [Kulanu Canada]. This last point constitutes one of the best-established traits of the community: many of the men and children read English, but no one knows Hebrew; the House of Israel claims to have roots in the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel [Wikipedia, House of Israel (Ghana)].

The New Adiembra synagogue thus appears as a place of learning as much as of prayer. Every evening, the community gathers at Brother Isaiah's home to study Judaism from books sent by Western donors, with "Rabbi" Alex reading the passages in English and David Ahenkorah explaining them to the congregation [Scattered Among the Nations].

Long confined to its isolation, the House of Israel reached a decisive turning point when it sought to connect with world Jewry. Drawing on the founding vision, members of the community of Sefwi Sui and Sefwi Wiawso began to learn Jewish practices and the Hebrew language, notably with the help of organizations based in the United States, observing kashrut and building a synagogue [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com].

This connection took shape in the 1990s around organizations specializing in support for isolated Jewish communities. In the 1990s, the community began reaching out to the broader Jewish world through organizations such as Kulanu, which supports isolated Jewish communities, and later Be'chol Lashon, which promotes a diverse spectrum of Judaism [Times of Israel]. Contact with these networks gradually drew the community out of its marginality. Since the late 1970s, its members have identified as Jews and have slowly connected with certain Jewish communities, mainly in the United States and Europe [africansynagogues.org].

This support also took the form of economic projects intended to sustain the community and to embed it within networks of exchange. The proceeds from the sale of challah covers are used by the House of Israel to build a guesthouse so that visitors have a comfortable place to stay; it is an important means for the Jews of Sefwi Wiawso to strengthen their ties with Jews around the world [Kulanu Canada]. The matter of recognition, however, remains unresolved. Today, there is still almost no official recognition of a Jewish presence in Ghana — no Israeli embassy, no synagogue in the capital, Accra — but, thanks in part to the work of Kulanu, the House of Israel is emerging from its isolation [Kulanu Canada].

The community's permanence is by no means assured: it already weathered a major institutional crisis upon the death of its founder. When Aaron Ahomtre died, some thought the community might collapse: people no longer gathered for Torah study, and Shabbat observances were all held at home [Kulanu Canada]. Survival depended on new relays. However, Mr. Joseph Kwame Nipah helped reorganize the people, and the community has remained strong [Kulanu Canada].

Demographically, the estimates are modest and convergent. The community estimates itself at around two hundred men, women, and children [africansynagogues.org]. The family structure forms its framework: the community today numbers about two hundred faithful, and the elders grew the group to encompass several large families [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Scattered Among the Nations].

The question of religious status remains, for this community, the unbridged horizon. Its members have not, however, formally converted to Judaism [africansynagogues.org]. Yet this desire for conversion is precisely one of the most widely shared aspirations. Most members of the community are young, and this first generation of Ghanaian Jews would like to convert formally [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com]. This tension—living as Jews without halakhic recognition—places the House of Israel within a broader analytical category. The community belongs to an international network of newly developed Jewish groups in Africa, inspired by symbolic uses of Judaism; the myth of the Ten Lost Tribes, revived by the rescue of the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, served as a means of self-identification for these groups, which together form a kind of marginal Judaism [Encyclopaedia Judaica via Encyclopedia.com].

The story of the House of Israel of Sefwi can be read on two levels that must be held together without conflating them. On the level of memory, it is the account of a revelation: that of Aaron Ahotre Toakyirafa, who, in 1976-1977, recognized in his people's customs the traces of a forgotten Jewishness, and drew behind him a core of faithful followers determined to live according to the Torah. On the level of established history, it is the documented journey of a small rural community in southwestern Ghana that, within the span of a generation, built a synagogue in 1998, forged ties with organizations such as Kulanu and Be'chol Lashon, and expressed the wish for a formal conversion.

Between the two extends the fertile zone of uncertainty where the essential interest of this case resides. The ritual parallels — Saturday sabbath, circumcision on the eighth day, purity laws — are real, but the archive does not allow confirmation of the migration from Timbuktu or the descent from a Lost Tribe that tradition asserts. The community itself acknowledges the plurality of hypotheses and the absence of proof. In this respect, the House of Israel exemplarily illustrates a contemporary phenomenon: the reappropriation, by African populations, of the myth of the Ten Tribes as a resource for identity, at a moment when the rescue of the Beta Israel of Ethiopia had renewed its relevance. Whether it stems from an ancient continuity or a modern rebirth, the House of Israel remains, through its fervor and its fidelity to observances it holds to be ancestral, a living testimony to the plasticity of Jewish belonging across the world.