History of the Jews in Zambia

The Jews in Zambia were always a small community with a notable role in Zambian history.

Summary

Stanley Fischer was born into a Jewish family in what is now Zambia.

Many Jews came to Zambia (previously called Northern Rhodesia) in order to achieve economic prosperity, first settling in Livingstone and Broken Hill. Some of the first Jews in Zambia were prominent in the cattle production and copper mining businesses. Livingstone already had a permanent Jewish congregation of 38 members by 1905, with the first Jewish wedding in Zambia taking place in 1910. Later on, many Zambian Jews achieved great success in the ranching industry and in the iron foundries. 110 Jews lived in Zambia (with a majority of them living in Livingstone and Lusaka) in 1921, and this population increased over the next couple of decades. Some Jewish refugees came to Zambia before and after the Holocaust, with the Jewish population of Zambia peaking at 1,000 to 1,200 in the mid-1950s (by which point "the center of Jewish life had shifted to Lusaka, the copperbelt center of the country"). Many Jews left Zambia and immigrated to other countries in the 1960s, with only 600 Jews remaining in Zambia in 1968. Jews were active and prominent in Zambian politics before Zambia [became independent in 1964. The Council for Zambia Jewry was created in Lusaka in 1978 "to oversee Jewish communal activities." This council also "provides assistance to political refugees and the poverty-stricken with medical and financial aid." Only about thirty-five Jews currently live in Zambia, with almost all of them living in Lusaka. The Zambian Jewish community did not have a rabbi for several years by this point in time. One of the more notable Zambian Jews is Simon Zukas, "who played a key role in Zambia's struggle for independence from Britain in the 1950s, and went on to be a government minister after independence."