Uganda Becomes 100th Country With Chabad-Lubavitch Center

The 5778 group photo at the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries. Image by Chabad/Twitter

By JTA November 20, 2017

(JTA) — Uganda has become the 100th country to have a Chabad-Lubavitch outpost.

Rabbi Moishe and Yocheved Raskin established the Chabad of Uganda in the capital city of Kampala in October, it was announced Sunday at the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries in New York. The couple moved from Israel with their young son, Menachem Mendel.

Chabad has been in contact with the Jewish community of Uganda since at least 1999, including sending the organization’s Roving Rabbis there in summers and for Jewish holidays.

At the weekend conference, which Chabad calls the largest Jewish gathering in North America, some 5,600 Chabad emissaries and communal leaders gathered from around the world.

On Sunday morning, the emissaries, or shluchim, gathered for a group photo in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood that is home to the movement’s worldwide headquarters. The dinner that night, where the new Chabad outposts and emissaries are announced, had to be moved from New York to a larger venue in New Jersey.

Other countries where Chabad established a permanent presence this year include Montenegro, Nassau in the Bahamas and the Caribbean island of Curacao. These countries followed the recent opening of Chabad Houses in Laos and the Pacific island of New Caledonia.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO