Malka - Gelfand Family Page
A Unique Book

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Jacob's Children in the Land of the Mahdi.

Jews of the Sudan

In his richly illustrated book, Eli Malka tells of the handful of intrepid Jews caught in the 13 year battle between British colonial forces and an XVIII century fundamentalist desert warlord known as the Mahdi.. Acclaimed as of great importance by several prominent Jewish historians, the book tells of their travails and growth from that small group of Jews to a large and prosperous Jewish community. It tells of their dedicated and selfless rabbi, the building of their synagogue and Jewish recreation club, of the only B'nai B'rith Lodge in the african interior, of their difficulties during the Arab-Israeli wars and finally follows them through their dispersion into the diaspora. The reader gets an excellent picture of what it was like to live as a Jew in an isolated Moslem country.

Of interest to genealogists is the detailed histories of most of the Jewish families in the Sudan as well as an appendix listing all Jewish marriages that had occurred during the community's existence in the Sudan. The appendix alone makes this a must have for genealogy and Jewish history libraries.



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