Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Ghana

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Nkrumah-era partnership including the Black Star Line and Solel Boneh, the 1973 break and 2011 reopening, the House of Israel at Sefwi Wiawso and the African Hebrew Israelites, Chabad in Accra, the Pegasus affair, MASHAV, Israeli firms and trade

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country with which the Zionist state built a close partnership. In the late 1950s the two set up the Black Star Line shipping company and a national construction company as joint ventures.[1] Relations were cut in 1973 and restored in 2011.[2] Jewish life today includes:

  • a small Chabad-served expatriate community in Accra;
  • the House of Israel, a Jewish-identifying community at Sefwi Wiawso;
  • an African Hebrew Israelite presence.[3]

In 2020 three former officials were jailed over the 2016 purchase of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware.[4]

Jewish community and religious life

History

The House of Israel at Sefwi Wiawso has a one-room synagogue and a miniature Torah. Its members came to regard themselves as Jewish only in the 1970s, and it has about 200 followers.[3] The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, based at Dimona in "Israel", have long been active in Ghana. Their leader, Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, visited in 2010 to inspect the community's projects, including a natural foods factory in Tema and a health resort at Cape Coast. Their NGO, the African Hebrew Development Agency, worked with Ghana's Ministry of Health on its Regenerative Health and Nutrition programme.[5][6]

The community today

When Ghana restored relations in 2011, President John Atta Mills told the Israeli mission that Ghana had "a large Israeli business community".[2] Chabad serves the Jewish expatriate community in Accra.[7]

How far is it Zionist? No Zionist federation or Israeli fundraising body was found in Ghana. The expatriate community is served by Chabad, a religious rather than Zionist movement. No Zionist activity was reported for the House of Israel.[3] The African Hebrew Israelites are based in "Israel" but are a separate Black Hebrew movement, not a Zionist body.

Chabad

Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Ghana

Rabbi Noach and Alti Majesky moved from Crown Heights to Accra in summer 2015 to set up a Chabad centre "for the Jewish needs of locals and tourists". For more than 20 years before that, Chabad of Central Africa had sent rabbinical students for the holidays.[7] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi in Ghana.[8]

Zionist movement and advocacy

No organised Zionist movement was found in Ghana.

Israeli state and commercial ties

Nkrumah, the Black Star Line and Solel Boneh

Writing in 1959, Arnold Rivkin described the tie with Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana as "the most far-reaching of the evolving relationships between Israel and Afro-Asian states". He recorded several joint ventures:

  • the Black Star Line, incorporated in autumn 1957, 60 per cent owned by the Ghanaian government and 40 per cent by Zim, with Zim as managing agent and an Israeli mission setting up a Ghanaian nautical academy;
  • the Ghana National Construction Company, formed in March 1958, 60 per cent owned by the Ghana Industrial Development Corporation and 40 per cent by Solel Boneh, the industrial complex of the Histadrut;
  • $20 million in Israeli credits to Ghana;
  • an Accra branch of the Israeli trading firm Dizengoff West Africa, which traded Israeli cement, tyres and food for Ghanaian cocoa and timber.[1]

In August 1960 Ghana took over Zim's 40 per cent interest, and Zim agreed to manage the line for five years for 2.5 per cent of gross revenue.[9] The Israeli embassy dates the relationship to a 1958 visit by Golda Meir.[10]

The 1973 break and the 2011 reopening

Ghana cut ties after the 1973 war. The Israeli embassy in Accra reopened in September 2011, 38 years later, under Ambassador Sharon Bar-Lee.[2] The embassy's own timeline also lists:

  • a 2018 MASHAV agreement with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for a programme training Ghanaians in agriculture in "Israel";
  • the first political consultations since the reopening, in 2019.[10]

The embassy also covers Liberia and Sierra Leone.[11]

Pegasus and security purchases

In February 2016 Ghana's National Communications Authority (NCA) requested transfers totalling $4 million to buy NSO Group's Pegasus system through a local representative, Infralocks Development Limited. The purchase was said to be to fight terrorism. In May 2020 an Accra High Court convicted three officials of causing financial loss to the state:

  • the former NCA director-general, William Tetteh Tevie, five years;
  • the board chairman, Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, six years;
  • a former national security coordinator, Alhaji Salifu Osman, five years.

The local representative's managing director, George Derick Oppong, was acquitted.[4] An investigator told the trial that the system had been installed at a former national security coordinator's residence, and that NSO removed its software over non-payment.[12]

In August 2020 the government asked parliament to approve loans of $86 million from Israel Discount Bank for armoured vehicles from Elbit Systems Land, under an $80 million contract with Elbit Systems.[13] The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records earlier Israeli transfers to Ghana: a Super Cub aircraft as aid in 1959 and 28 120mm mortars ordered in 1972.[14]

Israeli firms

  • In March 2016 the State Housing Company signed a contract in Tel Aviv with IDM International, a subsidiary of the Eldad Peri Group, for 20,000 housing units.[15]
  • In 2022 the Ministry of Health awarded EDC International, an Israeli engineering firm, the $110 million second phase of a project for four hospitals, including a regional hospital in Tema, and a central medical store. The financing facility, from a bank the report calls "IDB", is co-guaranteed by Israel Export Insurance (ASHRA) and the UAE's Etihad Credit Insurance.[16]

Trade

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Israeli imports from Ghana of $2.1 million in 2025 (2024: $2.4 million) and exports to Ghana of $9.0 million (2024: $6.8 million).[17]

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Ghana separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[18]

Political interference

No Israeli interference in Ghanaian politics was found. The Pegasus case is the clearest instance of Israeli surveillance technology entering Ghanaian politics. An NCA investigator testified that the system was installed at the residence of a former national security coordinator, Alhaji Baba Kamara, and "was not used for the benefit of the state".[12][4]

Jeffrey Epstein

In September 2002 Bill Clinton made a nine-day trip to Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa on Jeffrey Epstein's plane, with the actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker, working on HIV and AIDS prevention, democratisation and economic development. Through a spokesman Clinton later praised Epstein's "insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa".[19] Clinton's office sent Ghislaine Maxwell the proposed manifest for the legs, which ran from New York to Accra and Kumasi and on to Abuja, Kigali, Maputo, Cape Town and Johannesburg.[20]

Ehud Barak's leaked emails

The following items come from Barak's two leaked mailboxes (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.[21]

  • 2014 visit. In July 2014 Ehud Barak asked Ergo for a briefing before a trip to Ghana to meet President John Mahama and ministers.[22]
  • CNOOC and Jubilee. On 12 September 2014 Barak wrote to Yang Hua, president of the Chinese state oil company CNOOC, that he had "contacted again with the leadership of GNPC". He proposed a joint venture to bid for a block in the Jubilee field, led by CNOOC with "over 90%" and partnered by a Ghana-registered entity "made of my consulting firm (Hyperion Ltd.) and my partner's (Ghanian Company)".[23]
  • Offshore project without tender. In August 2015 Barak told China Comservice Jiangsu that "the Ghanian oil& gas authorities" were ready in principle to consider it as prime contractor for an offshore oil and gas project, and that they had been "convinced" to add acreage to be relinquished by Lukoil. He wrote: "The project will be without bid/tender if we act fast enough". He proposed that a Chinese mission meet "the leaders of GNPC, Explorco and high level decision makers in Ghana", with Barak and his Ghanaian partner "Steve M." as coordinators.[24]

The emails do not show whether either oil proposal went ahead.

See also

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Arnold Rivkin, Israel and the Afro-Asian World Foreign Affairs, April 1959.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ynet, Ghana renews diplomatic ties with Israel Ynetnews, 15 September 2011.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Abby Sher, Bet You Didn't Know About the Jews of Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana JTA, 28 January 2016.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Ghana Business News, Court jails former Ghana officials who bought NSO's Pegasus Ghana Business News, 12 May 2020.
  5. ↑ Country Awards Council – Ghana, CACG to host African Hebrew spiritual leader in Ghana on a two week working visit Modern Ghana (press release), 10 March 2010.
  6. ↑ Country Awards Council – Ghana, Country Awards Council Ghana has Honoured H. E. Dr Ben Ammi Modern Ghana (press release), 16 March 2010.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chabad Lubavitch of Ghana, Rav Noach and Alti Majesky JewishGhana.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
  8. ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026 (Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States-side).
  9. ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israel to Transfer Its Interest in Black Star Shipping Line to Ghana JTA, 12 August 1960.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Embassy of Israel in Ghana, Bilateral relations embassies.gov.il, accessed 21 October 2026 (Israeli government-side).
  11. ↑ Embassy of Israel in Ghana, About the embassy embassies.gov.il, accessed 21 October 2026 (Israeli government-side).
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Ghana News Agency, Software of Pegasus machine was taken away for non payment – NCA Investigator Ghana Business News, 20 April 2019.
  13. ↑ Abubakar Ibrahim, Government requests parliamentary approval for $86m loan to purchase armoured vehicles from Israel MyJoyOnline, 3 August 2020.
  14. ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
  15. ↑ Nanasei Ampofi Adjei, SHC signs 20,000 housing contract with Israeli company Modern Ghana / Adom News, 11 March 2016.
  16. ↑ Shilpa Annie Joseph, UAE, Israel export credit agencies to support healthcare project in Ghana GCC Business News, 22 June 2022.
  17. ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy) (Israeli government-side).
  18. ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024 (Israeli government-side).
  19. ↑ Angelo Fichera and Saranac Hale Spencer, The Epstein Connections Fueling Conspiracy Theories FactCheck.org, 15 August 2019.
  20. ↑ Email from the Office of President William J. Clinton to Ghislaine Maxwell, "Africa Trip Information", 10 September 2002, US Department of Justice Epstein files release, Data Set 9, EFTA00578629 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
  21. ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Ehud Barak emails, 27 August 2025, with download at data.ddosecrets.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
  22. ↑ Email from Ehud Barak to Evan Pressman (Ergo), "Ghana", 16 July 2014, file ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!32/1 (25).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  23. ↑ Email from Ehud Barak to Yang Hua (CNOOC), "Follow Up YH", 12 September 2014, file ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox!2/1 (86).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
  24. ↑ Email from Ehud Barak to Yao Yue (China Comservice Jiangsu), "Ghana off shore oil&gas project", 19 August 2015, file ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!11/1 (181).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.
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