Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Zimbabwe
A Rhodesian Jewish community that peaked at about 7,000 and now numbers under 200, the Lemba and contested genetic claims, Beit Alfa riot-control trucks sold to Mugabe's police in 2002, Circles surveillance systems, and Ari Ben-Menashe's role in the Tsvangirai treason case
Zimbabwe had a Jewish community of about 7,000 at its peak in the Rhodesian era. The World Jewish Congress put it at about 200 in 2020.[1] The country is also home to the Lemba, a southern African people with Jewish traditions. Genetic claims about their ancestry are disputed.[2][3] In 2002 the Israeli kibbutz firm Beit Alfa Trailer supplied riot-control vehicles to Robert Mugabe's police. The sale was approved by the Israeli defence ministry and by foreign minister Shimon Peres.[4] Citizen Lab has identified systems in Zimbabwe from 2013 onwards run by Circles, a phone-surveillance firm affiliated with the Israeli NSO Group.[5]
Jewish community and religious life
History
Jews, mainly from Russia and Lithuania, followed the British into Rhodesia in the late 19th century.[1] The Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation, the colony's first, was inaugurated on 12 August 1894.[6] Congregations in Salisbury (now Harare) and Gwelo followed. About 400 Jews lived there by 1900.[1] According to the WJC, the community later grew:
- with Sephardic Jews and German Jews fleeing Nazism;
- after the Second World War, with migrants from South Africa and Britain;
- in the 1960s, with Jews from the Belgian Congo.[1]
The Salisbury Hebrew Congregation had more than 500 member families in 1964.[7] Roy Welensky, prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1956 to 1963, described himself as "half-Jewish".[1]
The war and independence brought a sharp fall. By the late 1980s about 1,200 Jews remained, and many had moved to "Israel" or South Africa.[1] The Zimbabwe Jewish Community heritage project says the Jews of Zimbabwe and Zambia together numbered about 8,500 in the early 1970s and fewer than 100 by 2022.[8] The Bulawayo synagogue was later destroyed by fire.[6]
The Lemba
The Lemba live mostly in Mberengwa District and in northern South Africa. They follow dietary laws, practise male circumcision and observe seven days of mourning. They have a tradition that they came from "Israel".[2] In 2016 NPR reported that:
- Lemba men were said to carry the Cohen modal haplotype, a Y-chromosome marker linked to the Jewish priesthood;
- the American group Kulanu was helping the Harare Lemba Synagogue with prayer books and festivals, and was paying for its president, Modreck Maeresera, to study for the rabbinate in "Israel";
- a first synagogue was being built at Mapakomhere in Masvingo District.[2]
A 2013 study by Himla Soodyall tested Zimbabwean Lemba (Remba) for the first time. It found the original Cohen haplotype only among South African Lemba and South African Jews, not among the Remba. It concluded that the study "does not support the earlier claims of their Jewish genetic heritage". Some Remba identify with Arab ancestry instead.[3]
The community today
The World Jewish Congress says:
- most of Zimbabwe's Jews live in Harare, Bulawayo and Kadoma;
- the Zimbabwe Jewish Board of Deputies is its affiliate, and the African Jewish Congress Zimbabwe Fund helps Jews in need;
- the country's only rabbi, Nathan Asmoucha, is based at the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation;
- there are two Jewish day schools, Carmel in Bulawayo and Sharon in Harare, both open to non-Jewish pupils.[1]
The Commonwealth Jewish Council lists Maeresera, who studied at a yeshiva in "Israel", as one of its Zimbabwean vice-presidents.[9]
How far is it Zionist? The community has a long Zionist history:
- The Central African Zionist Organisation was founded in Bulawayo in 1898. It is still based in Harare as a regional umbrella body.
- The Rhodesian Zionist Council was set up in 1943, alongside the Rhodesian Jewish Board of Deputies.
- Bnei Akiva and other Zionist youth movements are active in Harare and Bulawayo.[1][9]
Kulanu's support for the Lemba also points them towards "Israel".[2]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Zimbabwe, and no permanent Chabad centre was found there. Zimbabwe is not among the ten countries with permanent centres under Chabad of Central Africa.[10] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi in Zimbabwe.[11]
Zionist movement and advocacy
The Central African Zionist Organisation operates from Harare as a regional Zionist umbrella group.[1] Zimbabwe's honorary consul-general in "Israel", Ronny Levi Musan, runs a mission that says it is working towards Zimbabwe's first embassy in "Israel". He has said that "Israel values and needs Zimbabwe's steadfast support".[12]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomatic relations
"Israel" has no resident embassy in Harare. The WJC says it is represented by a non-resident ambassador based in Jerusalem.[1] That ambassador, Ofra Farhi, kept her Zimbabwe post when she moved to the new Israeli embassy in Lusaka in 2025.[13] In late October 2022 Zimbabwe's non-resident ambassador, Air Marshal (Rtd) Shebba Shumbayawonda, who is based in Cairo, presented his credentials to President Isaac Herzog.[14] Zimbabwe's mission in "Israel" is run by an honorary consul-general.[12]
Beit Alfa riot-control vehicles
In August 2001 the Christian Science Monitor reported:
- Beit Alfa Trailer (BAT), a company of Kibbutz Beit Alfa, was poised to sell riot-control equipment to Mugabe's government.
- Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette said Zimbabwe wanted at least 30 vehicles in a $10 million deal. BAT's general manager, Reuven Canfi, said the number would be much smaller.
- Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador to Harare, had written in Haaretz that the equipment would be used "to pursue the courageous proponents of democracy or the farmers trying to continue working their land".[15]
In May 2002 the Israeli state radio Kol Yisrael reported that Shimon Peres, as foreign minister, had authorised the sale on condition that it was delayed until after Zimbabwe's March 2002 elections. SADOCC reported that:
- the equipment included RCU 4500 I riot-control vehicles with water cannon that could mix in tear gas, pepper spray or dye, and surveillance cameras;
- it also included gas masks and "laser guns";
- an Israeli was training Zimbabwean police to use it;
- an Israeli court kept key details of the approval classified, but released documents showed that the defence ministry had approved it.[4]
The size of the deal is disputed:
- Haaretz reported 30 vehicles for $14 million.
- The Zimbabwe Standard reported that five vehicles had arrived, with gas masks. Two of its journalists were arrested for reporting this.
- Beit Alfa had earlier supplied Angola, Uganda and Sri Lanka.[16]
No later, Mnangagwa-era sale of Israeli riot-control equipment was found in the sources checked.
Arms
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records 11 second-hand Bell-205A-1 helicopters sent from "Israel" to Rhodesia in 1978. SIPRI describes this as an "illegal delivery via Singapore and South Africa".[17]
Surveillance
Citizen Lab's 2020 report on Circles, a phone-surveillance firm affiliated with NSO Group, listed Zimbabwe among the likely government customers. It identified three systems:
- one seen from November 2013 to January 2014;
- one named "Zagato Zeus", from September 2015 to September 2017;
- one named "Zimbabwe Telcel", active from March 2018 to the time of the report.[5]
Diamonds and Gertler
No sourced Zimbabwean deal involving the Israeli businessman Dan Gertler was found. No Israeli diamond firm operating in Zimbabwe's Marange fields was found in the sources checked either.
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Israeli exports to Zimbabwe of $0.3 million in 2025 (2024: $0.6 million), and no recorded imports.[18]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Zimbabwe separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[19] The WJC says many Jews who left Rhodesia and Zimbabwe went to "Israel" or South Africa.[1]
Political interference
Ben-Menashe and the Tsvangirai treason case
The treason case against the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rested on a secretly recorded meeting in Montreal on 4 December 2001 with Ari Ben-Menashe. The Guardian called Ben-Menashe "an Israeli political consultant". He claimed to be a former Israeli intelligence agent and a security adviser to the Israeli prime minister. The defence argued that he was already working for Zimbabwe's security agency when the meeting took place.[20] Ben-Menashe told the court that:
- he signed a contract with the Zimbabwe government on 10 January 2002;
- he had received $200,000 from the government three weeks earlier, and could not say what it was for.[21]
A US embassy cable published by The Insider said that the state minister for national security, Nicholas Goche, had tried to keep the contract details out of court on national-security grounds.[22] In October 2004 Judge Paddington Garwe acquitted Tsvangirai.[20]
Riot control
The Beit Alfa sale was approved by Israeli ministers for a government that was cracking down on its opposition, and was timed to avoid the 2002 election.[4][15]
Jeffrey Epstein
- On 12 June 2015 Jeffrey Epstein sent Joi Ito a news report on Zimbabwe's currency collapse and wrote, of President Robert Mugabe, "we sshould approach him and provide a new currency / ecnomy". Asked whether they were friends, he replied: "no, but can easily get his attention, zimbabwe would be a great petrie dish, its also supposed to be beautiful".[23][24]
- FBI documents from 2017 contain the unverified claim of a "confidential human source" that Epstein managed money for Vladimir Putin and did the same for Mugabe.[24]
- An email of April 2012, signed "Jonathan", wrongly said that Mugabe was dying in Italy and asked Epstein whether he had contacts in the country. A former ally of Mugabe told the BBC that such inaccuracies suggested the information about him had been made up.[24]
Mugabe was under US sanctions from 2003, which barred US businesses and citizens from dealing with him.[24]
See also
- Circles
- Shimon Peres
- Zionist movement
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Zambia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to South Africa
External links
Notes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 World Jewish Congress, Community in Zimbabwe World Jewish Congress, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Katya Cengel, The Lemba Jews Of Zimbabwe Are Having A Hopeful New Year NPR, 9 October 2016.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Himla Soodyall, Lemba origins revisited: Tracing the ancestry of Y chromosomes in South African and Zimbabwean Lemba South African Medical Journal 103 (12), 2013.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 SADOCC, ZIMBABWE: Israel to sell heavy riot control vehicles to Mugabe government Southern Africa Documentation and Cooperation Centre, 15 May 2002.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Bill Marczak et al., Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm Circles The Citizen Lab, 1 December 2020.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Zimbabwe Jewish Community, Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation zjc.org.il, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Zimbabwe Jewish Community, Harare Hebrew Congregation zjc.org.il, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Zimbabwe Jewish Community, Home zjc.org.il, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Commonwealth Jewish Council, Zimbabwe Commonwealth Jewish Council, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Shloimy Galperin, Getting Central Africa's Rabbis Into One Room Isn't Easy Chabad.org, 10 June 2026.
- ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Zimbabwean Mission in Israel, Zimbabwe – Israel zimisrael.com, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Nava Freiberg, Foreign minister departs for Zambia to inaugurate new embassy The Times of Israel, 19 August 2025.
- ↑ Zim Now Writer, Shumbayawonda presents credentials to Israeli president Zimbabwe Now, 1 November 2022.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Ben Lynfield, Israeli riot-gear sale fuels concern The Christian Science Monitor, 23 August 2001.
- ↑ Ben Lynfield, An arms-selling kibbutz echoes a shift in Israeli values The Christian Science Monitor, 10 June 2002.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Andrew Meldrum, Judge clears opposition leader of plotting to assassinate Mugabe The Guardian, 16 October 2004.
- ↑ Voice of America, Credibility of Main Witness in Zimbabwe Trial in Question VOA News, 13 February 2003.
- ↑ Charles Rukuni, Tsvangirai's lawyer exposes Ben Menashe's unfulfilled government contracts The Insider, 26 March 2012.
- ↑ Email exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Joi Ito, "fertile land for exploration", 12 June 2015, US Department of Justice Epstein files release, Data Set 9, EFTA00854505 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 Shingai Nyoka, Zimbabwe's Mugabe latest former African leader to be mentioned in Epstein files BBC News, 4 February 2026.