Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Democratic Republic of the Congo
A Sephardi and Israeli Jewish community and Chabad's Central Africa headquarters in Kinshasa, Israeli training of Mobutu's paratroopers and presidential guard, Dan Gertler's diamond and mining empire and US sanctions, Black Cube spying for Kabila, and Tshisekedi's embassy pledges
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; Zaire from 1971 to 1997) has had a small Sephardi Jewish community since the colonial era. Since the 1990s it has been joined by Israelis working in diamonds, mining and trade.[1] Kinshasa is the headquarters of Chabad of Central Africa.[2] "Israel" trained Mobutu's paratroopers in the 1960s and his presidential guard in the 1980s.[3] The Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler built a diamond, mining and oil empire through his friendship with the Kabilas. In 2017 the US sanctioned him for corruption, and he remains under sanctions.[4][5]
Jewish community and religious life
History
According to a 1995 JTA report, Zaire's Jewish community was centred in Lubumbashi until the 1970s. All its members were Sephardim from Turkey, Egypt and Rhodes. Many long-established families had recently left for South Africa or Belgium after riots in Kinshasa. At the same time an influx of Israelis was making the community "both French- and Hebrew-speaking". The community then numbered about 100 families, led by Robert Franco.[1]
The community today
Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila says the arrival of "thousands of Israelis" in Africa since the 1990s has given Chabad's work a major boost.[6] According to a Bloomberg profile, Gertler supports the Chabad-Lubavitch centre in Congo.[7]
How far is it Zionist? No Zionist federation or Israeli fundraising body was found in the DRC. Much of today's community is Israeli. Its best-known figure, Gertler, has used his ties to the Israeli state and army in his Congolese business (see below).[8] Chabad is a religious rather than a Zionist movement.
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila and his late wife Myriam founded Chabad in Kinshasa in 1991. Over 35 years it has grown into Chabad of Central Africa, with eleven permanent centres in ten countries. At its 35th anniversary gathering in Kinshasa in May 2026, Ambassador-at-Large Antoine Ghonda Mangalibi spoke on behalf of President Félix Tshisekedi.[2] According to Vanity Fair, when Gertler arrived in 1997, Kinshasa's chief Chabad rabbi introduced him to Joseph Kabila.[8] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi in the DRC.[9]
Zionist movement and advocacy
No organised Zionist movement was found in the DRC. In March 2020 Tshisekedi addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington. He said that after more than 20 years without adequate representation he would appoint an ambassador to "Israel", and that an "economic section" of the embassy would open in Jerusalem.[10]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Mobutu and Israeli military aid
- 1963. The Congolese government announced at the UN that "Israel" would form a paratroop corps for the Congolese National Army.[11] Israeli newsreel footage shows General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu completing an accelerated parachuting course with the IDF and receiving his badge from Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. It also shows a ceremony for 220 Congolese soldiers trained at an IDF paratrooper base.[12] The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records ten second-hand M-4 Sherman tanks ordered from "Israel" in 1963 and delivered in 1964.[13]
- 1982. In May Zaire became the first African state to restore relations broken in 1973, and announced that its embassy would be in Jerusalem. Ariel Sharon had prepared the ground on a secret trip to meet Mobutu in November 1981. Some 300 Israeli industrial and agricultural experts and businessmen were already working in Zaire.[14] In December Yitzhak Shamir signed cooperation accords in Zaire, though Mobutu said he still regarded the PLO as the sole spokesman of the Palestinians.[15]
- 1983. Sharon and Mobutu agreed a five-year military agreement. Under it, "Israel" would replace Belgium as trainer of the Camaniola Division in mineral-rich Shaba, supply artillery, mortars and communications equipment, and set up and train a presidential guard.[3] Sharon said Zaire had already bought "millions of dollars worth of military equipment". Reporters with him said future supplies would include captured Soviet weapons.[16]
Dan Gertler
- Diamond monopoly. Gertler is the grandson of Moshe Schnitzer, a founder of the Israel Diamond Exchange in Ramat Gan.[7] According to Vanity Fair, he arrived in Kinshasa in 1997, aged 23. After the Chabad introduction, Laurent-Désiré Kabila asked for $20 million up front in exchange for a diamond monopoly. When he was 26, his company, International Diamond Industries (IDI), signed a deal worth up to $700 million for control of all of Congo's diamond output for 18 months.[8]
- Arms clauses. A UN report said the deal contained unpublished clauses under which IDI "agreed to arrange, through its connections with high-ranking Israeli military officers, the delivery of undisclosed quantities of arms as well as training for the Congolese armed forces". Gertler has always denied involvement in military aid.[8] His lawyers told Drop Site News that the deal was meant to boost the treasury and fight smuggling by militias.[17]
- Mossad contacts. Vanity Fair adds that in 2019 Haaretz and Bloomberg reported that the head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, had travelled to Congo with Gertler at least three times to lobby the president.[8]
- Envoy. Joseph Kabila at times used Gertler as a special diplomatic envoy, including in 2002, when he met the US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.[7]
- Sanctions. In December 2017 the US Treasury sanctioned Gertler under the Global Magnitsky Act. It said he had "amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals" and used his friendship with Kabila as a middleman. It said the DRC had reportedly lost over $1.36 billion in 2010–12 alone from the underpricing of mining assets sold to offshore companies linked to him.[4] The Paradise Papers had earlier exposed his dealings with Glencore.[18]
- Licence revoked. In the last days of the first Trump administration, a licence easing the sanctions was issued on 15 January 2021. On 8 March 2021 the State Department announced that it had been revoked, as "inconsistent with America's strong foreign policy interests in combatting corruption".[19]
- 2022 deal. Gertler signed a deal with the DRC government committing to return assets he still owned. The Congolese anti-corruption platform CNPAV argues that the deal leaves out royalties it says were acquired unlawfully, in Glencore's KCC and Mutanda mines and ERG's Metalkol.[20]
- Relief considered. In October 2025 Just Security wrote that the second Trump administration was "strongly considering effectively removing sanctions" on Gertler.[21] In 2026 a $9 billion bid for Glencore's Congo assets by the US-backed Orion consortium stalled over the question of Gertler's royalties and sanctions.[22] Fifty-four Democratic members of Congress warned against easing the sanctions. No official lifting had been announced.[5]
Black Cube
In 2019 the Israeli TV programme Uvda reported that Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence firm made up mainly of former military and intelligence personnel, had been hired by Joseph Kabila to spy on his opponents. Its director Dan Zorella met Kabila in late 2015, and "Operation Coltan" was run from a floor of a Kinshasa hotel. Black Cube sued Uvda for £15 million in a British court.[23] In December 2016 Kabila also hired the Israeli security and surveillance firm Mer Security and Communication Systems to lobby the incoming Trump administration against more sanctions.[17]
Tshisekedi and Jerusalem
In September 2026, after a visit by Tshisekedi to "Israel", the two governments said they would take steps towards "the relocation of the embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem". Al Jazeera noted that the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, had visited Kinshasa the previous November.[24] In January 2024 the government spokesman, Patrick Muyaya, denied media reports of talks with "Israel" about taking in Palestinians from Gaza. He said there had "never been any form of negotiation, discussion or initiative".[25]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Israeli exports to the DRC of $6.2 million in 2025 (2024: $4.4 million), and no recorded imports from the DRC in either year.[26] The diamond and mineral trade runs largely through Gertler's companies and offshore vehicles, so it does not show up in these figures.[4]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list the DRC separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[27] Many of the old Sephardi families left for South Africa or Belgium, while Israelis came in.[1]
Political interference
Israeli training of Mobutu's presidential guard tied the Zionist state to the survival of his regime.[3] Under the Kabilas, Israeli private actors supplied political services:
- Gertler acted as an envoy and middleman;
- Black Cube spied on the opposition;
- Mer lobbied against US sanctions.[7][23][17]
Epstein
Drop Site News reported in 2026, from US Justice Department releases and hacked emails from Ehud Barak's Gmail account, that Barak "coordinated closely" with Jeffrey Epstein in pursuit of African mineral, oil and gas resources after leaving the defence ministry in 2013:
- Barak drew on the former Mossad chief Danny Yatom, whose Global Strategic Group, a firm led by Mossad and Shin Bet veterans, trained a 150-person special operations unit in eastern DRC in 2013, in the war against the M23 rebels.
- In spring 2013 Epstein's Emirati associate Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem opened a separate channel to Joseph Kabila over investments in mining, oil, gas and transport.
- By 2018 Epstein was "quietly involved in sanctions diplomacy" around the Treasury's measures against Gertler.
Yatom has denied ever meeting Epstein and did not respond to a request for comment. Drop Site notes that, apart from their mutual connection with Barak, no public information connects him to Epstein. The hacked material was published by Distributed Denial of Secrets from leaks by Handala, a group with suspected ties to Iran's intelligence ministry.[17]
See also
- Chabad Lubavitch of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Dan Gertler
- Zionist movement
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Republic of the Congo
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Angola
External links
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Around the Jewish World: Zairian Jews Prosper, but Carry Walkie-talkies for Emergencies JTA, 18 April 1995.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Shloimy Galperin, Getting Central Africa's Rabbis Into One Room Isn't Easy Chabad.org, 10 June 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sharon, Mobutu Discuss Military Cooperation Between Israel, Zaire JTA, 20 January 1983.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 US Department of the Treasury, United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe treasury.gov, 21 December 2017.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 ReelActu, RDC : 54 élus démocrates alertent sur un possible assouplissement des sanctions américaines contre Dan Gertler ReelActu, 2026.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, As Chabad grows in Africa, hardy rabbis encounter crime and spirituality JTA, 7 September 2016.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Franz Wild, Michael J. Kavanagh and Jonathan Ferziger, Gertler Earns Billions as Mine Deals Fail to Enrich Congo Bloomberg, republished by Pan African Visions, 2 July 2013.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Nicolas Niarchos, Mine. Mine. Mine. How One Corrupt Billionaire Kicked Off the Global Cobalt Spree Vanity Fair, 20 February 2026.
- ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ European Jewish Press, At AIPAC, President of Democratic Republic of Congo announces high-level diplomatic relations with Israel EJP, 3 March 2020.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israel to Train Paratroopers for Congo; Plan Announced at U.N. JTA, 28 March 1963.
- ↑ Israel Film Archive – Jerusalem Cinematheque, General Mobutu and Congolese Soldiers Receive Israeli Paratrooper Wings Israel Film Archive, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Zaire's Resumption of Diplomatic Ties with Israel, Opening of Its Embassy in Jerusalem JTA, 17 May 1982.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Zaire, Israel Sign Accords JTA, 2 December 1982.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sharon, Mobutu Sign 5-year Development and Arms Aid Accord JTA, 24 January 1983.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim, How Jeffrey Epstein's Israeli Network Shaped Congo's Deadly Mineral Trade Drop Site News, 24 June 2026.
- ↑ The Guardian, Paradise Papers: US puts sanctions on billionaire over dealings in DRC The Guardian, 22 December 2017.
- ↑ US Department of State, Revocation of License Granted for Dan Gertler state.gov, 8 March 2021.
- ↑ Resource Matters, CNPAV / Gertler: Return to Congo what belongs to Congo Resource Matters, 10 June 2025.
- ↑ John Prendergast and Sasha Lezhnev, U.S. Sanctions Removal Would Stunt Peace, Investment in DRC Just Security, 8 October 2025.
- ↑ Billionaires.Africa, Congo cobalt deal stalls over Dan Gertler sanctions dilemma Billionaires.Africa, 4 March 2026.
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 France 24, Israeli '21st-century mercenaries' spied for DR Congo's Kabila, report says France 24, 10 June 2019.
- ↑ Al Jazeera, DR Congo joins countries pledging embassy move to Jerusalem Al Jazeera, 3 September 2026.
- ↑ James Tasamba, DR Congo denies talks with Israel to welcome Palestinian migrants Anadolu Agency, 5 January 2024.
- ↑ 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.