FOR SEVEN DAYS this Sukkot, African Jewish Voices travelled the continent one sukkah at a time and found the same mitzvah kept in every corner of it.
From palm-frond huts in Igboland to a fabric-walled sukkah in Arusha, from a crowded synagogue sukkah in Aba to a quiet courtyard in Ethiopia, our Sukkot Around Africa series followed Jewish communities in Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania and Ethiopia as they built, prayed, ate and rejoiced under the open sky. Each day we also welcomed one of the seven Ushpizin, the holy guests of the sukkah.
The Torah commands, “You shall dwell in booths for seven days” (Leviticus 23:42). Across Africa this year, that command looked different in every place and exactly the same.
Day 1: Beth Goshen, Yaoundé, Cameroon
The series opened in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, in the sukkah of Beth Goshen, a community of Bantu Israelites led by Rabbi Haïm Israël Mpodol. Beth Goshen keeps the full cycle of the Jewish calendar: Shabbat every week and all the major festivals, Sukkot included.
Their sukkah frame was dressed in vibrant Ankara fabric walls and fresh palm, a beautiful blend of tradition and local craft.
Beth Goshen traces its roots to 19th-century Bantu communities who identified with the biblical narrative. Today it counts more than 50 active members, plus dozens more in the process of conversion.
Holy Guest: (Avraham Avinu), the father of hospitality, whose tent was open on all four sides. On the first night we prayed to merit his boundless kindness: a home and a heart open to every guest who comes near.
Day 2: Tzion Beth Hamitzvot, Mukono, Uganda
On the second night we crossed the continent eastward to Mukono, in central Uganda, and the community of Tzion Beth Hamitzvot.
As Shabbat and the first day of the festival slipped away, the community packed into their sukkah for Havdalah. Under a roof of fresh palm branches, surrounded by walls of blue, red, gold and purple, elders, young men, mothers and children gathered around one table as the cup was raised. They said goodbye to Shabbat and ushered in a new week and the second day of Sukkot, with song and dancing in front of the flag of Eretz Israel.
Tzion Beth Hamitzvot is part of the Abayudaya, a name meaning “People of Judah” in Luganda, the local language. From their roots in eastern Uganda, the Abayudaya have grown and spread, and today their congregations are found in different regions of the country, including here in central Uganda.
Holy Guest: (Yitzchak Avinu), the son who carried the promise forward. We prayed to merit his quiet strength: faith that stays steady and a heart that holds firm through every trial.
Day 3: Tifereth Israel, Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana
On Day 3 we headed back west across the continent to the green hills of Sefwi Wiawso, in Ghana’s Western North Region, and Tifereth Israel Synagogue.
Here the sukkah is built the way the land provides: a frame of bamboo poles, walls woven from branches, and a thick roof of palm fronds, with carved wooden chairs set around a low table. Simple and beautiful, just as a sukkah should be.
The Jews of Sefwi hold a strong tradition that they descend from the tribe of Dan. Long before European missionaries arrived, much of the Sefwi land was ruled by kings who kept a day of rest every seventh day. Many of those ancestral practices faded under colonial rule, but for more than 30 years Tifereth Israel has been bringing them back within Rabbinic Judaism. Today it is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Ghana.
Holy Guest: (Yaakov Avinu), the patriarch later given the name Israel, whose spiritual quality is Tiferet: beauty and harmony. Put those two words together and you have Tifereth Israel, the very synagogue we visited that day. We prayed to merit Yaakov’s harmony: truth balanced with compassion and a family held together through every struggle.
Day 4: Akwa Ibom and Igboland, Nigeria
On the fourth day we came to Nigeria, and the festival met a covenant.
At the Beth Ha’arachman Jewish Community in Akwa Ibom State, a baby boy entered the covenant of Avraham with a Brit Milah during Sukkot. Elders, parents, and children gathered around the table at the pillared outdoor sit-out, which Abba Otu Uriel built and donated to the community, as the mitzvah was performed and then celebrated together. As is customary, he received his name at the ceremony: Menashe. Students of the community’s Brachot Yeshiva School were among those gathered.
The timing is remarkable. Menashe was born on Yom Kippur, and his brit fell on his eighth day, the day the Torah commands for the brit. His big sister Rachamim, a student at Brachot Yeshiva School, was also born on Yom Kippur, exactly three years ago. And their older brother is named Ephraim, so the family now has an Ephraim and a Menashe, the two sons of Yosef. Every Friday night, Jewish parents bless their sons: “May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe.” In this home, that blessing has been realized!
In a second post that day, we travelled to Igboland, Imo State, to visit two sukkot that demonstrated the same mitzvah in both the city and the village:
- In Owerri, the Association of Jewish Faith built a spacious sukkah of bamboo poles and thick palm fronds beside a modern home, with tables and chairs set for festive meals in the shade.
- In Amatta, the Amatta Orthodox Community constructed their sukkah in the traditional manner, next to the community’s uncompleted building, with walls and a roof made entirely of fresh palm fronds supported by bamboo.
Holy Guest: (Moshe Rabbeinu), who brought the Torah and the covenant to all Israel. It was a fitting guest for a day that began with a baby entering the covenant and ended with two communities keeping the Torah’s command to dwell in booths.
Day 5: Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
From Nigeria the journey travelled west along the coast to Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire, and our destination was Kol Yehudah Synagogue.
The community gathered in its sukkah for festival prayers. Under a roof of reed mats, between bamboo walls, men wrapped in tallitot and women dressed in white continued praying together from their siddurim after waving the Four Species during Shacharit. Even the youngest children joined in, wandering between the rows of chairs.
Kol Yehudah holds a special place in African Jewish history. In 2022, it hosted the founding of the Sub-Saharan African Jewish Alliance, a meeting organised and funded by Kulanu that brought members and representatives from different communities across the continent together as one family.
Holy Guest: (Aharon HaKohen). Our sages teach: “Be among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them closer to the Torah” (Pirkei Avot 1:12). It was fitting to welcome him in the synagogue, where Africa’s communities first came together in peace and unity.
Day 6: Arusha, Tanzania, Eastern Africa
On the sixth day we crossed the continent again to Arusha, Tanzania, in the shadow of Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro.
Here the sukkah was dressed in colour. Its walls were hung with bright African kitenge fabric in red, blue and gold, its roof was made of fresh palm fronds on wooden poles, and a woven mat covered the floor. As is their tradition, the community removes their shoes and sits together on the floor inside the sukkah, close to the earth and close to one another.
After chairs in Abidjan, mats in Arusha: different customs, one mitzvah, one people.
Holy Guest: (Yosef HaTzaddik). Sold by his brothers yet never bitter, he forgave them, fed them in a time of famine and brought the whole family together again, here on African soil, in Egypt. We prayed that his spirit of forgiveness and care for our brothers and sisters would fill every sukkah across Africa.
Day 7: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Hoshana Rabbah
The final day took us to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the Horn of Africa.There, a simple courtyard between a building and a wall became a sukkah. Fresh palm fronds stretched overhead as schach, rows of blue and purple chairs, waited along the walls for the community, and a wooden menorah watched over the space from the window. It was a reminder that a sukkah needs no grand building, only a roof of branches, an open sky, and people ready to gather.
Day 7 was Hoshana Rabbah, the “Great Salvation” and the last day of dwelling in the sukkah. Communities circle the bimah seven times with lulav and etrog, crying “Hoshana!” and “Save us!” then beat willow branches on the ground before moving on to Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
Holy Guest: (David HaMelech), the sweet singer of Israel, who danced with all his might before the Ark. “I will sing to Adonai as long as I live” (Psalm 104:33). His song led us out of the sukkah and toward the joy of Simchat Torah.
Also On the Journey:
Alongside the seven days, communities sent us more moments we could not leave out.
- Abuja, Nigeria: The young players of the new Maccabi United Nigeria Football Academy sourced palm fronds and built a sukkah for about 50 people at Gihon Hebrew Synagogue, laying a spiritual foundation before a sporting one. (Read full story here https://africanjewishvoices.com/2026/10/01/built-together-maccabi-united-nigeria-fa-kicks-off-with-a-sukkah-in-abuja/)
- Aba, Nigeria: at Beth Chased, elders, mothers with babies, and children crowded under one roof, hung with harvest fruit. As the Talmud teaches, “All Israel are worthy to sit in one sukkah” (Sukkah 27b).
- Yaoundé, Cameroon: Rabbi Betsalel Elouna of Bnei Yeshrun held the lulav and etrog in a sukkah of deep-blue fabric, our lesson on the Four Species bound together as one people.
- Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria: Our #ParashatKids, Tehilla, Chesed, Gad, and baby Hadassah had no lulav or etrog this year but remembered Devarim 16:15, “Vehayita akh sameach,” “you shall be only joyful.” No sad faces in the sukkah.
- And in Nasenyi, Uganda, the final scene of the festival: At Kahal Kadosh She’erit Yisrael (KKSY), one of two shuls in the village, the community gathered once more, not to raise a sukkah, but to take it down. The same hands that had built it together now lowered it together. It was a quiet reminder that the mitzvah of the sukkah runs from beginning to end: raised as one, and taken down as one, with the festival’s joy carried back into ordinary days.
One Roof, One People
As we come to the end of the High Holidays today, the sukkot we saw this year across the continent were built from what each community had: printed cloth in Yaoundé, woven branches in Ghana, palm fronds and bamboo in Nigeria, reed mats in Abidjan, kitenge cloth in Arusha, a courtyard wall in Ethiopia. Some had chairs and some sat on the floor. Some held a lulav and etrog, and some waited in hope for next year.
What they shared was the mitzvah itself, kept with joy by families, elders, young footballers and small children across a continent. A sukkah is not measured by how grand it is, but by who fills it.
Thank you to every community that sent us photos and videos. Next Sukkot, bez’rat Hashem we hope to visit even more of you. Send us your sukkah, and help us show the world how Africa celebrates.
Chag Sameach, and l’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim.