A Mogadishu Matzah Miracle
I wanted to share with you the following story which happened yesterday, Thursday evening, the day before Passover. At 9pm, I got a call from Machon Aleph, based in the US. They are an amazing Chabad organization that helps Jewish prisoners around the globe as well as Jewish chaplains and US soldiers. Knowing that I often have unusual connections in far-flung places, the Aleph representative asked if I could help with an urgent problem: there is one Jew in Mogadishu, Somalia, and he has no matzah. He is an EU representative living in the Green Zone. Could I help?
The Green Zone is a safe area around the Mogadishu airport for foreign embassies and military camps. Somalian extremists will not let foreigners into the country, and most Somalians cannot enter the Green Zone. Could I find a way get Matzot to this fellow in the Green Zone? I love these challenges.
My immediate thought was: this is nuts, Pesach starts in less that 24 hours, it can’t be done. But then I started contemplating how I might be able to help make it happen.
I began by checking flights to Mogadishu from Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Nairobi (Kenya), and Kampala (Uganda), all places in which I knew people who had matzot.
There was a 9:05am flight from Addis Ababa on Friday. The chabadnik in Addis said he could send someone on the flight to bring the matzah, but he’d need to arrange a visa and a letter of invitation beforehand. No time for that.
There was a flight from Nairobi early Friday morning. In Kenya, I knew a Somalian named Abdi.
I had met Abdi in 2021 through Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a specialist who consults with governments on psychoanalysis of the terrorist mind. I had wanted meet with Dr. Kobrin to learn about Jews in Somalia, about which very little is known. She happened to be in Israel while I was on a 6-hour layover in Tel Aviv. (I had just returned from doing a Brit in Cyprus and was on my way to Shecht in Nairobi). Luckily, she was free to meet with me during my layover, so I popped out of the airport for coffee in Tel Aviv.
Dr. Kobrin told me about a Yemenite Jewish family in Mogadishu living clandestinely as Jews. She had kept up a secret 2-year email correspondence with them until a few years prior, when all contact with them was lost. When Dr. Kobrin heard that I was headed to Nairobi in a few hours, she told me to try to meet up with Abdi, a member of a Somalian ruling clan who had spent 9 years in Israel, finally studying for a degree at IDC in Herzliya. He speaks fluent Hebrew, is a lover of Israel despite being a Muslim, and hopes for Israeli and Somalian peace. I could probably learn a great deal about Somalia from him. When I got to Nairobi, I did meet with Abdi. Over coffee, we discussed both the present situation in Somalia, and the history of Jews in Somalia.
So, 10 minutes after the call from Aleph, I contacted Abdi in Nairobi and told him about the urgent request for Matza in Mogadishu. I explained that Passover begins Friday night and asked him if he knew a way to get it into the Green Zone in time. He replied that he would think about how to make it happen.
I then considered who to call in Nairobi for Matzah: my old friend and long-time president of the Nairobi Hebrew Congregation, Dr. David Silverstein, or the new young rabbi, my Shechita student, Netanel Kasovitz. I called Netanel, told him the tale. He replied, “I love your crazy requests, and I’m happy to help.” Within 30 minutes, Abdi was on his way to collect a box of Matzot Yeduda from Netanel. At 3:30am I got an email from Abdi stating that the matzah had been sent to his brother in Somalia who would get them in the morning and deliver them to the EU representative in the Green Zone.
Truly a Mogadishu Matzah Miracle.