Nigeria has more than 100 synagogues — but no local rabbis. This summer camp wants to change that.
Nigeria has more than 100 synagogues — but no local rabbis. This summer camp wants to change that.,
by Simone Saidmehr, Forward, 2026-08-14.
> On summer mornings in Abuja, Nigeria, a small fleet of cars fan out > across the sprawling capital city carrying unusual passengers: > children headed to Jewish day camp. > > In a one-story synagogue on a dirt road in Kubwa, a densely > populated suburb, children who spend most of the year as the only > Jew in their school spill out of cars alongside dozens of their > peers. They might spend the day acting out scenes from the Torah, > crocheting kippot or competing in color war. > > It’s an untraditional location, but almost everything else about > Camp Sarah is inspired by Jewish summer camps in the U.S. After > all, it was founded by an American. > > Debbie Isser, who moved to Nigeria in 2021 for her work with the > World Bank, started the camp with members of Abuja’s Jewish > community after local mothers told her they wanted their children to > have some kind of Jewish education. For Isser, whose own childhood > summers at Jewish camp in New Hampshire had been formative, the > solution felt obvious. > > “I just felt like it was in my genes,” she told the Forward. > > Now in its fourth year, Camp Sarah, a two-week-long day camp hosting > 80 campers and 20 staff, is trying to give a new generation of > Nigerian Jews something their small, dispersed community has > struggled to provide: Jewish teachings that will allow them to > sustain religious life there. > > The hope, of course, is that the children make Jewish friends and > learn Torah stories. But organizers also want Camp Sarah to begin > producing the religious leaders the community currently lacks — > perhaps, one day, even a homegrown rabbi or a shochet, ritual > slaughterer, so that kosher Nigerian Jews can finally enjoy meat > with their jollof rice.