The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has now opened the first Yeshiva in Central Africa.

In recent weeks, eight rabbinical students from Brooklyn arrived in Kinshasa to study at the Yeshiva.  The students follow the traditional full day Yeshiva study schedule and spend most of their off time visiting community members and giving Torah classes.

Under the leadership of Rabbi Shlomo and Miriam Bentolila, Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries to Central Africa, the DRC’s small Jewish community is flourishing. To date, Chabad of Central Africa serves the needs of Jewish residents and visitors to 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kinshasa itself is home to a mikvah, a Jewish school, kosher food and now a Yeshiva.

In the summer of 1987, Rabbi Bentolila and his friend, Rabbi Sholom Harlig, today Chabad representative to Rancho Cucamonga, CA, broached the subject of visiting central Africa with Rabbi Mordechai Hodakov, the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s chief of staff. At the time, the idea of sending rabbinical students to Central Africa, even for a short visit, was unheard of. Little was known about the Jewish community there, and the region was rocked by civil war and health alerts. The two intrepid rabbis, however, managed to raise the funds necessary for the trip.

In Kinshasa, then the capital of Zaire, Bentolila discovered a tenacious Jewish community. Speaking to the local Jews, the pair found them interested in their message of Jewish identity and education.

After their summer stint, the young rabbis were asked by the community, to return.

In 1991, Rabbi Bentolila returned to Kinshasa, this time accompanied by his wife Miriam and three-month old baby. While a synagogue and mikvah, prerequisites for Jewish family and communal life, awaited them, the Central African republic held many surprises for the young couple. Only months after their arrival, military rebellion against then-ruler Mobutu Sese Seko began to rock the country. The first night of the holiday of Sukkot greeted the Bentolilas with the sound of gunshots and looting in the street.

For the next few days, the Bentolilas would remain confined inside their apartment. Not until security forces from the Israeli Embassy came, were the Bentolilas able to leave. Entering the embassy, the Bentolilas joined the other members of the community. Several days later, they left Zaire by boat.

To many, the idea of returning to war-torn central Africa would be unthinkable. The Bentolilas, however, were unfazed. They returned once more to Kinshasa.

Despite continued civil war, culminating with the ouster of Mobutu in 1997, the Bentolilas persevered. In the past 20 years, they have expanded their operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, including holiday services across the continent, and a Talmud Torah afterschool and summer camp in Nigeria.

When asked for the source of his inspiration, Rabbi Bentolila recalls the Rebbe's parting words to him as conveyed through Rabbi Hodakov before he set out to Kinshasa in 1991: 

“So long as a lone Jew in Africa has not yet been reached,” Bentolila was told, “it is imperative that you remain to educate.

Photos by israel bardugo