Shabbat Guest Teacher: Shoshana Nambi HUC Rabbinical Student, from Uganda’s Abayudaya Jewish Community

Shoshana Nambi will deliver the dvar torah in the Sanctuary, and then during Kiddush she will teach and share about her experiences growing up in the Abayudaya community. If you are planning to join us for Kiddush, please consider making a donation to the AC Kiddush Fund so we can continue to nourish our bodies and souls each Shabbat.

Shoshana Nambi, grew up in Uganda’s Abayudaya Jewish community in her village of Nabweya, learning Hebrew at her synagogue and teaching young children songs and the Torah portion. Shoshana is a rabbinic intern at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York, where she lives with her 13-year-old daughter, Emunah. After graduating from Kampala International University in 2011, she worked part-time as an HIV counselor and agricultural educator. She worked three summers as a camp programmer and Tefillah coordinator at URJ Camp Coleman in Cleveland, GA. Learning more about Judaism there paved the way for her dream of becoming a rabbi. She has traveled across the USA with Kulanu. Inc (which supports emerging and returning Jewish communities around the world) teaching about her Jewish community with an emphasis on the role of women in her villages.

After a year of studying Hebrew and Jewish texts at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, she was offered admission to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City and spent her first year at its Jerusalem campus. She recently authored a children’s book, The Very Best Sukkah, about the joyful way Sukkot is celebrated in her community.