NABUGOYA, Uganda (AP) -- If it weren't for that Israeli visitor, Uganda's Abayudaya Jews might still be offering animal sacrifices for Passover – a practice mainstream Judaism dropped centuries ago.
``Israel's ambassador came to visit in the 1960s. He told everyone Jews didn't do sacrifices anymore,'' said Gershom Sizomu, the Abayudaya's 33-year-old spiritual leader. ``We've learned a lot from other Jews.''
So it goes with the Abayudaya. Founded by a tribal chief who taught himself Judaism and converted from Christianity in 1919, the Abayudaya aren't one of the legendary 10 lost tribes of Israel. Rather, they found the religion, and have been learning as they go along.
As they bake matzoth in preparation for the Passover holy week beginning Wednesday night, the Abayudaya have something new to celebrate -- a mass conversion that has strengthened their bond with the outside Jewish world. Until recently, they weren't recognized under Jewish law because their founders and descendants hadn't undergone proper conversion.
``We weren't members of the tribe,'' Sizomu said.
But last month, a 14-member delegation of Conservative American and Israeli rabbis and lay people set up a rabbinical court in the village of Nabugoya and converted more than half of the 600 Abayudaya.
The Abayudaya consider the conversions a major step toward acceptance and they're eager to build stronger links with the Jewish world from which they have long been isolated.
Moses Sebagado said he would like to move to Israel. In Uganda ``there's no place to eat kosher food, not so many Jews. Not a lot of Jewish girls,'' said the 23-year-old. ``I need to go to Israel.''
Others want to stay in Uganda. They're looking to the international Jewish community for financial support to strengthen local Jewish institutions, like the high school and nursery school that were built a few years ago. ``We can create our own Israel here,'' said J.J. Keki, a former chairman of Nabugoya's synagogue, one of five that serve the community.
The British once considered Uganda as a site for a Jewish homeland. ``If it was good enough then, it should be good enough now,'' he said.
Most Abayudaya Jews are poor farmers living in villages like Nabugoya, in the lush hills outside Mbale, a sleepy old colonial town 135 miles east of the capital, Kampala.
The Abayudaya trace their roots to Semei Kakungulu, the chief who converted to Christianity in the 1880s in hopes of winning favor with British colonial authorities. In 1913, Kakungulu broke with the British, and six years later he and his 3,000 followers embraced Judaism.
In the early 1920s Kakungulu learned the basics of Judaism from two Jewish traders. He died in 1928, and his followers split two groups. One was converted to Christianity by missionaries. The other became the Abayudaya. The community faced constant hostility from Christian and Muslim neighbors, and by 1970 it had dwindled to about 500 people. The despotic Idi Amin outlawed Judaism, and the government took over 32 of the community's 36 synagogues, forcing the Abayudaya to worship in secret.
The 1976 Israeli rescue of Jewish hostages from an Air France airliner that had been hijacked to Uganda was ``a sign from God,'' Sizomu said. ``We thought we were going to be saved.''
Salvation would have to wait until 1979, when Amin was overthrown. ``It happened right before Passover,'' Sizomu said. ``That was the happiest Passover any Jews had had since Moses led us from Egypt. There was drinking and singing.''
Since then, the Abayudaya have reclaimed some of the land they lost under Amin, and their number has doubled to the present 600.
These days, the Abayudaya's Judaism is fairly mainstream and observant. Nabugoya's tin-roofed synagogue has two Torah scrolls donated by American Jews. Prayers are in Hebrew, the sermon in the local Luganda language; the men wear yarmulkes and prayer shawls.
Many keep kosher diets, regularly attend Sabbath services, and during the eight-day Passover holiday will eat matzoth, the unleavened bread that symbolizes the biblical exodus from Egypt.
Not all the Abayudaya opted for conversion last month. Some said they felt Jewish enough without it, while others couldn't make the journey from their villages to Nabugoya.
Still, insisted Sizomu: ``We're more orthodox than most Jews, Americans or Israelis.''