Moïse Lévy
Moïse Lévy was a Sephardi Jewish Rabbi who led the Jewish community of the Congo for 53 years.Biography
Lévy was born on August 12, 1915, in Antalya, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He grew up on the Island Of Rhodes, then under Italian control. There he began his rabbinical studies. At age 22, having been ordained as a Rabbi, he left Rhodes for the Belgian Congo, where a small Jewish community, composed mostly of people from Rhodes, had settled in Elisabethville. He became, the first Rabbi of the Congo in 1937 and in 1953 was named Chief Rabbi of the Belgian Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Northern Rhodesia. He organized prayers, rites of passage and maintained Jewish life in the area. In the event of a dispute between members of the community, he served as a mediator and his judgements were accepted as final, thus avoiding having to involve the colonial administration.
The Rabbi built a sphere of influence far outside his community in Southern Congo. During the colonial period, provincial governors regularly consulted him. He had audiences with both King Leopold III and King Baudouin of Belgium. When the colony became independent in 1960, Katanga Province attempted to secede from the country. Moïse Tshombe, leader of the State of Katanga, remembered the Rabbi for ruling in his favor during a dispute in his youth, and entrusted Levy with the diplomatic missions of France, the United States, and Israel. Following the rise of Mobutu Sese Seko and the creation of Zaire in 1965, Levy continued to have good relations, and was named to the National Order of the Leopard.
In 1991, following the collapse of Zaire, Levy decided to leave the country for Belgium, where he retired and later passed away in 2003.
