By COLlive reporter
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed on Monday in Uganda, the African country where his brother Yoni was killed during a rescue operation in 1976.
This wasn’t Netanyahu’s first visit to the country as he intensifies his efforts to strengthen the economic and diplomatic cooperation between Israel and countries across Africa.
Among those welcoming Netanyahu and his delegation of 45 people at the airport was Rabbi Moshe Raskin, Director of Chabad of Uganda located in the capital of Kampala.
“Sholom Aleichem,” Rabbi Raskin extended the traditional Jewish greeting. “I’m the Shliach of the Rebbe.”
The Israeli-born Rabbi Raskin and his wife Yocheved established the first synagogue in the country’s history when they arrived in 2019. Approximately 400 Jews live in Uganda with thousands more visiting annually.
The Raskins provided 72 kosher meat meals for members of Netanyahu’s delegation.
Uganda and Israel currently have no embassy in each other’s country, though Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, an Evangelical Christian, is a long-standing ally of Israel, which trains some elements of the Ugandan security forces, Yahoo News reported.
President Museveni said he is “studying” the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem, to which Netanyahu promised: “You open an embassy in Jerusalem and I will open an embassy in Kampala. We hope to do this in the near future.”
As well as the embassy issue, Netanyahu said Israel and Uganda were exploring the possibility of having direct flights and of closer cooperation in cybersecurity, Yahoo reported.
“The Prime Minister is being received with joy and honor,” Rabbi Raskin said. “They were very excited to meet him. They look at Jews with admiration and see the nation of Israel a source of blessing to their lives.”
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