The Department of African American Studies honors Rabbi Gershom Sizomu as the first Jew ever elected as a member of the Ugandan Parliament.

Rabbi Gershom Sizomu (born 1972) is a Ugandan rabbi serving the Abayudaua, a Baganda community in eastern Uganda of almost 2,000 Jews who practice Judaism. As a spiritual leader, Sizomu is the first native-born Black rabbi in Sub-Saharan Africa and is presently the first chief rabbi of Uganda.  He is the grandson of community elder “Rabbi” Samson and lives near the Moses Synagogue in the village of Nabagogye, which he and others from the community’s early 1980s “Kibbutz movement” built with their own hands. Their goal has been to gather what was left of the Abayudaya community back together after the devastating reign of Idi Amin Dada ended in 1979. 

As a member of the Be’chol Lashon Speakers Bureau, Gershom travels to the United States every year as an ambassador for the Abayudaya and other emerging communities in Africa. In 2007, Gershom published a CD with music from Abayudaya's tradition, called Sing For Joy: Abayudaya Jews~Uganda.