A Proportion of Ndigbo Have Discovered Their Jewishness, Exploring It- Lawton

Clive Lawton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Jewish Council, an Apex Jewish International organization, Interacted with some journalists in Anambra State on November 27, 2025 as part of his solidarity visits to Nigeria Jewish Community. Lawton, a Co-founder of Limmud worldwide and former headmaster at King David High School in Liverpool, In this Interview with Olisemeka Obeche and others, shares his personal perspective on issues affecting Jewish community in Nigeria and other minority religious groups. Excerpts.

Commonwealth of Jewish Council and Jewish Community Growth: 

I’m the Chairman of the Commonwealth Jewish Council. I guess most people in Nigeria will be familiar with the idea of the Commonwealth. Its history goes back into colonial times, but now it has evolved into the Commonwealth of Nations with about 56 countries as members. And in fact, the Commonwealth of Nation is growing, with more countries joining. Commonwealth is not from the past. It’s of the future, and it’s especially growing in Africa, with some Francophone countries like Togo, Gabon joining few years ago. Rwanda, Mozambique have also joined the Commonwealth.

Inside the Commonwealth of Nations, about 40 countries out of those 56 member countries have Jewish communities. Of those 40 countries that have Jewish communities, Nigeria is one of them. Some of the Jewish communities are very large while others are not. Just like places like Canada, we have very large number of Jewish population in Nigeria. And then we have tiny, tiny outposts here and there with two or three Jews in Sri Lanka or something like that.

However, here in Nigeria, we have a remarkable phenomenon, and it’s one which is exciting in the whole Jewish world, as people find out about the reality in Nigeria, because we have here Jews who are indisputably of African heritage as well. Now normally, I guess if you had a stereotype of a Jew. If I asked you to kind of imagine one or draw one type of Jew you know about, you would probably describe them as white. You probably imagine that Jews were predominantly European or American or something like that. Maybe, you’ll make them Middle Eastern or make them look more like Arabs. And that is actually, because that’s where the Jews come from. They come from the Middle East, right, but I don’t suppose you would ever think first to draw your Jew as a black African. And yet that’s what we have here in Nigeria. I can tell you that a proportion of the Igbo nation have discovered their Jewishness, and they are exploring it and this is a very interesting development, I would say.

Making the best of a growing Jewish Community in Nigeria:

Let me be clear, I’ve been in Nigeria for few days, so I’m not in the situation to tell Nigeria what it should do with its growing Jewish community, but it seems to me like an interesting development for Nigeria as a whole. Even though the number of Jews is quite small compared to the hundreds of millions of people in Nigeria, it presents an interesting development for the Nigerian nation as a whole. I mean, we’ve had some silly talk recently about what’s going on in Nigeria from people who haven’t been here, but we know that Nigeria has a challenge to figure out how to work with its large Christian and large Muslim populations. How can it get these two religious groups to live together, to interact in separate parts of the country, mostly, but in some places they live side by side? How can you get two religious groups to interact, even when they clearly disagree with each other? So long as you have this ‘us and them’, ‘this side and that side’ divide, you have a potential for a polarized society and constant conflict in Nigeria. 

But we must know that the problem is not ‘us and them’ thing. First of all, as you know, there are many different Muslims, each of them with their own ideological opinions. Same thing with Christians. The Jews come here and they say, you know, the world is more complicated still. And as countries become increasingly part of the 21st Century global community, we become more and more diverse and complicated, and if the country can’t figure out how to deal with that diversity and complication, not how do we satisfy this half and that half, but how do we make our world so that each individual can be who they are? Then we’re running for a fall in as the 21st Century unfolds.

Basically, I think the existence of a large Jewish community gives Nigeria a wonderful challenge and a wonderful opportunity to no longer think about Nigeria as a country that has to work out its problems between two religious communities, but instead a country that has to figure out how to include all the diversity within it. I’m sure if you look within Nigerian society, you will find other small sub groups of different religious groups. Of course, you’ve got all of those people in Nigeria who continue with old religions or African religions before Christianity or Islam. How is Nigeria going to accommodate them is the key question. And given the scale and status of Nigeria in Africa, without doubt, Nigeria can set an example to the entire continent, on how to make a country which can accommodate religious diversity. 

Exclusion of Jewish Community from Participation in Election in Nigeria:

I have discovered that Nigerian elections take place on Saturdays. Convenient day, because people are mostly not working on Saturdays in Nigeria so it is ideal to hold elections on Saturdays. But one thing the Nigerian government did not consider in that is that the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat) is on Saturday, and that on Shabbat, as the Bible commanded us (Jews), we do no work,  and this includes going to a polling booth to vote or take part in any other civic exercises related to the elections. So because the elections are on Saturday, all committed Jews in Nigeria are disenfranchised. We know that it’s not the intention of the Nigerian electoral law to discriminate against Jews, but because it hasn’t thought of this diversity, it hasn’t figured out a solution to this problem. I don’t know how you do it, but there is need to find a way to ensure that Jews in Nigeria are also accommodated and participate in elections. 

Maybe the government can create a postal (Mailing) vote for them where they can cast their votes and submit their votes earlier. I don’t know how the electoral system operates in Nigeria, but a modern country would say, Okay, here’s a group of people who are disenfranchised; how do we solve this problem so that no eligible voter is left out? And once you start thinking about that and come up with a solution, of course, you are on the right step towards making a diverse society.

“one thing the Nigerian government did not consider in that is that the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat) is on Saturday, and that on Shabbat, as the Bible commanded us (Jews), we do no work,  and this includes going to a polling booth to vote or take part in any other civic exercises related to the elections. So because the elections are on Saturday, all committed Jews in Nigeria are disenfranchised.

The Issue of Anti-Semitism and Nigerian Society:

You may or may not know that across the world there has been an explosion of Anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism, is the word we use for Anti-Jewish racism or hatred of Jews. It’s ancient, but it keeps changing in ramification. Its reasons change, but the impact on Jews doesn’t. And across much of the world, Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism. People have now used the war in Gaza as an excuse for it, but it doesn’t matter. They will find a different excuse if there’s no war in Gaza. They’ll always find a reason to hate Jews, right? And this time, it has really shocked some of the strong, established Jewish communities in the world. In the UK, a guy was shot just recently by a terrorist approaching a synagogue and was killed in Manchester in England. These are shocking things.

In 2025 we thought that this wouldn’t still be happening, but what I hear from my Jewish friends here is it’s not like that in Nigeria. In Nigeria, you may hear people saying silly things and old fashioned, out of date prejudice things. Sometimes they say it’s a joke. It’s never a joke, really, is it right? If I were to say something unpleasant about black people. It’s no different. Afterwards, it’s not acceptable. And so saying those kinds of things about Jews is not acceptable. But generally speaking, Jews here in Nigeria have continued with their lives in a pleasant way.

Now, whether Nigeria can figure out a solution to include Jews as a religious group is a key question. And I gather that that is not yet the way in which Nigeria sees it. I don’t know how that works, but it seems to me that that is a challenge that the country should look into. And by the way, this is not a Jewish problem. I want to be very clear about this. It’s not a Jewish problem. This is a human problem, right? It’s a problem for every citizen in the modern world. How does our society accommodate diverse people? And we know different societies are very bad at this, and they become very oppressive of this minority subgroups. I believe that’s not happening in Nigeria. But how does Nigeria review its customary practices to include Jews? That is the ultimate issue that we will love to see solution to.

Facts about Jewish relationship with other religions:

Jews, as you probably all know, predate Christianity and Islam. Christianity and Islam, you might call almost daughter religions of Judaism. I mean, certainly Christianity couldn’t have come about, because without Judaism. I mean, Jesus was a Jew. All of the people in the New Testament, most of them were Jews. This is a story of Jews in a certain time in history that comes out of Judah. And as you know, the Christian Bible adopts the entire Jewish Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, and then adds to it the New Testament. There’s a Jewish Book. This is what they had, and this is what Jews have.

As for Muslims, it’s a little more complicated, because they developed 700 years later or so in (Saudi) Arabia, but there were many Jews living in Arabia. If you read the Quran, and if you look at the Hadith, you will discover that Mohammed endlessly talked about his relationship with the Jews. And Mohammed was inspired by the Jews and many Muslim practices emerged from Jewish practices. And many of the great prophets of Islam such as Musa, Yusuf are Jews.

So if Islam and Christianity might be called daughter religions, Judaism contributes to this story of diverse religions. It’s very ancient. It continues with that thread. And there’s another marvelous thing about Judaism, which is that we’re not trying to make anybody Jewish. We don’t go out there and say you shouldn’t be a Christian or Muslim anymore. That you should be a Jew. We don’t do that because we don’t think that Jews go to heaven, and other people don’t. If you’re a good person, get involved in making the society a better place. If you believe in Jesus, or if you follow the Quran, or whatever it is, that’s your business. But if you’re good and live a life of goodness, then when you die, you go to heaven. That’s been a long Jewish principle. So only those people who are Jews have to do Jewish stuff. You know, we have dietary law, certain things we don’t eat in the Bible, right? So we, for example, we don’t eat pork or whatever. Now, non-Jews, Christians certainly might eat pork. It doesn’t mean to say that they’re damned to hell. Christians don’t have to keep Jewish law. That’s not their business.

“we are very happy to live alongside other folks and contribute to a better society. That’s to say that the function of the Jews is to be a light to the nations.

Basically, we are very happy to live alongside other folks and contribute to a better society. That’s to say that the function of the Jews is to be a light to the nations. It’s in Isaiah, to be a kingdom of priests. It’s in Leviticus or Exodus, I think. But in those places, the Jews are given the function of enriching the world in which they live. 

Expanding the frontier of knowledge about Judaism in Nigeria:

One thing that I have noticed in Nigerian school system is that there is nothing in the curriculum that specifically teaches children about different religions other than theirs. So, the Implication is that while Nigerian children might learn about their own religion, they don’t learn about other religions; and it would be a wonderful thing if time could be found on the curriculum to teach say, Christian children about Islam and Muslim children about Christianity. That’s kind of obvious, but if you add in the curriculum the teaching about Judaism or African traditional religion, there would be an enrichment of deepening and a diversifying of the curriculum, which would prepare young Nigerians for a 21st century world. You know that not all Nigerians are going to live the rest of their lives in Nigeria. You know that people from the rest of the world will come to Nigeria as it grows and flourishes; and Nigerians need to be prepared to meet this world. So, Jewish and African religious content can enrich the educational system of Nigeria without being in any way a threat to anybody. I really hope that those developments can come about. It’s not going to happen overnight, but in the next decade, we could see such developments. This would be Nigeria pushing forward to be a leader in Africa and an example. 

Best approach to address religious induced insecurity in Nigeria: 

Well, it would be very arrogant of me to turn up in Nigeria and think I have the best solution to this problem. Well, what we know is that dealing with religious and ethnic tension and insecurity is essential. You can’t pretend it isn’t there. It can’t just disappear. It’s you know, either religion is part of the problem or it’s part of the solution. I hope that the Nigerian authorities are looking out for constructive, fruitful, moral, upright, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and other religions leaders to become a counter voice to the small proportion of maniacs who misinterpret their religion and use it as a stick to beat other people with.

We know that the extremism which is expressed by some in certain religions is nearly always a terrible slander on the quality of the religion. Really the ignoramuses who involve themselves in terrorism and violence; and use their religion as the basis, are doing harm to their own religion, and they should be called out by their own people, not only by people on the other religious side. As it were, it’s no good a Muslim saying to a Christian, you’re no good. What you need is a Christian saying to a Christian, you misunderstood. That is not what this religion stands for. That is not how you should be standing there is a bit of a stereotype. 

Igbos, Jewish Community and the Biafra Question:  

I think that it’s sad that in parts of Nigerian society, some people strangely put Jews with the defunct Biafra question. And that’s, I mean, that’s terribly destructive, too. And it’s at pretty uninformed. The Jewish community of Nigeria is peace loving community, which is part of the Nigerian society. Ofcourse, they are very committed to their own Igbo history and culture also. And therefore, I think people have carelessly said, Oh!, well, this is all connected. But that kind of stereotyping, that kind of the creation of a prejudicial narrative, just as are, and what we should be doing all the time is trying to find the constructive people and making them the loud voices that we hear in society. 

The Nigerian Jewish Community, Anti-Semitism and the Goodwill Message: 

The first thing I would say is Jews were pretty well designed to be a minority. Okay, we were always a minority pretty well everywhere, wherever we are and wherever we’ve been, and we have indeed suffered from this kind of Anti-Semitism in different places. So the first thing I say to the Nigerian Jews that I meet and have met is that your first salvation is in your self-confidence. You know who you are, you stand for, what you stand for, and you contribute good to society. If other people want to misunderstand that or do harm; frankly, there’s not much you can do about that, except to continue to stand for what you stand for, right to be good, to be generous, to be inclusive, to value diversity and to stand up for your own beliefs and commitments. That’s the starting point.

The second level, of course, is to hope that the government and the society will join you in this understanding will become, as I said, more accommodating with diversity, and that’s important, too. The third level is to ensure that in our schools, young people that have adequate knowledge about Judaism religion as well as other religions emerge. You know, when you leave somebody ignorant, you’ve left them vulnerable because you’ve left them vulnerable to whatever nonsense somebody tells them. So if they come out of their schools and somebody pulls them aside and say; ‘do you know the Jews have three heads?’ They do, right? They’ve never been told anything. They don’t know anything. So then people are vulnerable to that kind of thing.

If you can have program in schools, I’m not talking about, setting aside key subjects like mathematics and instead teaching about Judaism. No. I’m talking about putting a multi-religious course into school curriculum. And let me be clear, that education is one of my fields. I was principal of a high school. I was a director of education for a city. This is a field I know about, and I strongly believe that Nigerian government can indeed put this stuff into the curriculum if they are committed to tackling this problem through knowledge. I hope in your curriculum, you have some kind of curriculum program about citizenship and how to be a good Nigerian. So this is all part of the same process. You can put it into that element as well. So it’s carrot and stick process. Nigeria, also need strong laws that will stop nonsense.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Nigeria has adopted, for example, the International Declaration of Anti-Semitism. So it becomes impossible, really, for anybody to recognize what it is. Somebody go, well, it was just a joke, and I didn’t mean it, and that’s not quite what not quite what I said, then anti-Semitism can flourish, if it wants to. I say again, I don’t think this is a major problem in Nigeria, but there are bad faith players who want to make it a problem, and if Nigeria is not prepared with some response to that, then it becomes open season. So there’s a thing called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, working definition of the Jerusalem Declaration of Anti-Semitism (JDA). And we in the Commonwealth Jewish Council are working to encourage all the countries of the Commonwealth to adopt this definition, because that means, when something does happen, you can look at it and go, yeah, that is Anti-Semitism. That’s wrong. I hope in your legislation here in Nigeria you have some kinds of rules that says that it’s unacceptable. Yes, that is the way to go in terms of tackling this problem of discrimination, prejudice, hostility and violence against the Jews.