Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

March 5, 2020

Kenya, Jews, and Zionism—through the Eyes of the Late Kenyan President’s Jewish Personal Physician

From Herzl to Daniel arap Moi.

Last month, the former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi—who governed his country from 1978 to 2002—died in Nairobi. Among the many speakers at the funeral was an American Jew named David Silverstein, who was Moi’s personal physician for over four decades. Kenya and Zionism have a long history: the so-called “Uganda plan,” presented to Theodor Herzl by the British colonial secretary in 1903, would have created a Jewish homeland in what is now Kenya; since Israel’s creation, Kenya has had better relations with the Jewish state than have most African countries, and Moi visited it several times. Interviewed by Geoffrey Clarfield, Silverstein elaborates:

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