(JTA) — Ugandan Rabbi Gershom Sizomu has launched a second bid for the Parliament.
Sizomu made the announcement Thursday on his Gershom Sizomu for Parliament page on Facebook.
“Friends, here is another attempt for representation, an opportunity we have never had,” the post said. “Your support is very crucial. Details will follow, keep watching the space.”
In his 2011 bid for Parliament, Sizomu finished second in the Mbale District. He contested the results, saying the election was fixed. The rabbi said that his supporters from the opposition Forum for Democratic Change Party were chased away from more than eight polling stations and that ballot boxes were stuffed with ballots that had been filled out.
Sizomu ministers to Uganda’s native Jewish community, called the Abayudaya, 300 of whom converted to Judaism in 2003 under his initiative. Israel and Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora do not recognize the Abayudaya as Jewish.
A fourth-generation Ugandan Jew, Sizomu is an ordained Conservative rabbi.
