Before Israel, Jews considered settling in western Kenya
This picture dated May 1941 shows foreign Jews, especially Polish Jews, get off the train in Pithiviers, France. More than 3,000 Jews where arrested by the Paris police and imprisoned in the transit camps of Pithiviers. Inset, British East Africa Protectorate. PHOTOS | AFP | FILE
In a little-known episode in East Africa’s history, advocates of a Jewish homeland decided 112 years ago to authorise an expedition to today’s Kenya in response to a British proposal to establish a “Jewish territory” on the Uasin Gishu Plateau.
Meeting in Switzerland, the Sixth Zionist Congress voted 295-178 on August 26, 1903, to send this “investigatory commission” to an area bounded by Lake Nakuru, Kisumu, Mount Elgon and the equator.
