History of the Jews in Malawi

Press reports of the time state that during World War II (1939-1945), 60 Polish-Jewish families went to Nyasaland, then under British colonial rule and today known as modern day Malawi, arriving via Iran to escape the Holocaust.

[2] An eyewitness report states that "a hundred" Jewish refugees from Cyprus were shipped via Palestine to Nyasaland during World War II.

[3] The most notable person with partial Jewish parentage to serve in a high position was Sir Roy Welensky (1907-1991).

His father, Michael Welensky (b. c. 1843), was of Lithuanian Jewish origin, hailing from a village near Wilno (today Vilnius); a trader in Russia and horse-smuggler during the Franco-Prussian War, he settled in Southern Rhodesia after first emigrating to the United States, where he was a saloon-keeper, and then South Africa.

[7] Malawi under prime minister Hastings Banda's (1898-1997) foreign policy was one of only three Sub-Saharan African countries (the others being Lesotho and Swaziland (since 2018 renamed to Eswatini)) that continued to maintain full diplomatic relations with Israel after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.