Over his three days in New York this week for the opening session of the General Assembly, Joe Biden will do things that U.S. presidents traditionally do during the annual gathering of world leaders.

Tuesday morning he’ll give a speech outlining his vision of global affairs and pressing international issues – the U.S. president customarily speaking second among world leaders after Brazil, the first country to sign the U.N. Charter in 1947.

He’ll meet on the sidelines of U.N. meetings for bilateral talks with a few leaders – notably with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Mr. Biden has a difficult relationship, Wednesday morning.

He and first lady Jill Biden will host a glittery leaders reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Tuesday evening. (Monday it’ll be a “Broadway for Biden” campaign fundraiser featuring “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.)

But there will also be something unprecedented about Mr. Biden’s appearance on the New York diplomatic stage. This year for the first time the U.S. president will be the only leader of the five permanent members of the Security Council to attend the General Assembly’s opening sessions.

The leaders of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France decided for various reasons to skip traveling to New York to offer their perspectives on issues ranging from climate change and global security to the United Nations’ faltering sustainable development goals. When the Security Council takes up Russia’s war against Ukraine in a session Wednesday, only Mr. Biden will be there among the “P5” leaders to make his case.

Susan Walsh/AP

Marine One carrying President Joe Biden arrives at the Wall Street landing zone in New York, Sept. 17, 2023. Mr. Biden is in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and fundraisers.

For some, this presents Mr. Biden with an opportunity to shine and assert his brand of leadership at a time when audiences both at home and abroad are doubting his capacities for stewarding his vision of America’s role in the world.

Authoritarianism and isolationism – two forces antithetical to the president’s conception of international affairs – are on the rise, abroad and at home. Mr. Biden can be expected to hit back by spotlighting the war in Ukraine as a struggle for the freedoms that democracy affords, and an example of cooperation based on principles and internationalist values essential to addressing global issues like climate change, security, and equitable development.

But at the same time, some experts say, the absence of other major-power leaders risks underscoring how Mr. Biden, as one of the last of a generation of American internationalist leaders, represents an era of U.S.-led multilateralism that no longer fits a multipolar world of rising big-power competition.

“With the other P5 leaders absent, Biden could well make this his UNGA, where he puts upfront and unchallenged his vision for what he wants to do internationally and with the U.N., and how American leadership remains an essential part of addressing pressing global issues,” says Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, an expert on multilateral and U.N. issues at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs.

“But on the other hand, this moment of Biden alone among big powers at UNGA could also highlight how in some ways the really interesting things in development are happening outside the U.N., and how the Security Council is unable to seriously address many of the essential security issues of the day. In that sense,” he adds, “this could be an inflection point ... where the U.N. is starting to lose its preeminent role as the arena for taking up global issues.”

Indeed, some experts see Russia and China prioritizing other coalitions of countries – China the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) grouping of developing countries, Russia countries like North Korea and Iran that are willing to deliver arms for use in Ukraine – over the postwar, U.S.-led institutions like the U.N.

Gianluigi Guercia/AP

From left, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pose for a group photo during the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, Aug. 23, 2023.

In Washington, critics on the left and right fault Mr. Biden’s foreign policy for reasons ranging from a weak record on human rights and democracy – they cite the coups across Africa’s Sahel region and his tendency to overlook the human rights shortfalls of partners like India and Saudi Arabia – to the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal and what some call a too-timid approach to China.

Record of accomplishments

Among foreign publics from Europe to Japan, doubts over Mr. Biden’s vitality and ability to vigorously assert American leadership reflect similar misgivings among U.S. voters, polls show.

But many U.S. foreign policy experts say that in less than three years as president, Mr. Biden has racked up an enviable record of international accomplishments that surpasses anything done by recent presidents.

“Biden has to his credit a series of striking successes in Asia, from his leadership on the critical relationship between our Japanese and South Korean allies to ... the AUKUS [Australia-U.K.-U.S.] partnership, and he’s done all of that that while being quite effective on Ukraine,” says Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States in Washington. “You’d have to go back a number of administrations, to the senior Bush and [his Secretary of State] James Baker to find that kind of foreign policy success.”

Enter Mr. Biden’s U.N. speech on Tuesday, which offers the president an opportunity to present a robust case for both his vision of global affairs and his leadership abilities.

A key task for Mr. Biden, some international relations experts say, will be to use his U.N. speech to convince his two audiences – the foreign and the domestic – that his brand of traditional internationalist leadership is not a relic of a bygone American century.

“He needs to say to the American people that our efforts to defend an international order that is competitive and promotive of U.S. values and interests are still relevant in the world today,” says Michael Doyle, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a former U.N. assistant secretary-general.

But he says Mr. Biden must also explain how and why America’s postwar conception of international leadership – including the assembling of coalitions of like-minded allies so that the U.S. is not acting alone – continues to be relevant and effective.

Andrew Harnik/AP

From left, President Joe Biden greets South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japan's Prime Minister Kishida Fumio at Camp David, Maryland, Aug. 18, 2023.

“He can make the case by citing the example of Ukraine, because there is a broad middle of America that doesn’t want to see Ukraine abandoned to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” says Dr. Doyle, author of the recent “Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War.”

“But it can’t just be Ukraine,” he adds. “Biden has to go beyond that to explain how this strategy of fortifying allies and assembling like-minded coalitions to join us also applies to climate and development, so that these other major challenges are not on our shoulders alone.”

Need for humility

Others cite the deepening instability and disorder internationally – what U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres calls the “cascading crises” of climate disruption, food insecurity, and mass migrations. They conclude that Mr. Biden might draw upon his long experience to woo his audiences, as long as he eschews the arrogance some associate with American leadership.

“The administration and the president can use this particular moment in history to lean into a calm leadership and humility” that focuses on “universality” over any sense of American superiority, says Noam Unger, director of the Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Recent history has shown that we too have our challenges, especially with democracy,” he adds. “And so for President Biden to basically lean into that narrative, while also leaning into the point that ... he is actually of the mold of a statesman long on the scene and in international affairs, I think he can balance both: the American commitment to continued progress and the repair that is built into democratic systems.”

Given the weaknesses displayed in American democracy and the clear signals the U.S. has absorbed over the Global South’s development priorities and fatigue with a Western focus on Ukraine, Mr. Biden can be expected to temper his “democracy versus autocracy” theme that dominated his U.N. speech last year with a more “realist” approach, some experts say.

“Biden will still make his point that democracy works best at meeting people’s aspirations and delivering a secure international environment, but he’s not going to hammer countries on the head about it,” says NYU’s Professor Sidhu. “As we saw him do recently in India and Vietnam, and with this infrastructure initiative that challenges China’s Belt and Road Initiative and includes a country like Saudi Arabia, he’s not going to make democracy a requisite for doing business with a wide range of countries.”

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his economic agenda at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, Sept. 14, 2023. 

Under routine circumstances, the American presidency is a pressure cooker of a job. Now, for President Joe Biden, there’s the added weight of a congressional impeachment inquiry and son Hunter’s criminal indictment – all while pursuing reelection amid persistent questions about his age and stamina. 

But President Biden is nothing if not determined, having finally reached the Oval Office 32 years after his first bid. Today, a strong desire to block his criminally indicted predecessor from staging a comeback only deepens Mr. Biden’s determination. Devotion to family is another animating force. 

Even if the impeachment gambit by House Republicans can be framed as an effort to deflect attention from former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles, it’s still a serious matter for Mr. Biden – despite the lack of direct evidence that he personally profited from his son’s business dealings.

Republicans run the risk of perceived overreach, political analysts say. But that’s likely of little comfort to Mr. Biden and his team. 

“Nobody in the White House woke up in the morning and said, ‘You know what would help us? Another scandal involving Hunter Biden,’” says Jeffrey Engel, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University. “The ‘what-about-ism’ hurts, especially when the leading Republican candidate [for president] has been indicted four times.” 

The danger for Mr. Biden is that voters who aren’t paying close attention may not see much distinction between former President Trump’s criminal indictments and the Biden inquiry. “What they hear is, something’s not right,” says Dr. Engel, director of SMU's Center for Presidential History. 

Hunter Biden woes can cut two ways

Mr. Biden’s close relationship with his only surviving son, Hunter – who has long struggled with addiction, but says he’s now clean and sober – is another element that can cut two ways. To the president’s political opponents, the younger Mr. Biden is a troubled man who profited off the family name in international business dealings during his father’s vice presidency. 

To the president’s friends, the Biden family story is one of devotion in the wake of tragedy, including the death of son Beau in 2015 and before that, the car accident that killed Mr. Biden’s first wife and baby daughter in 1972. 

Today, Hunter’s struggles are, by many accounts, never far from his father’s thought; the two are known to speak almost daily. And when asked by reporters about his son, the president either responds with a steely glare or a terse expression of support. 

“The additional pressure he’s had with his son, Hunter Biden, that’s a tough thing,” says former Sen. Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, a longtime friend of the president from their time together as senators. “The problems Hunter Biden has had, you can’t somehow put that all on hold. That’s with you every day.” 

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, of California, talks to reporters about avoiding a government shutdown and launching an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 14, 2023.

In June, the younger Mr. Biden reached a plea deal with prosecutors over federal tax charges that was expected also to help him avoid jail time over a charge related to purchasing a gun. But in July the plea deal fell apart, and last week, Mr. Biden was charged with lying about his drug use on a gun application. The indictment sets up the potential for a high-profile trial in the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign. 

Troublesome family members aren’t unusual in American presidencies, but the example of Hunter Biden – including his role in the business dealings under scrutiny by House investigators – may well represent a greater risk to his father’s political fortunes than in other cases. Republicans have alleged the son received special treatment from federal prosecutors.

McCarthy and the impeachment inquiry

The Biden impeachment inquiry, while not good news for the president, is as much a reflection of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s political travails. After initially promising to hold a formal House vote to launch the inquiry, the speaker skipped that step, and announced the inquiry himself, when he apparently didn’t have the votes. The Republican enjoys only the narrowest of majorities, and is operating under constant threat of a “motion to vacate” that could end his speakership. 

Some congressional Republicans oppose the impeachment inquiry. In a Washington Post opinion piece last Friday, Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado – a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus – accused his party’s leadership of diverting attention from an impending government shutdown. “Republicans in the House who are itching for an impeachment are relying on an imagined history,” he wrote.

But even if the Biden impeachment inquiry is perceived by some to be political theater, history shows that investigations can go in unexpected directions. In the 1990s, the Whitewater investigation into real estate investments of President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton eventually led to the discovery of President Clinton’s affair with an intern – and his impeachment for lying under oath about that. 

Well before the Biden impeachment inquiry was formally launched, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee had already obtained thousands of pages of financial records that the committee chairman claims provide evidence of the “Biden family’s influence peddling schemes,” though it has yet to release that evidence. Now the committee is seeking more documents. 

“If I’m Biden, I certainly don’t want anyone digging around,” says Chris Edelson, a political scientist at American University. Still, he adds, “the Republicans to an extent are gambling. What if there’s nothing?” 

On Sunday, Speaker McCarthy said on Fox News that House Republicans will eventually subpoena Hunter Biden. That, too, could be risky, as it could engender sympathy for the president’s son, whose personal travails have been tabloid fodder for years. 

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, notes that many families have experiences with addiction. But in a political context, she asks, “what is the capacity of a given member of the audience to experience empathy about this situation?”

With Hunter Biden, “are we now in a situation where if you’re a Trump-supporting Republican, you won’t experience empathy for someone in that situation?” Dr. Jamieson asks.

In the Biden White House, answers to press questions about Hunter typically echo the president’s six-word expression of support: “I’m very proud of my son.” Though on Friday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered more: She stated for the first time that the president will not pardon his son or commute his sentence if he’s convicted on gun charges. 

President Biden’s demeanor and posture on the impeachment inquiry are completely different. While walking across the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday, after landing in Marine One, a reporter shouted a question: “What’s your reaction to the impeachment inquiry?” 

Mr. Biden grinned broadly, and responded: “Lots of luck.”

With just 13 days to avert a government shutdown, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing his biggest test yet. His challenge: trying to unite fractious House Republicans on a spending agreement, with only a 4-vote margin and seemingly unbridgeable divisions between what right-wing Republicans are demanding and what can ultimately pass the Senate. 

McCarthy allies were working to shore up support Monday for a 30-day stopgap measure. But its future was highly uncertain, as numerous members of his own party had already come out against the deal.

The dominant narrative in Washington is that Speaker McCarthy’s back is against a wall, with conservative Freedom Caucus members threatening – or even pushing for – a shutdown and vowing to try to remove him as speaker if he doesn’t agree to their demands. They see the federal bureaucracy as bloated, ineffective, and driven by a progressive policy agenda. If government grinds to a halt, that’s not a bad thing in their eyes, especially if it forces tough conversations about spending. This fiscal year alone, the government has spent over $1.5 trillion more than it brought in, pushing the debt to a record $33 trillion. 

Mr. McCarthy’s announcement last week of an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, over whether he corruptly participated in his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings, was widely seen as an attempt to placate right-wingers. But they say impeachment is an entirely separate matter.

Lost amid the frenetic jockeying is the fact that this standoff is a political choice. Though it may be the least damaging option for Mr. McCarthy at the moment, there are other courses of action he could pursue. 

When Mr. McCarthy faced a similar crisis last spring over whether to raise the debt ceiling, he wound up brokering a deal with Mr. Biden and Democrats, ultimately getting the measure passed with a huge bipartisan majority. That cost him politically, but not as much as a national default likely would have.

A government shutdown, however, is seen as a lower-stakes event – and maybe even a good thing in the eyes of some Republicans. (Many but far from all federal operations would actually close, until a new funding deal in Congress is reached. No default would occur on national debt.) 

Centrist Democrats see an opportunity for another bipartisan deal between Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Speaker McCarthy, who have had a good working relationship.

“I believe Hakeem Jeffries is ready to do anything within reason and work with members on both sides of the aisle to prevent a shutdown,” says Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, a Democratic member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

He argues that “principled, reasonable Democrats” significantly outnumber the Freedom Caucus members who are blocking a deal and threatening to remove Mr. McCarthy as speaker. “We would be there to protect his seat if he does what’s right not for his party but for the country.”

But Speaker McCarthy, knowing the political cost of such a move, has indicated he’s not willing to explore a bipartisan deal – at least not yet.

And he may not turn to Democrats even in the event of a shutdown, having already experienced the ire of conservatives in the wake of the debt ceiling negotiations, in which they felt he gave up too much ground and went back on promises he had made to them in exchange for their support in January’s speakership election.  

After Mr. McCarthy struck the bipartisan deal to avoid a national default this spring, Freedom Caucus members spearheaded a week-long blockade of bills being brought to the House floor. That standoff ended with an agreement to cut spending by $130 billion more than the debt ceiling deal had outlined. They also pushed a series of votes on hard-right issues that matter to the GOP base. By July, they were talking about a government shutdown.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks with reporters as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Sept. 18, 2023.

Even if Mr. McCarthy is able to get his party to pass the current stopgap measure, its anti-“woke” provisions and 8% spending cuts for nearly everything except defense have virtually no chance of making it through the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Many have characterized the high-stakes drama as an embarrassing mess. But Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a Freedom Caucus member involved in crafting the stopgap measure, says tense negotiations aren’t always a bad thing. 

“It’s actually quite clarifying,” he told reporters last Thursday. 

Representative Donalds, who sits on the Financial Services committee, says one of his hard lines is border security. “Our government should secure its borders. Period, full stop,” he said, as news came last week that the federal government – overwhelmed by the volume of immigrants crossing over the border illegally – was releasing thousands into the streets of southern cities and towns. “That is the job of the federal government. If it doesn’t do that, then why are you funding it?”

It’s not just Freedom Caucus members who are taking a hard line on spending.

Walking back to her office after a vote, Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming says the “vast majority of Republicans feel that there’s far too much power stockpiled in this city and that we spend far too much money.” The federal government, she adds, “should not be the answer to all of our ills.”

The standoff is just the latest evidence that the budget process has become essentially broken in a polarized, narrowly divided Congress. 

The way budget negotiations are supposed to work is that parallel subcommittees in the House and Senate craft 12 appropriations bills to cover all areas of the federal government, from agriculture to transportation. However, it’s been increasingly difficult to get those bills approved by both chambers. 

So Congress has wound up resorting to stopgap measures known as “continuing resolutions,” or “CRs,” that temporarily fund the government at the same level as the previous fiscal year, to give leadership time to hammer out the larger budget deal.

In the current standoff, Freedom Caucus members have opposed any CR that does not adjust spending levels at all, since the previous budget was passed along party lines and reflects a host of Democratic priorities. 

In recent years, Congress has often been unable to finish the regular appropriations process even with a CR, and leadership has combined all 12 bills into one “omnibus,” with members having to vote up or down on the whole package – often with very little time to review what’s in it.

One of the original demands conservative Republicans made of Mr. McCarthy during the speakership battle was to go back to having 12 appropriations bills, to allow more opportunity for input on spending levels in each part of the federal government.

But the only appropriations bill even close to being ready right now is the Defense bill – and last week Mr. McCarthy unexpectedly had to postpone bringing it to a vote because he didn’t have enough GOP support.

Representative Phillips, the centrist Democrat from Minnesota, says he doesn’t envy Speaker McCarthy’s position. Still, he adds, it’s incumbent on leaders to “make appeals to those they know they need. And there are many of us waiting for that appeal – right now. Right now,” he says. “There’s a grand opportunity here.”

Sophie Neiman

Women prepared a combination of traditional Jewish foods and Ugandan foods in outdoor kitchens as the Abayudaya celebrated Rosh Hashana.

Ziporah Naisi began preparing Rosh Hashana dinner in her isolated village in the foothills of Mount Elgon Thursday evening. Greasing her hands with palm oil, she peeled the bananas for matooke – a staple Ugandan mashed vegetable paste – until midnight. “It was work which I love doing,” she says. “When you love doing it, it becomes easier.”

Ms. Naisi is a member of the Abayudaya – meaning “the Jews of Uganda” in the Luganda language – a century-old, 2,000-strong community of Black Africans who have adopted the Jewish faith. The wife of Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, Ms. Naisi was leading a brigade of women making enough food for the hundreds of worshippers who would soon fill her home to celebrate the Jewish new year.

As Friday wore on, the women baked challah, a traditional Jewish bread, in outdoor ovens. They sliced apples to dip in honey in hope of bringing sweetness to the coming months.

The unusual community was founded by Semei Kakungulu in 1919. After a conflict with British colonial administrators, he tore his Bible in half so that it contained only the Old Testament, circumcised his sons, and declared himself a Jew.

Mr. Kakungulu transcribed a list of rules for his convert followers to obey, based on the commandments laid out in the biblical text. Later, visiting Jews taught the Abayudaya to read Hebrew and to prepare food according to kosher dietary restrictions.

A happy new year

On Friday afternoon, teenage girls inflated blue and white balloons, reminiscent of the Israeli national flag, and strung silver garlands around the synagogue, giggling as they played catch with the decorations. By sunset, the strains of guitar music and drums could be heard, encouraging people to come and pray, as a light rain began to fall. Orange light filtered through the clouds.

“Rosh Hashana is the head of the year, or the beginning of the year,” Mr. Sizomu explains. “It is to call us back to ourselves; those who have left the community, to call us back to the community; those who have left family and obligations and responsibilities, to call us back to responsibility.”

Sophie Neiman

Teenage girls joke together as they decorate the Abayudaya synagogue for Rosh Hashana.

Later in the celebrations, the shofar – a twisted length of ram’s horn – would be blown as a reminder of that call.

As Mr. Sizomu led the Friday evening service in a mix of English, Hebrew, and Luganda, congregants clapped and swayed in time with guitar music played by Joab Jonadab “J.J.” Keki, the rabbi’s elder brother, who sets Hebrew verses to traditional Ugandan melodies.

When Mr. Keki was a boy, dictator Idi Amin forbade Jewish practices. Mr. Keki vividly recalls eight years spent praying in rocky caves, celebrating holidays in secret, doing everything to avoid detection.

Even after General Amin fell in 1979, the Abayudaya continued to suffer discrimination. Mr. Keki says he was arrested and beaten by police when he tried to erect a synagogue atop the hill where many of the Abayudaya now reside.

“One of the weapons I used to convince the Jewish youth of 1979, to bring them together, was music,” Mr. Keki says. His voice is hoarse with age but still has a tenor’s vibrancy. “We’d be here, very poor, but those youth wouldn’t leave me. I used to promise them that one day we’d be well off. I wouldn’t just tell them, but put those words to music, and we would be singing and became so powerful. ... The music was saying, ‘Never, never give up.’”

That history of political suppression is equally significant for Mr. Sizomu, who says he knew the day General Amin’s rule ended that he would become a rabbi.

“He was overthrown on Passover, on which Jewish people celebrate freedom from Egypt. I saw that with my eyes, that we were redeemed from the regime of Idi Amin, who had forbidden Judaism,” he says. “I wanted to be religious.”

His father and grandfather had served as spiritual leaders of the Abayudaya before him. The rabbi was ordained by the Conservative Jewish movement in the United States in 2008, and then he spent a year studying in Israel.

The Abayudaya’s relationship with Israel has been difficult – Israel’s Ministry of the Interior does not recognize the Abayudaya’s members as Jews, which means they are denied the right to immigrate. But a steady stream of international guests has flowed in and out of the Mbale hills, funding a permanent synagogue where the Abayudaya now pray, plus other construction. The community runs a health clinic and two schools where children can learn Hebrew.

Sharing food and customs 

Since Friday night also marked the beginning of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, Mr. Sizomu invited anyone who didn’t have enough to eat to share a meal at his home and any visitor who didn’t have a bed to sleep there.

Sophie Neiman

Rabbi Gershom Sizomu's table is laid with challah, candles, and wine for Shabbat and Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.

Breaking bread together is particularly important for the Abayudaya. Biblical descriptions of famine resonate strongly on their hillside farms, where sparse rainfall caused many crops to wither this year.

Gathered around the rabbi’s table, members of the Abayudaya tore into the challah Ms. Naisi had prepared and passed around cups of sweet wine, filling their plates with matooke and cuts of kosher beef, the meat a special privilege in honor of the occasion.

It is not easy to provide food respecting Jewish law, says Ms. Naisi. “When you are in America you get access to kosher shops, in Israel … everything is there,” she says. “But here you have to pay attention.”

On Saturday morning more than two hundred people crowded into the synagogue, pulling up plastic chairs when there was no more room on the benches. Most were dressed in white, symbolizing purity; the men wore hand-knitted kippot, or head coverings, emblazoned with Stars of David. Children played between the rows of seats, as blessings and Torah readings stretched on for four hours.

Afterward, there was more food to share, eaten under the shade of spreading trees. 

This generosity extends to people of other faiths who live on the Mbale slopes.

“Outside this gate, not all the houses have Jewish families. One house is Jewish, another is Muslim, Christian. We are all the same but different,” says Susan Nambozo, pointing across the fence that encloses the synagogue.

The gate is often left open so that anyone who needs to fetch water from the Abayudaya borehole can come and take it.

The next generation

The community itself is maintaining its ranks, sometimes attracting new members; a group of converts from northern Uganda has joined. Another group of Jews lives in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city. 

Shmuel Mugisha serves as leader of the Kampala contingent of Abayudaya, encouraging them to keep Shabbat and honor old customs in a country where they are a small and often poor minority.

“We face the challenge of assimilation,” he says.

For Mr. Sizomu, who knows firsthand the harassment his community has suffered in the past, Rosh Hashana symbolizes the hope that future generations will carry on Jewish traditions. 

“In Judaism, we have a saying: L’dor V’dor – from one generation to the other,” he says. “There is nothing that can make a parent like me happier than seeing my children and grandchildren take on what I took on from my parents and my grandparents.”

AP

From left, Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz walk from a Qatar Airways flight that brought them from Iran to Qatar, Sept. 18.. Five prisoners sought by the U.S. in a swap with Iran were freed Monday and headed home as part of a deal that saw nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets unfrozen.

The world needed this. On Monday, just as 193 nations were convening for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the United States and Iran displayed a prime example of trust-building. The two countries, whose officials rarely talk to each other, completed a prisoner swap deal and a transfer of about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue for Tehran to use on humanitarian goods.

Whether the agreement proves wise for peace remains to be seen. Yet it was wise for Iran and the U.S. to figure out – through facilitators such as Oman and Qatar – how to negotiate in good faith, relying on traits of authenticity and transparency, and a concern for each other’s interests. They focused on what unites them.

In a world now as polarized as it was during the Cold War, such bridge-building can inspire more examples of cooperation anchored on trust. In fact, the theme of the U.N. General Assembly’s 78th session is “rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity.” Without a reversal of a worldwide loss of trust in institutions, the international community may be unable to do much on climate change, poverty, conflicts, or pandemics.

“The present period of polycrisis has provided multiple tests for the concept of global trust,” observed the Edelman Trust Institute last year. “History suggests that some of the most important steps forward in global cooperation came even at moments when trust was difficult to come by, and that these joint actions helped rebuild trust.”

Edelman issues a yearly global survey of trust in institutions. In a sign of rising distrust, only one leader of the five permanent member states on the U.N. Security Council will be in New York for the General Assembly meeting: President Joe Biden speaks on Tuesday.

The U.N. is a mirror of the world, and its member states are “struggling with declining trust,” Csaba Kőrösi, the outgoing president of the General Assembly, told UN News last year. “It will be very difficult to look for ideological solutions.”

During his one-year term in office which ended in early September, Mr. Kőrösi regularly hosted “fireside chats” between diplomats and private experts, such as climate scientists, to allow fresh ideas to blossom and build up trust. The meetings were “very relaxed, very informal.” 

“Responding to humanity’s most pressing challenges demands that we work together, and that we reinvigorate inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism,” the former Hungarian diplomat told the U.N. in July.

If Iran and the U.S. can do it – even if ever so briefly and for limited results – perhaps other countries will follow.