Published Thursday, November 16, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Exiled twice -- authors reveal Cuban Jews' dual sense of alienation
By Fabiola Santiago. fsantiago@herald.com.
Café con leche . . . with a toasted bagel -- that's how Betty
Heisler-Samuels describes her Cuban-Jewish lifestyle in South Florida.
"The Cuban Jews are very different from American Jews,'' says
Heisler-Samuels, author of The Last Minyan in Havana
amazon.com
(Chutzpah, $14.95), one of two books about Cuban-Jewish identity to be featured
this weekend at the Miami Book Fair International. "We will never be the
same because we come from a background of different experiences. The fact that
we were allowed to come into Cuba, that we were welcomed and we got to enjoy
that country, left an imprint that we will carry with us forever.''
Cuban Jews are part of a larger, national community of Latin American Jews
living a second exile -- and forging a dual cultural identity in the United
States as Hispanics and as Jews.
Strict U.S. immigration policies established in the 1920s forced thousands
of Jewish refugees to settle in Latin America and the Caribbean. The thriving
Cuban-American Jewish community -- with its own synagogues, cultural clubs and
social institutions in Miami Beach -- sprung from the mass exodus of most of the
15,000 Jews in the island who fled after the Communist regime confiscated their
businesses.
In 1960s South Florida, the Cuban Jews were not readily welcomed by the
American Jewish community, says Caroline Bettinger-López, author of
Cuban-Jewish Journeys: Searching for Identity, Home, and History in Miami
(University of Tennessee, $40), a vast ethnographic study.
Except for notable exceptions like Temple Menorah, which offered the
refugees free membership and services, "the Jewish community reacted with
coldness and indifference to them,'' Bettinger-López says.
"When Cuban Jews first came to Miami, they came as exiles like all
Cuban refugees. It was a political identity -- exile from communism. They turned
that into a religious identity very quickly, based on their community model in
Cuba, and especially in Havana, where there was a strong Jewish community,''
Bettinger-López said.
The model: While they interacted with Cuban society, they had a vibrant
community of their own in the island. When Cuban Jews realized their stay in the
United States was not temporary, they began to build a similar community.
"They wanted to forge bonds with the Jewish community and went over to
Miami Beach,'' Bettinger-López said.
But the local Jewish community snubbed them for several reasons, she said: "There
was a general perception that Cuban exiles were wealthy and not in need of
help,'' despite the fact that most refugees came penniless and with few
belongings. And there was "the myth'' that the refugees were being taken
care of by the U.S. government through the Cuban refugee program.
But most significantly, Bettinger-López says, "there was a large
anti-Cuban mentality, especially from the Ashkenazi, the Jews of Eastern
European roots.''
The Sephardic, of Mediterranean and Spanish roots, had "more of a
cultural connection with Latino culture. It's an arguable point, but they were
expelled from Spain and maintained a similar culture to the Cuban culture,'' she
says.
That initial relationship, or lack of it, often influences how
Cuban-American Jewish relations play out today.
Bettinger-López points to the 1996 installation ceremony of the first
Cuban president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Miami as an example of
worlds at odds.
It was a night of jubilation and pride. The room was packed with Cuban Jews
who broke into thunderous applause and cheers as Isaac Zelcer, an Ashkenazi
Cuban Jew, became the first Latino to hold the position. He had been nominated
by an organization dominated by American Jews to a position traditionally held
by a member of the city's established American Jewish community -- and many saw
it as "a true integration of Latino and American Jews.''
But as soon as Zelcer ended his speech, and more applause died down, the
room began to empty even while the rest of the program was still going on. Some
of the Cuban Jews had rushed off to end their celebration at Versailles
Restaurant on the outskirts of Little Havana, the quintessential Cuban hangout.
"The night was both a powerful symbol of how Cuban Jews have become
part of the larger U.S. Jewish community and of the still insular nature of
their community, which is often criticized as only caring about their own,''
Bettinger-López said. "It did look on the face of it to be very
rude, but I did understand what they were doing. It illustrated the point that
Cuban Jews are inward-focused, and in many respects this is largely based on
history. They were forced to become inwardly focused when they tried to
integrate with the Miami Jewish community and they were slapped in the face.''
Bettinger-López, who grew up Jewish in Pinecrest unaware of the Cuban
Jewish community (the López is her Irish-Puerto Rican husband's surname),
embarked on the research project as part of her anthropology course work at the
University of Michigan, where one of her professors was Ruth Behar, a respected
Cuban-Jewish anthropologist.
In a foreword she wrote for Cuban Journeys, Behar says Bettinger-López
brings "fresh eyes, caring eyes, and critical eyes to realities that are
close to home and yet foreign.''
Among the many Cuban Jews Bettinger-López interviewed was
Heisler-Samuels, whose fictionalized family story mirrors the stories of many
Cuban Jews.
The Last Minyan, a self-published autobiographical novel, chronicles the
life of a Jewish immigrant who leaves Poland before World War II for a better
life in Havana. As in the story of Heisler-Samuels' father, Haim Tuchman's life
unravels against the backdrop of 1940s and '50s Havana, where Hollywood stars
frolicked and the glamorous store El Encanto lived up to its name with the
latest fashions from Paris and Milan.
"Jews who came to Cuba like my parents did in the late 1930s were
caught between two major world events -- the rise of Nazism in Europe, which
they were escaping, and later on, after they had already established themselves
in their new country, the onset of communism,'' Heisler-Samuels says. "These
were people who left Europe in their 20s, found a haven in Cuba, and after
living out their lives, became immigrants for the second time in their 50s.''
For some like Heisler-Samuels, the permanence of exile in the United States
hasn't kept the Jewish-Latino identity from further evolving.
"I have four generations in my family and each one was born in a
different country,'' Heisler-Samuels says. "My parents were born in Europe.
I was born in Cuba. My daughter and son were born in the United States, and my
grandchildren were born in Colombia. Talk about the wandering Jew.''
Two groups of Cubans repatriated
The U.S. Coast Guard repatriated 11 Cuban migrants from two separate groups
to Bahia de Cabanas, Cuba, on Wednesday morning.
The first group of Cubans was found six miles east of Soldier Key. Another
group of seven was intercepted 19 miles off Matanzas, Cuba, on Wednesday.
The migrants received food, water and necessary medical attention. INS
representatives interviewed both groups and determined that 11 of the 13 should
be repatriated. Two migrants were transferred to the U.S. Naval Base in
Guantanamo Bay to be interviewed further and determine if they are eligible for
asylum, the Coast Guard said.
Cuban envoy addresses Illinois legislature
Cuba's representative representative in the United States on Wednesday
addressed a joint session of the Illinois Legislature, taking aim at the U.S.
trade embargo. Fernando Remírez, head of Cuba's U.S. Interests Section,
called the embargo "outdated and out of touch. . . . The world has
changed.''
Remírez's office said it knows of no other time that Cuba's
representative has addressed a state legislature. It came a year after Gov.
George Ryan led a delegation of Illinois politicians and businesspeople to Cuba.
"The day in which Illinois companies and farmers can make business with
Cuba will be the day that both will mutually benefit from each other,'' Remírez
said.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald
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