Cuban Jews On Castro Vigil
Larry Luxner. JTA Wire
Service. Jewish
Times, August 4, 2006.
Miami - Cuban Jews on both sides of the
Florida Straits are reacting with emotions
ranging from joy to sadness to unbridled
patriotism following the announcement that
Fidel Castro -- for the first time in 47
years -- is no longer president of Cuba.
An official statement read last week on
Cuban TV said Castro, who turns 80 in two
weeks, had "temporarily" ceded
power to his younger brother, Raul, in the
wake of surgery for severe gastrointestinal
bleeding. A later statement issued in Havana
described his condition as stable.
It's unclear whether Cuba's Communist-run
news outlets are telling the truth. In the
streets of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood,
conspiracy theories run rampant, with some
observers saying that for all they know
Fidel could be lying in a coma, or already
could be dead.
"I would like to say Kaddish for him
and his henchmen as soon as possible,"
quipped Moises Asis, a former leader of
Havana's Jewish community who fled the island
in 1992, eventually settling in Miami.
"Most Cuban Jews here feel the same
way I do, but in Cuba they're not free to
express their beliefs," Asis said.
"When Fidel dies, they'll cry for him
the same way Soviet Jews cried for Stalin
when he died, and the same way Jews in Egypt
cried when Nasser died." Jaime Suchlicki,
director of the University of Miami's Institute
for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, says
the long-awaited succession is already under
way.
"The process of building up Raul's
personality cult has been taking place for
years," said Suchlicki, a Jewish academic
who left Havana in 1960. "I think what
has happened is irreversible. I don't think
Fidel will ever come back. He's already
passed the baton to his brother Raul."
But Suchlicki doesn't expect Cuba to open
up under the younger Castro, who is 75.
"I don't think Raul can risk any policy
initiatives without altering the balance
of forces that exist in Cuba," he said.
"If he makes overtures to the United
States or opens up the economy, some people
will want more, others will want less. Anything
he does can alter the balance that has been
maintained for years."
An estimated 500 to 800 Jews live in Cuba,
an island of 11.2 million people that has
been ruled by Fidel Castro and his Communist
Party since January 1959.
The number of Jews was as high as 1,500
in the mid-1990s, but nearly half are believed
to have immigrated to Israel over the past
decade.
Cuba has five synagogues: three in Havana,
one in the central provincial capital of
Camaguey and one in the eastern city of
Santiago de Cuba.
Jews enjoy relative freedom of religion
in Cuba, despite the regime's hostile position
toward Israel.
Castro broke diplomatic relations with
Israel in 1974, following the Yom Kippur
War, and recently angrily condemned the
"Israeli genocide against innocent
civilians" in Lebanon, without mentioning
a word about the Hezbollah attack on Israel
that precipitated Israel's response.
Isaac Russo, president of Havana's local
B'nai B'rith chapter, couldn't be reached
for comment. But Stanley Cohen, international
chairman of the Pittsburgh-based B'nai B'rith
Cuba Jewish Relief Project, said he spoke
with Russo by phone and that the Jewish
leader assured him there wouldn't be any
major changes as long as Fidel is alive.
Cuba's Office of Religious Affairs has
assured Russo that there won't be any problems,
Cohen said.
Enrique Oltuski, a hard-line Communist
who fought with Che Guevara in the 1950s
against the Batista dictatorship, is Cuba's
vice minister of fisheries and one of the
highest-ranking Jews in the Castro regime.
He insists everything is normal.
"We revolutionary Cubans feel very
deep in our hearts the news about Fidel's
illness," Oltuski, 75, said by phone
from Havana. "We feel sure that he'll
be back soon, and in the meantime, Raul
Castro will take over the government. We
have great confidence in Raul. Everything
will keep on going."
The United Nations voted 179-4 last year
to condemn Washington's four-decade-old
embargo of Cuba. Only the United States,
Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands voted
against the resolution; Micronesia abstained.
Despite their government's public hostility
toward Havana, private Israeli companies
have invested heavily in Cuban agriculture
and real estate ventures, and former Mossad
spy chief Rafi Eitan -- now a member of
the Israeli Cabinet -- recently announced
that Fidel Castro would light a menorah
at a public Chanukah service in Havana this
year for the first time in Cuban history.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency.
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