Castro can't make it, but
Cuban Jews mark 100 years on islands
Larry Luxner. Jewish
News Weekly of Northern California,
December 8, 2006.
Miami | As the world focuses its attention
on Cuba's ailing President Fidel Castro
- who was too sick to attend his own 80th
birthday bash in Havana - Cuba's Jews are
enjoying a rare celebration of their own.
For the next month, the island's tiny Jewish
community will mark its 100th anniversary
with religious services, music, dancing,
parties and speeches.
The festivities began Nov. 30 with a cultural
gala at Havana's National Fine Arts Museum.
On Dec. 1, local historian Maritza Corrales
presented her book, "The Chosen Island:
Jews in Cuba," at the biblically themed
Hotel Raquel in the capital city's historic
colonial quarter.
Throughout December, the Emuna dance company
will perform contemporary Jewish folk dances
in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara,
while in Santiago de Cuba, the works of
Jewish artists will be exhibited at Congregacion
Hatikva. The leader of that synagogue, Eugenia
Farin Levy, also will present her book,
"History of Cuba's Jewish Community
in Maps."
Some 1,500 Jews live in Cuba, more than
85 percent of them in Havana, according
to Adela Dworin, president of Havana's largest
synagogue, the Patronato.
Sources in Miami, however, put the actual
number of Jews in Cuba at 600 to 800. They
point out that nearly 700 Cuban Jews have
left for Israel in the past 10 years, with
nearly half of them eventually relocating
to South Florida.
Dworin assumed leadership of the Jewish
community in March after its longtime president,
80-year-old Jose Miller, died of a heart
attack. Miller's grandson, William Miller,
30, is the community's vice-president.
"For us it's very sad not to have
Dr. Miller with us because this celebration
was his idea," Dworin said by telephone
from Havana. "The actual centenary
of the community was in August, but we had
to postpone it after he died."
Jews have been living in Cuba off and on
for centuries, but it wasn't until 1906
that 11 American Jews living on the island
established a Reform synagogue, the United
Hebrew Congregation, with services in English.
They also consecrated a cemetery in Guanabacoa,
on the outskirts of Havana, officially marking
the start of institutionalized Jewish life
in Cuba.
By 1959 Cuba had an estimated 15,000 Jews,
for the most part wealthy merchants with
shoe factories, department stores and mansions.
Following Castro's sweeping confiscation
of private property, most of the Jews fled
to South Florida, with smaller numbers immigrating
to Israel and various Latin American countries.
Havana currently has three functioning
synagogues, while Camaguey and Santiago
de Cuba have one each. In addition, much
smaller Jewish communities hold regular
Shabbat services at private homes in the
provincial capitals of Cienfuegos, Sancti
Spiritus and Guantanamo.
Dworin said several prominent rabbis are
in Cuba for the festivities, including Chile's
Samuel Szteinhandler and Arthur Schneier,
founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation.
The island-wide event marking 100 years
of organized Jewish life in Cuba was supposed
to include a visit to the Patronato by Fidel
Castro himself. But that had to be canceled
when the bearded leader was rushed to a
hospital in late July for emergency surgery
of an undisclosed nature. The illness forced
Castro to turn power over to his brother
Raul, 75, for the first time since 1959.
By coincidence, the Jewish festivities
overlap the communist regime's official
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of
Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces. Yet Castro
didn't even make it to a military parade
in his honor, telling supporters in a statement
read on government-run TV, "It is with
great sorrow that I bid you farewell for
not being able to personally thank you and
embrace every one of you."
Castro has not been seen in public since
his surgery. Foreign experts and many Cubans
are convinced he has terminal cancer.
"I don't believe this is a moment
for celebration," said Moises Asis,
an anti-Castro exile living in Miami. "What's
there to celebrate?"
Asis taught Hebrew and led the B'nai B'rith
Havana chapter before fleeing Cuba in 1992
with his wife and daughter. He said that
Jews, like the rest of Cuba's 11.2 million
inhabitants, enjoy no basic political or
economic freedoms.
"Everything is about money,"
he said. "Cuba may have the label of
a communist country, but the reality is
one of brutal capitalism. Workers are exploited
more by the Castro regime today than they
were in England in the 19th century."
Yet Asis acknowledged that the regime has
never been anti-Semitic, despite Castro's
vicious criticism of Israel and historic
closeness with Palestinian terrorist groups.
And private Israeli companies have invested
heavily in Cuban citrus and real-estate
ventures.
"The discrimination in Cuba is not
specifically against Jews but against all
religions including Jews," Asis said.
"It's true we had some privileges,
but the Jewish community was so small and
so weak that it would have been very easy
for the government to destroy that community
if it wanted. When it comes to treatment
of Jews, Cuba was one of the most tolerant
countries in the communist world."
The Castro regime has never stopped U.S.
or Canadian Jewish organizations from delivering
wheelchairs, school supplies and kosher
food to the local Jewish community.
Robert Safran, medical director of the
Cuba-America Jewish Mission in Berkeley,
has been to the island 11 times. His wife,
June - who is now on her 25th trip to Cuba
- directs the mission, which has a specific
license from the U.S. Treasury Department
to provide humanitarian assistance to Cuba.
Cuba experts speculate that U.S. policy
toward the island might change now that
the Democrats control Congress. Regulations
regarding humanitarian and possibly even
leisure travel to Cuba could soon be relaxed.
Safran says he isn't sure what might happen.
"A lot of American groups are going
to Cuba to help the Jews, but it probably
doesn't make any difference politically,"
he said. "It isn't going to change
the policy of our country, and it isn't
going to change policies in Cuba. Most of
the people I know who are active in these
efforts stay away from politics as much
as possible.''
|