Fidel and the Jews
KAPLAN, DANA EVAN
Fidel and the Jews DANA EVAN KAPLAN Anti-Israel but not anti-Semitic, the controversial dictator gives the Cuban Jewish community room to grow. Daniel Esquinazi lives on a narrow street in...
...The buildings too, are rotting, their Caribbean pinks and blues faded, and some are leaning on wooden braces...
...By 1965, as much as 90 percent of the Jewish community—includi n g all the rabbis, cantors, and mohels—had left the island...
...And there is a vibrant Jewish community in Cuba...
...Jose Levy Tur made this point .emphatically the very first time I met him...
...In the years following, Cuba lobbied against the Egyptian-Israeli peace process and lined up as one of the sponsors of the "Zionism is Racism" resolution adopted by the U.N...
...I am very grateful...
...W h i l e J e w s are not perceived as a threat, there are deeper reasons why Fidel may have adopted fairly benign policies towards them...
...To seal their faith, Marlen and about 50 other converts immersed themselves in the sea off Tarara, a beach east of Havana, in an official mikvah...
...Other smaller Christian groups, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, who refused to participate in government programs, were also persecuted...
...The restaurant is kosher style and serves chicken soup with matzo balls, gefilte fish, Israeli salad, cheese blintzes and Hungarian goulash...
...So I wasn't completely taken by surprise when I met Fune outside of the Patronato one Shabbat morning...
...The Jews who remained were hopeful that the new government would stop after expropriating and redistributing large tracts of land owned by U.S...
...Nevertheless, by the late 1980s, Cuban-Israeli relations were warming up again...
...Fidel, wearing his usual army fatigues, received a warm welcome...
...Before we head back down the steep wooden stairs, I hand him a twenty-dollar bill...
...For many years, the Jewish community was very quiet...
...Wherever my grandfather is, I think he should be happy for what I am doing...
...Israel's leftist Zionist party...
...The plan is to place plaques in front of the houses of prominent Jews who once lived there—including the late Communist Party leader Fabio Grobart...
...A few consider him a "court J e w " who keeps Cuban Jews in line so that the community gets no trouble from above...
...Throughout the 1990s, connections between the two countries continued to grow...
...Esquinazi— retired dockworker, tango lover, and Sephardic Jew—greets us at the door...
...Even these middle class Jews are poor by our standards...
...When Fidel, imprisoned, was granted amnesty, he headed to Mexico to organize a guerilla war against Batista...
...He on occasion implemented policies at odds with Moscow's and he manipulated Cold War politics to his country's advantage...
...Jews come from all over the world—be it on mercy missions to deliver prescription drugs or bike trips though the peaceful Cuban countryside...
...Watching his face I am reminded of something writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, himself a Cuban exile, once said: "In Cuba, dreams are the only private property...
...Fidel and the Jews DANA EVAN KAPLAN Anti-Israel but not anti-Semitic, the controversial dictator gives the Cuban Jewish community room to grow...
...T h e y adapted what is known as a "Cuban minyan," that is, seven men with three Torah scrolls as stand-ins...
...The hotel tries to hire as many Cuban Jews as possible but most know little or nothing about Jewish cooking...
...Though most Cubans aren't members, this change heralded a full-fledged religious renaissance: people understood immediately that if a Parry member wouldn't be penalized for being religious or being associated with a religious group, then no one else would be either...
...Is the Jewish renaissance truly spiritual or just a way for Cuban Jews to get ahead...
...Opposing Israel allowed Fidel to aspire to the leadership of non-aligned nations...
...Before his death, the late Robert M. Levine, author of the main reference work on the Jews of Cuba, Tropical Diaspora, also doubted that the renaissance had an authentic religious basis...
...On the other hand, nightmares are all nationalized...
...Whether or not it's true, Fidel has told a number of people over the years that he may be descended from Conversos...
...The J D C launched a recovery program for the community, dispatching a rabbi from Mexico, a doctor J from the U.S., and a | community development worker from Argentina...
...Or at least part Jewish, buried in his past...
...Some, like Esquinazi, don't ask but are glad to accept...
...Cuban J ew Luis Szklarz, a retired accountant who worked for the Castro government for many years, revealed to me his concerns by handing me a recent issue of Orbe, a new weekly newspaper...
...It has an aura that attracts Americans because it is a forbidden country...
...She says that Fidel himself became "ferociously, if theatrically, anti-Israel," although she adds that "in truth, both his earlier lack of anti-Jewish feeling and his subsequent anti-Israel postures probably reflect only how little ideological, religious, or even politically committed feeling he had about anything, unless or until it suited his own power purposes...
...Had Cuba followed the Soviet lead in being hostile to Jews, it would have appeared as if Castro were mimicking Russian policy, says Boston University sociology professor Susan Eckstein, author of Back From the Future: Under Castro...
...Now Marlen leads services on Friday nights...
...The American Jewish community uses a visit to Cuba as an excuse to do a junket," he complains...
...In 1988, an official delegation from Cuba visited Israel to study irrigation methods...
...It feels incredibly rewarding—as a child of Holocaust survivors and as an American Jew—to be able to go to a place where Jews were really cut off from us for so many years," says W i l l Recant who coordinates the American Jewish J o i n t Distribution Committee's efforts in Cuba...
...It was Dworin who invited Fidel to celebrate Hanukkah at the Patronato on "In 2000 some years, you have preserved your culture, identity, religion, tradition, I'm trying to remember if any other culture has accomplished this...
...A bed sits in the middle of the room and he gestures for us to sit in some old chairs that are scattered around it...
...I had read a quote by Tony Fune, a rare outspoken Cuban Jew, saying that the freedom to practice the religion he never abandoned couldn't compensate for the lack of milk and meat for his daughters and the dearth of basic liberties...
...At times, the Havana Jewish community hosts one mission after another...
...Even today the entrance designed by pre-revohitionary Jewish leaders is imposing, featuring a huge arch, and a grand staircase topped with metal doors engraved with menorahs and the lions of Jndah...
...This disturbs Suchlicki...
...There are really only 600 or 800 Jews in the whole c o u n t r y . . . t h e rest have converted to Among the Jewish "heroes" of the Cuban Revolution are Fabio Grobart, Israel Behar Duenas, Jose Altschuler, Haydee Tamara Burke, Enrique Oltuski, Archie Ratlow, Marcus Epstein and Julio Novomodi...
...Some people earn as little as 100 pesos per month, and many senior citizens receive pensions that are even lower...
...The new leaders portrayed themselves as reformers who would redress the injustices and corruption of the Batista regime...
...Many enroll for the Introduction to Judaism class, and Introductory Hebrew is also very popular...
...In those days Old Havana was an immigrant beacon, much like New York's Lower East Side, and home to large, vibrant Sephardic and Ashkenazi J e w i s h communities, Today it is home to the poor, among them several hundred aged Jews like Esquinazi who doggedl y held onto their religion during decades of official disfavor...
...The Party's leader, Eduardo Chivas, was Cuba's strongest advocate for the 1948 U.N...
...The Patronato is just for American Jews," he scoffs...
...It's wonderful to be able to be with them, to be able to bring solidarity, to show that we really are one...
...Salaries and pensions are modest...
...Still, they were barred from joining Havana's exclusive clubs, leading them to create their own institutions— among diem the Jewish beach club, Casino Deportivo, today occupied by the Cuban equivalent of the FBI...
...T h e stained glass windows have Jewish themes and contemporary paintings by Cuban Jewish artist Jose Luis Farinas are displayed throughout...
...For years I felt Jewish, but I felt sad," she recently told a reporter from The Orlando Sentinel Tribune...
...Since then Behar, a round-faced woman with short auburn hair, has expanded the pharmacy, a crucial service for the community since government farmadas are poorly stocked...
...government...
...Without leaders, without numbers, religious J e w s struggled to maintain their traditions and their synagogues...
...Leal plans to create a Jewish square on Acosta Street where Adath Israel is located...
...I try to follow the footprints of my ancestors...
...But alone here with us, he doesn't want to talk about religion—or politics...
...In 1994, Israel's chief Ashkenazic Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau paid a visit to Cuba and was cordially received by Fidel himself...
...December 20, 1998, a still much-talkedabout event...
...He wants to be a rabbi...
...Fune, considered a "second tier" Cuban dissident, has been tolerated so far and wasn't among those apprehended in the March 2003 crackdown in which 75 dissidents were arrested—none of them Jewish...
...T h e y also distribute the highly-subsidized or free food supplies...
...It's about the power of the individual to change his or her life through connection with the divine, God, and in this case, a historic Jewish community...
...That makes us great...
...Onix Casas Szocherman, a slender young woman with two young children in tow, whispers glowingly: "I came here today for the milk...
...Fidel seemed genuinely puzzled, according to Rice...
...Meals after services are also a draw: All three of Havana's remaining synagogues feed their congregants...
...He knows how to name the colors and to say mother, father and brother in Hebrew...
...had to vote whether to condemn Cuba's human rights record...
...What I am most proud of in my children is that they are just not coming to the synagogue to please me but that they feel their own personal devotion to their r e l i g i o n , " explains David, who is overjoyed that his children have learned Hebrew songs...
...Many Jews lived here when d i e y first came in die 1920s...
...T h e y come to use computers in a Technology Center established by ORT, the New York-based organization that establishes Jewish education and training programs...
...Not that Cubans are starving...
...There he met Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the legendary doctor who joined in the Cuban cause and returned with him to Cuba to fight a guerilla war from their base in the Sierra Maestra Mountains...
...Cubans also come to the Patronato for adult education programs...
...Although there are no hard numbers, t o u r i sm in Cuba is substantial...
...Government propaganda became anti-Zionist and Cuban foreign policy belligerently anti- Israel...
...Most public spaces [in Cuba] are controlled by the state, and the synagogues and churches— you could say, temples—offer an alternative space where people can go and hear a different discourse of power, very different from the state discourse...
...And it became a way for Cuba's leader to take a stand against yanqui imperialism...
...Any Jews going to synagogue are connecting with a community outside of Cuba, an international J e w i s h community that is, at the moment, very interested in them...
...When David Prinstein started attending synagogue at the Patronato in the late 1980s, his fiancee, lawyer Marlen Fernandez Borroto, went with him...
...B'nai Brith is a way of identifying without repudiating my secular humanist values...
...Leal's company, Puerto Carenas, recendy completed the renovation of the vast first floor sanctuary of the Patronato, paid for with a $250,000 grant from an American Foundation and donations from seven wealthy American-Cuban Jewish families...
...Leftists sympathized with the Jews as victims of fascism and identified with the S t a t e of Israel as a socialist country...
...He was also handing out leaflets calling for democracy in Cuba...
...I don't know if that was because of the weight or because of the emotion...
...Leftists were the ones who supported the State of Israel at this time and rightists opposed it...
...As Cuba's Jewish communities came back to life, Prinstein discovered how much J u d a i sm meant to him...
...Several other people have confirmed this account, including Dr...
...Louis to disembark in Cuba, forcing them to return to Europe and certain death...
...Still, Jews feared that the anti-Jewish policies that had been adopted by other communist governments would be imposed...
...Do they view h im as a highlycharismatic despot who commandeered their country, one which according to the 2004 report of the U.N...
...For example, despite strict rationing of food—especially meat—due to shortages, Jews in Cuba were granted an additional allotment of kosher meat...
...After his talk, Dworin recalls that Fidel sat down next to her...
...The paper had published a large, incendiary headline at the top of its front page article about the assassination of Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas...
...The person distributing medicine is Rosa Behar, M.D., a no-nonsense, hardworking practicing gastroenterologist...
...Batista fled on New Year's Day 1959...
...Some say that ties were never completely severed between Cuba and the Jewish State...
...M y husband and children and I have all found tremendous comfort in Patronato, and my children in particular have thrived, being able to take computer classes, cultural activities and all types of special programs here...
...There is, however, an egregious historical blot on the Cuban record: In 1939, the government of President Federico Laredo Bru refused to allow the refugee passengers of the cruise liner St...
...Although the menu avoids blatantly non-kosher dishes, the restaurant is not kosher, says general manager Jose Manuel Quesada...
...Some say Fidel was a "secret communist" when he took over, others that he was improvising and forced to turn to communism— and eventually to the Soviet Union—because his overtures were rejected by the Eisenhower administration...
...Ruth Behar, an anthropology professor at the University of Michigan and an expert on Cuban Judaism, looks at it this way...
...In a dramatic gesture, Fidel broke relations with the S t a t e of Israel just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, even sending a contingent of Cuban soldiers to participate in battles on t he S y r i an side...
...Still the food—especially the gefilte fish and Hungarian Goulash—is delicious...
...But this leftist party kept the connection going...
...Human Rights Commission ranks among the most egregious violators of human rights in the world...
...T h e years that followed were wracked with violence, corruption and repression...
...At the beginning, it was a tremendous surprise," recalls Prinstein, whose grandparents brought h im to services regularly as a child...
...I went, and I liked it...
...The first rime I sang, tears came out of my eyes...
...The government focused on trying—and later executing—Batista's cronies, which didn't have a major impact on the Jewish community, since no Jews had held high-ranking government or m i l i t a ry positions under the dictatorship...
...Elderly Jews make up about one third of Cuba's Jewish community, which numbers between 800 and 1,500, a fraction of the 12,000 to 15,500 Jews who once made their homes there...
...Read more about them on our website at momentmag.com Judaism so that they can get matzah and kosher meat," he says...
...But later Fune told me that he plans to immigrate to Israel soon...
...I was going to say he is an old man, but then I remembered that is the same age as Fidel," she explains laughing...
...Castro bent over backwards not to persecute the J e w s , " wrote Robert M. Levine...
...Will the Cuban military cede power over this gold mine of an island so close to the U.S...
...Others receive help from international Jewish organizations...
...I couldn't touch the Torah...
...We are a strong and well organized community," David says...
...As a result, up until the J u n e 1967 Six-Day War, Cuban foreign policy was generally sympathetic towards Israel...
...M i l l e r is often credited with revitalizing the Jewish community and is viewed as a leader who—like many J e w i s h leaders in the past—has made the best of a difficult political situation...
...What could move me more than a struggle of a people to preserve its traditions, its religion, and its culture...
...These two constituencies make diplomatic relations a necessity...
...These are my photos of Carlos Gardel," he explains in Spanish...
...It's often hard to know what Esquinazi and the many other Cuban Jews I have met during my several trips to this tropical island of 11 million people are really minking...
...Unlike Benny Rutkevich, David Prinstein—the son of Victor Prinstein Topp, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party— decided to attend services at the Patronato despite the lack of a rabbi and concern that the roof of the main sanctuary might cave in after years of neglect...
...Many stayed just long enough to establish residency on the Caribbean island in order to circumvent the U.S.'s East European quota...
...People "may come first for the chicken dinners and the medicine, but they stay because they feel at home," Adela Dworin has remarked...
...An Israeli firm called the BM Group invested in the Cuban citrus industry, inciting the anger of the U.S...
...Others disagree with Suchlicki and Levine...
...T h e men who come most often to services get more food...
...She and her daughter Rebecca founded the pharmacy in January of 1993, when two small boxes of medicines were sent to the Patronato from the U.S...
...By the end of the 1980s, community life was very poor for the Cuban Jews," says Dr...
...This was a very elegant restaurant comparable with any five star hotel in the world...
...After World War I, they were joined by Sephardic Jews fleeing the Ottoman Empire...
...Cuba's leader spoke extemporaneously for two hours, expounding on the s i m i l a r i t i e s between the Communist Party and the J e w i s h people, two of the "strongest parties" in the world...
...I am trying to impart to my children what my grandfather would have liked to impart to me," David continues...
...Synagogues in the provinces closed for lack of members...
...He reports that Fidel asked one of his aides, Antonio Nunez Jimenez to research his family genealogy and that Nunez found out that it was indeed possible that the Castro family might have been New Christians at the end of the 15th century...
...Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the smaller the religious group, the greater the help each member receives...
...The phone system plays the theme song from the film Scbindler's List when callers are placed on hold...
...Mapam, later renamed Meretz, kept up relations with Cuba and has sent representatives to Cuba to discuss forming stronger political ties...
...According to a 1998 memoir written by his daughter Alina Fernandez, Fidel's 86 A maternal grandfather, Francisco Ruz, was a Turkish J ew from Istanbul...
...Whatever his personal feelings [towards Jews and Judaism] may have been, Castro put them aside in his pursuit of the T h i r d World, particularly the Arabs," writes conservative journalist Georgie Ann Geyer in Guerilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro...
...He closed down the Zionist Union on Pardo Street in Havana...
...According to popular lore, Jews arrived in Cuba with Columbus...
...Now I can...
...Nevertheless, Lopez argues that the time is ripe to reopen official relations...
...Rutkevich, the son of Marcos Epstein, a prominent member of the Cuban Communist Party, had a change of heart in 1992 when a friend, another government employee, invited h im to attend a B'nai Brith meeting...
...Meanwhile, some Cuban Jews worry that the Intifada has ignited a new round of aggressive anti-Israel rhetoric in the media...
...The average salary in Cuba is about 260 pesos a month, which equals $10...
...Miller also nurtured ties with numerous other international Jewish organizations, all of whom were more than happy to assist the island's long isolated Jewish communities, be they in Havana or in the provinces...
...In response to the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and new economic deprivations, the Cuban government began to relax its attitude about religion...
...For example, in the early years Passover was portrayed as a celebration of the "national liberation" of the Jews...
...Childless Turkish Jews like Esquinazi and his wife—relatively uneducated, politically uninvolved and without careers or families to draw them elsewhere—found it difficult to leave: Cubans who wanted to escape communism and move to the U.S...
...Leal has taken the lead in renovating the boutique hotels that can now be found throughout old Havana...
...But he had always liked the war stories in the Hebrew Bible, particularly the story of Joshua knocking down the walls of Jericho...
...Still others found work with the American corporations that dominated the Cuban economy...
...The gift shop in the Art Noveau lobby is named Betzalel, written in letters that are shaped to look like Hebrew...
...The tiny Jewish population was never viewed as troublesome...
...The right wing Cuban government led by President Ramon Grau San Martin had voted in 1947 against the partition of Palestine...
...In Cuba, Jews weren't confronted by the deeply-ingrained, virulent anti-Semitism that they were accustomed to in Europe...
...But nothing of the sort happened...
...There were three synagogues in Havana [but] with very few activities and religious services with barely a minyan...
...T h e y are a powerful lure for Cubans who have some connection to Judaism, but they are not the only attraction...
...in May 1959...
...Fidel even asked the Israeli ambassador in Havana why Cuban Jews felt it necessary to emigrate since he had nothing whatsoever against them and wanted them to help develop the new socialist regime, recalls James Rice, executive director of HIAS from 1956-66...
...He was attracted to the idea of a small m i l i t a r y group— strong and intelligent—defeating a powerful enemy...
...In 2002, eleven years and four children after their civil marriage, Marlen formally converted, joining the hundreds of Cubans over the last decade who have become Jewish...
...Housing is free, although new housing is so nearly impossible to obtain that several generations of a family reside together in cramped quarters...
...Then he pulls aside a blanket revealing his treasure—a stack of 78 rpm tango records...
...Jose Miller Fredman, now the leader of Havana's main Jewish community center and synagogue—the Patronato de la Casa de la Comunidad Hebrea de Cuba in Vedado—and the man who has become the spokesperson for the entire Cuban J e w i s h community...
...There was nothing, no activity," Benny Rutkevich, a middleaged Jewish communist, told me as we relaxed in his comfortable Vedado apartment near the city's seafront boardwalk known as the Malecon...
...Others fell in love with the bustling, tropical country—then a tourist and gambling Mecca—and opened small shops in central Havana...
...they're no threat to the regime," Jaime Suchlicki told me...
...had to prove that they had been born in Cuba or had a child born in Cuba...
...I had a lot of friends there...
...Many times, I have remembered the Holocaust and the factors leading up to the Holocaust...
...True, the holidays were given a new twist by the regime in order to reinforce revolutionary values, which Castro saw as a parallel to the Jews' historic straggle for justice...
...It read "Israel: teirorismo de estado", which means "Israel: State Terrorism...
...Young people, who had been dispersed, started to come...
...Fidel personally escalated his rhetorical attacks on Zionism...
...You are a people who have suffered so much for so many centuries...
...In the centuries that followed, Jewish traders pursuing business in the New World set up outposts on the island, but it wasn't until 1898, after the Spanish-American War, that any Jews established a permanent presence: American Ashkenazi Jews born in Romania and Eastern Europe arrived to work at U.S.-owned plantations and businesses and founded the island's first synagogue, the United Hebrew Congregation— known as the American synagogue— in 1906...
...General Assembly in 1975...
...He knows 'Adon Olam,' 'Dayenu' and lAl Kol Eile' and also blesses the bread and wine...
...Why the dramatic change of heart...
...Some receive money from the thousands of J e w i sh tourists who visit Cuba each year from Canada, and Latin and Central America and—despite travel restrictions—the United States...
...In fact, the kosher butcher stand in Old Havana was the only private business in Cuba not nationalized...
...T h e Cuban government invited PLO leader Yasser Arafat to visit Cuba in 1974, and provided advanced training for the PLO and other Palestinian military organizations...
...Cuba's new openness also has economic underpinnings: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba opened its doors to foreign investment...
...We have built a place of harmony in a Havana neighborhood that respects the best traditions of the Jewish people, members of a community that live in Cuba together with citizens of other beliefs" says Eusebio Leal Spengler, the urbane historian of Havana and member of Cuba's Communist Party Central Committee...
...It also became a way for him to woo Arab countries into supporting Cuba when the U.N...
...We were very busy trying to build the revolution...
...W h e n die regime turned its attention to nationalizing businesses, so many Jews started to leave that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) set up offices in Miami and in the Caribbean...
...How are the Jews doing in Cuba...
...Some had two Jewish parents...
...Bernardo Benes, a Cuban- American lawyer who was the honorary legal advisor to the Patronato at the very beginning of the revolution, before he emigrated...
...The first time I held the Torah, my hands and feet were shaking...
...Jaime Suchlicki, a vocal critic of Fidel Castro and the director of the Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami is skeptical...
...He thanks me profusely...
...Fidel has tapped his brother, Raul, five years his junior at 72, to succeed him and continue on with current policies...
...Even Meyer Lansky and fellow Jewish gangsters from Miami made an appearance, lured by the lucrative casino and hotel industries...
...He has decimated the church, jailing outspoken leaders and infiltrating the church...
...According to writer Robert M. Levine, Fidel declared a three d ay mourning period when Israeli president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi died in 1963, an act which may have led A l g e r i a to withdraw an invitation for him to visit...
...I'm trying to remember if any other culture has accomplished this...
...As the president of the Centro Sefardi, located just four blocks from the Patronato, Levy is responsible for keepi n g the Sephardic community alive...
...People were complaining, because they were getting hungry...
...Dworin remembers that night vividly: "We waited for quite a while to see if he would actually come...
...Most Jews—like other Cubans—waited to see what would happen, although about 3,000 of the wealthiest, fearing nationalization, left almost immediately...
...Certainly he and other Patronato leaders like long-time librarian and historian Adela Dworin have worked hard to create a positive relationship with el Lider Maximo, as Fidel is often called...
...only the words of David Prinstein, the son of a communist leader, grandson of r e l i gious Jews, husband of a Jew, and father of four children being brought up in his family's religious tradition...
...After all, when Fidel—who turns 77 on August 13— came to power, he was immensely popular...
...What will happen to the Prinstein family and the rest of the island's J e w s when Fidel dies...
...The record player has been broken for years," he says enigmatically...
...Who stayed behind...
...Like many Cubans, Fidel sympathized with the Jews after the Holocaust...
...I think that there will always be Jews in Cuba...
...In a discussion in Havana 2003, Padre Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, who studied at the University of Havana in the 1940s, told me that Fidel's involvement in Zionist activities made sense in the context of the times...
...M y interpreter and I squeeze into the tiny space in which he has lived for 54 years, alone since his wife died...
...Last but not least, there was an exclusive group of Jewish communists—among them some of Fidel's closest cohorts—who had played major roles in the revolution or went on to hold important positions in the new government...
...Cuban Jews have been getting a lot of assistance precisely because there is an embargo and because Cuba remains a mystery," says anthropologist Ruth Behar...
...Three, all of them converts to Catholicism, sailed to the island with the explorer: Luis de Torres on the Santa Maria, Juan de Cabrera on La Pinta, and Rodrigo de Triana on La Nina...
...That has a c t u a l l y l ed a lot of J e w i sh Americans to travel to Cuba...
...Wrinkled and animated, Esquinazi's attired in a ratty shirt and formal pants that look like they were purchased 50 years ago, when he came to Cuba from Turkey...
...Fidel has a hatred of the power concentrated in the United States and therefore "he hates Israel, a political rather than social or cultural form of anti-Semitism," writes Jose Luis Llovio- Melendez, who served in the Cuban government until his 1981 defection, in Insider: My Hidden Life as a Revolutionary in Cuba...
...Together, old and new Jews met to study Torah and took turns leading services...
...One Cuban Catholic told me: "There are 250 priests for 11 million people and very few churches...
...W h o will take Fidel's place when he is gone...
...I asked him...
...It was a sympathetic audience since cautious synagogue lead- | ers had left possible troublemakers off the invitation list...
...Daniel Esquinazi lives on a narrow street in Old Havana that shows the wear of 45 years of communism: Potholes gape like deep wounds and discarded fruit gives off an overpowering stench despite the harbor breeze...
...He's afraid that if there is another round-up he might not be so lucky...
...A few hundred went to Israel and as many as 8,000 Cuban Jews settled in the United States, primarily in South Florida, New York and New Jersey...
...Adath Israel, Daniel Esquinazi's synagogue, has the most generous food distribution program, supported by an annual Passover contribution of $100,000 worth of goods from wealthy Panamanian Jew, Victor Arrak...
...Nevertheless, life was good for Cuban Jews—or at least not worse than it was for other Cubans—as increasing political unrest spread among Havana's students and poor in the 1940s and early 1950s...
...Jose M i l l e r Fredman turned to the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York for help...
...I know a little bit about Jewish history," he continued...
...There was a rupture in the diplomatic relationship between the states," says Arturo Lopez Levy, a research associate at the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East and an expert on Cuban-Israeli relations...
...Maurice Halperin, a Jewish professor who was accused by the American government of espionage and sought refuge in Cuba in the 1960s, writes that in 1960 Fidel told Ricardo Wolf (also known as Ricardo Lobo), Cuba's ambassador to Israel, that he had Jewish ancestors...
...So I told him: 'He is a young man.'" The pharmacy is in an old storage room on the second floor of the Patronato...
...Approximately half believed in Fidel's promises or were socialists...
...Instead he is anxious to show us the posters of a famous 1930s Latin American tango singer that are plastered all over the crumbling walls of his room...
...In Anne Louise Bardach's Cuban Confidential: Love and Vengenance in Miami and Havana, Armando Castro, who claims to be a distant cousin of Fidel, says that the name Castro was a common family name of Conversos— Jews who were forced to convert...
...There is a relatively large Cuban presence in Israel now," he says...
...David believes that Judaism in Cuba can now survive the passing of the old Jews—like Daniel Esquinazi, who kept the traditions alive for nearly five decades—as well as Fidel and his revolutionary generation...
...I served in the army for many years...
...Benes also says that Fidel told him: "I want Cuba to be a second I s r a e l . " Benes says he felt that Fidel wanted to do in Cuba what the Jews had done in Israel Despite Fidel's respect for Jews, Cuba has a g e n e r a l l y hostile relationship with Israel...
...What do they really think of Fidel Castro...
...Fidel Castro thinks he's Jewish," writer Tom Miller has said...
...I was very pleasandy surprised to find such a nice Jewish hotel in Havana," says Mexican J ew Doron Kodowski...
...Their low incomes are offset by free education and free health care...
...Born in Cuba, he immigrated to Miami in the early 1960s...
...I've seen Esquinazi on the bimah at Adath Israel, a nearby Ashkenazi synagogue, unselfconsciously chanting prayers to the Sephardic melodies he learned as a boy...
...This is a J e w i s h historical street," he explains...
...Then there were those Jews who were loath to leave behind family and friends...
...Women can purchase 45 pesos worth of goods regardless of how many times they attend services since they don't count in the minyan...
...T h e Intifada has slowed but not stopped this rapprochement...
...As a child, he told his audience, he rebelled against religious authority in the Catholic schools he attended and was bored by the religious instruction...
...Whatever his opinions are, it is clear that Esquinazi is a poor man living on a meager pension...
...No worse and no better than anyone else," he answered...
...At the Communists' fourth Party conference in 1991, the ban on Party members having a r e l i g i o us affiliation was lifted...
...Completed in 1953, the Patronato had been the crown jewel of the country's Ashkenazi Jews—a synagogue and prominent library rolled into a community center complete with theater, catering hall, and kosher restaurant...
...He also says that other families with the Castro surname in the Oriente—the easternmost province of Cuba where Fidel's father settled when he emigrated from Spain—are largely Jewish...
...During my visits to the island, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, I have observed that some Cuban Jews are embarrassed to take money from visitors while others aggressively demand it...
...I couldn't dance with it...
...others just one or the belief that their families had Jewish roots...
...Fidel was very supportive of the State of Israel...
...But perhaps die most intriguing reason is that Fidel himself may be descended from Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism in Spain...
...Prinstein, a solidly built man then in his 30s, prayed with other returning Jews in a small meeting room in the basement...
...This means that Jews and Protestants receive more help than the Catholics, and all religious Cubans receive help unavailable to the average Cuban who is secular...
...Or do they see him as a benevolent socialist who overthrew a corrupt regime in the hopes of building a Utopian society...
...Even today—after many exhausting years of economic hard times, political spies, and no freedom of the press— many Cubans privately express frustration with the government but still believe that Fidel is a good man...
...Located in Old Havana, the Hotel Raquel is a Cuban fantasy version of Jewish life.The top floor rooms have names like "Sinai" and "Gallilee...
...Many of the island's priests have been expelled over the years...
...In an October 12, 1979, speech at the U.N., Castro claimed that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian people, similar to t he "genocide that the Nazis once visited on the Jews...
...In 1952, General Fulgencio Batista canceled elections and seized power in order to prevent the left-of-center democratic nationalist party, the Ortodoxos, and a young lawyer named Fidel Castro from winning a seat in the House of Representatives...
...Whatever their personal feelings about the Revolution, most of the congregants appreciated his support of the Jewish community...
...Meals are prepared by a non- Jewish chef who has learned what he can from books and interviewing people...
...It's been renovated seven times...
...He asked me how old Dr...
...Starting in 1924, thousands of Jews came to Cuba on their way to the United States...
...At the same time that the Cuban government is mouthing pro- Arab sentiments, it's busily—and intelligently—working to market itself to American Jews, much to the chagrin of Castro-haters who see any tourism as a way to funnel much-coveted dollars to the Cuban government...
...Although it was never technically illegal to attend churches or synagogues in the years following the revolution, few Jews were bold enough to risk being categorized as subversives...
...There is also speculation that Fidel has Jewish roots on his mother's side...
...Because of this service, I was outside of my home a great deal...
...I do not see myself as religious, and I would not want to attend synagogue...
...There are no certain answers...
...We don't advertise that we are open to everyone because obviously we cannot serve the entire 11 million population of Cuba, but if a non Jewish person hears about us and comes in, we are happy to provide them with medicines," explains Behar, whose parents moved to Israel in the early 1960s...
...Male members who come at least 15 times a month are entided to buy 50 pesos worth of goods...
...In the late 1980s, Soviet support petered out and Cuba's standard of living took a nose dive...
...And I understand that is not right...
...We stop in front of one and climb several stories of treacherous stairs to a room added on to the top of a roof—known as a cuarteria...
...As he proudly shows me his private bathroom—a rarity for an Old Havana cuarteria—I can't help but wonder what he and other Jewish Cubans feel about living for 45 years in the same apartment filled with the crumbling pre-revolution furniture, unsure whether they should risk saying what is on their minds, and dependent on American dollars to increase their standard of living...
...Whatever their motivation for returning to synagogue, most Cuban Jews want to keep a low profile about the assistance they receive, although Protestants and Evangelical groups are experiencing simi l a r revivals spurred on by help from abroad...
...This is the land of question that leads to more questions...
...I understand we have no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to travel, no freedom to choose how we will educate our children," he had told a reporter for The Orlando Sentinel Tribune...
...There are very few [Jewish] dissidents...
...But will Fidel's death— or that of Raul's—spark a civil war...
...Cooking oil, tuna, one-pound bags of dried grains, canned tomatoes and matzoh meal are distributed at highly subsidized prices throughout the year...
...Their offspring have grown up in the Patronato...
...A plaque will also be placed at the former print shop of German Raigorodsld, the father of Moises, who became famous as the first Cuban martyr to die in the Spanish Civil war in 1936...
...Currently Puerto Carenas is renovating Adath Israel...
...It's a Tuesday, and five people are patiently waiting to present their prescription slips...
...But in order to live comfortably and be able to buy items only available in dollars, the average Cuban J e w supplements his or her income with gifts from relatives abroad...
...Most important, Fidel never applied the same kind of political pressure on the Jewish community that he did on the Roman Catholic Church, which was large and could potentially organize to overthrow him...
...He was walking back after praying at the Centro Sefaradi, and had stopped to say hello to friends...
...All five in Havana remained opened, two eventually mergi n g into others...
...partition that granted Israel statehood...
...And then at 6:30, he came in...
...Nothing was going on in the other provinces...
...They visit the Patronato and then they can say: 'I have helped Cuban Jews.'" Not everyone takes such a dim view of the visitors...
...David leads them on Saturday mornings...
...Had the Messiah himself walked in, they would not have been as surprised...
...And though there were few Jews left, the government-controlled media lavished attention on Jewish holidays and cultural events...
...David and Marlen then celebrated a Jewish wedding at the Patronato...
...The Patronato quickly became the heart of the Jewish renaissance...
...It didn't start out that way: During his university years in the late 1940s, Fidel was a youth leader in the Cuban People's Party, an organization with strong sympathies for the socialist ideals of Zionism...
...Even during the darkest years of the revolution, Fidel and those surrounding him displayed no signs of anti-Semitic sentiments...
...Those Jews who didn't have high positions or anything to lose—like Daniel Esquinazi—kept the traditions alive...
...The youngest one, who is four years old, has been able to sing in Hebrew since he was three...
...The drugs—everything from Advil to Zoloft—are delivered by visiting groups of doctors and tourists who load up their suitcases with samples and donated supplies...
...If anything, the government seemed to favor the Jews...
...Suchlicki is infuriated by the way money is flowing into Cuba despite economic sanctions, currently being tightened by the Bush administration at the behest of the influential Cuban-American community...
...In 2000 some years, you have preserved your culture, identity, religion, tradition...
...The majority of remaining Jews are professionals—doctors, accountants, dentists, scientists, computer workers— who live in suburbs like Vedado, pre- Revolutionary Havana's equivalent of New York's fashionable Upper West Side, or in tight-knit communities in the provinces such as Santiago de Cuba, Camaguey, Cienfuegos and Santa Clara...
...So I never visited the community...
...Shaped by the Cold War, Castro never became a complete pawn of Moscow...
...Fidel himself participated in numerous activities organized by a Zionist group called the Committee for a Hebrew Palestine...
...Miller was...
...It was a very depressing situation with a very uncertain future...
...She stayed because her husband wanted to stay...
...There were rumors early on that the revolutionaries would turn to communism...
Vol. 29 • August 2004 • No. 4
