On a mission to Cuba, with the JDC

By Susan Leach DeBlasio

Friday, 26 April 2013 02:28

Our community’s women discover Cuba’s vibrant Jewish life Our community’s women discover Cuba’s vibrant Jewish life Stacy Emanuel, Dov Ben-Shimon (JDC representative), Jill Goldstein and Susan Leach DeBlasio are at the home of famous Cuban artist José Fuster. /Cuba mission participantsPROVIDENCE – Amid Ché Guevera posters, 1950s-era Chevrolets and crumbling facades of architecturally magnificent buildings, hope, energy, vibrancy and synagogue life permeate Cuba’s Jewish community. Last week, 20 women from the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and Alliance staff member Trine Lustig returned from a provocative, inspiring and exhausting 5-day mission to Cuba organized through the Joint Distribution Committee.  We explored the programs funded and services provided by the JDC and met the members of the Jewish community that we impact directly with the dollars  we raise and funnel through the JDC. We celebrated the Cuban Jews’ successes and also bore witness to their critical needs. An island of 270 square miles, Cuba achieved independence from Spain in 1898 and became an independent government in 1902.  Good relations with the United States steadily deteriorated following the 1959 Revolution and Fidel Castro’s rise to power, until the U.S. imposed an embargo and severed diplomatic ties in the early 1960s.  The U.S. officially views the government as an authoritarian  regime that has severely restricted fundamental freedoms; U.S. regulations restrict travel to Cuba except for certain humanitarian, religious, cultural and educational purposes. The first practicing Jews in Cuba were American expatriates who came following  the Spanish-American War (mostly for economic opportunities), then Sephardic Jews from Turkey (mainly men escaping the army), and then Ashkenazi Jews (mostly from Poland escaping pogroms and others fleeing Eastern Europe).  Representing a variety of cultural and linguistic groups, many of these Jews had hoped to reach the United States. By the 1950s, many were wealthy; most had comfortable lives.  In 1959, Cuba’s more than 15,000 Jews had educational, social and cultural institutions such as Jewish schools, newspapers and philanthropic organizations. Soon after Castro came to power, more than 90 percent of Cuba’s Jews left.  Initially most supported the Revolution, but as the government seized businesses, Jews began to leave.  By the 1980s, few Jews kept up religious practices on the island.  In 1992, a dental surgeon named José Miller requested and received JDC assistance.  Other Jewish organizations also provided support; over the years, the community became a showcase for Jewish rebirth and renewal.  Though economically needy,  the community of about 1,500 Jews today is rich in Jewish culture and religious life. The Patronato, built pre-Revolution by Cuba’s wealthiest Jews (the “patrons” of the community), is Cuba’s largest synagogue and the center for Jewish life.  After the Jews left Cuba, the Patronato fell into disrepair and, after 30 years of cultural amnesia, only a few elderly Jews knew how to davenwhen the community sought help from the JDC; that support restored the synagogue, with impressive modernist architecture, to its former grandeur. There are Shabbat and weekday services, a computer center, a video screening room, a vibrant Hebrew School with 100 children  and 70 adults, a youth center, a summer camp for youth and adults, a kesher  program and social aid, and many other programs together with social activities. JDC-funded vans gather Jews to attend services and simchas, including bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies (11 planned for 2013); they celebrate all the holidays and hosted 200 people at this year’s Seder, and 400 at the Hanukkah party where Raoul Castro lit the first candle. We enjoyed Friday night services led by two engaging, accomplished young adults and joined the congregation for a Shabbat dinner of chicken and vegetables.  Although Havana has a kosher butcher, beef is rationed; even chicken is in short supply.  For that reason, Shabbat dinner is sometimes the only real protein that some families have all week. Through the JDC, the community distributes powdered milk to children in religious school. We met Adela Dworin who presides over the Patronato and the Jewish community.  The former librarian of the Patronato’s collection of 15,000 books, she gave up her  legal career to dedicate herself to preserving Cuban Jewish memory. Dworin, who visits the U.S. occasionally, always returns, as she said, “It is important to strengthen the Jewish community.” Dworin greets every Jewish group that visits the Patronato, where foreign tourists and local Cuban Jews intersect and interact.  She proudly told us that, at her invitation, Fidel Castro once came to meet with the Jewish community on the last day of Hanukkah. He spoke before a mesmerized crowd for nearly an hour.  She assured us, as did others we met, that no anti-Semitism exists in Cuba. We even visited a government-owned, Jewish-themed hotel called Hotel Rachel. Young adults are proud to be Jewish, and security is not a concern.  The government permits Jewish young adults to participate in Birthright and March of the Living; this summer, 45 teens will visit Israel for the Maccabi Games. The Patronato also houses the community’s pharmacy, founded in 1992 by Rosa Behar, a gastroenterologist, and her daughter, who holds a doctorate in pharmacy and lives in the U.S. Behar supervises the pharmacy, a small room with shelves piled high and deep with all kinds of medicines and medical supplies. Each of us had packed a large stash of pharmacy supplies – from vitamins, syringes, Desitin and powdered milk to antibiotics and adult diapers.  Medicine is often in short supply in Cuba, so Behar distributes it as needed to the community.  Although her parents moved to Israel years ago, she stayed in Cuba, where she is needed. We heard many similar stories of fractured families, with young people moving to Israel, and then often to the U.S. At the Centro Sefaradi, Myra Levy, whose parents came from Turkey, said that different synagogues address different needs, and they all work together.  They also have Shabbat dinner and a Kiddush following Saturday services. For some, Levy said, “It’s the best meal of the week.” Community members freely patronize both the Patronato and the Sephardic Center, which has a senior day care center, where 67 adults receive meals and enjoy activities such as Tai Chi, pottery and films. Many Jews have intermarried; in a surprising twist, today, the non-Jewish spouses usually wish to convert to Judaism.  For the past 22 years, an Argentinean rabbi visits Cuba every couple of months to perform conversions and weddings under a huppah.  Last December, he performed 27 weddings and 93 conversions. We enjoyed havdalah at the Patronato after a spirited demonstration of Israeli folk dancing.  With lights darkened, we stood in a circle and swayed as we blessed the wine, spice box and braided candle.  We sang in unison and wished one another a shavua tov, a good week. There were no faces, only voices, all singing together. The voices of Cuban Jews are all working toward becoming one community, while preserving their past; what they share is deeper and stronger than any differences.  There is hope, vitality, intensity and cohesiveness in this community. Perhaps that was the most significant and lasting “take away” of our mission, one that we can use right here in Rhode Island, right now. We began as a diverse group of individuals who then shared a powerful, impactful experience as Jewish women; thousands of miles from our local Rhode Island community, we bonded with – and grew to respect and care deeply for – each other along the way. While not financially successful, many Cuban Jews are highly educated physicians, engineers and lawyers; these individuals have become the community’s leaders. We saw many responsible, committed, powerful Jewish women leaders who exhibited different models of community leadership; each had a sense of ownership and pride.  In the next 20 to 30 years, strong, young adults will assume their roles.  Whether they remain in Cuba or emigrate, it will not matter.  The JDC and other organizations are rescuing one Jew at a time, all around the world, and each one will enrich the global Jewish community wherever their future lies.  As a JDC sign at its New York office proclaims, “There is only one Jewish world, intertwined and interconnected.” SUSAN LEACH DEBLASIO ( sdeblasio@apslaw.com), is a vice chair of the Alliance board and an editorial board  member of The Voice & Herald.