Castro can't make it, but Jews in Cuba mark 100 years on island

Castro can't make it, but Jews in Cuba mark 100 years on island
By Larry Luxner
November 30, 2006

MIAMI, Nov. 30 (JTA) — 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 were to begin Thursday evening with a cultural gala at
Havana's National Fine Arts Museum. On Dec. 1, local historian Maritza
Corrales was scheduled to present 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 told JTA in a phone interview Thursday
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. Also set to attend the
opening-night commemoration was Caridad Diego, chief of religious
affairs of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee.

The islandwide 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 told JTA 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, Calif., 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."

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