Havana, Cuba - During the High Holy Days this year, an unlikely community is celebrating not just the start of a new year but also the beginning of a new era.
At Rosh Hashanah services last week at Havana’s Beth Shalom synagogue, a record crowd of 200 people was in attendance, with children running in the aisles. Many of the worshippers were converts who came to Judaism as recently as last January. For the first time since the Cuban revolution, the Jewish community is growing and distant Jews are returning.
During the past decade, the Jewish community has flown in a group of rabbis every two years to lead Jewish conversion classes. The latest class ended this January with 73 men each going through a ritual circumcision at a local hospital. Most of them were on hand last week for their first Rosh Hashanah as full-fledged Jews.
This was also the first Rosh Hashanah without Fidel Castro in firm command of the country. Castro’s health status has been a matter of widespread speculation since the leader failed to surface the day of his recent 81st birthday. But while the uncertainty has had many here on edge, the Jewish community is wearing a confident and hopeful face, which many attribute to Castro’s unexpected openness toward religion since the fall of the Soviet Union.
“We are on our way back from assimilation,” said William Miller, a full-time communal worker who runs the local operations for the international Jewish organization World ORT.
Today, Cuba’s Jewish community consists of about 1,500 members, most of them in the capital, Havana, which has three synagogues and a Jewish community center. During last week’s services at Beth Shalom, in the relatively affluent neighborhood of Vedado, there was a mixed crowd: older community members with younger families; many children, and the inevitable presence of Israeli backpackers.
The service itself was conducted in Spanish, with some translation into Hebrew and English. In a country where product shortages are a constant concern, a last-minute snag almost left the congregation without honey for the traditional blessings with apples. But an hour before the holiday began, a batch of honey was found.
Shortages are a steady fact of life for every community in Cuba. To address this problem, each year Canadian Jews send to Cuba a shipment of kosher food packages, a gift that has turned out to be not only a welcome addition to insufficient food rations but also a means to attract Jews back to the community.
The Passover handout of the Canadian food, which brings together not only active Jews but also those who have little to do with the community, serves as a chance to reach out and offer otherwise disconnected Jews an opportunity to join the community.
“It’s a great way to get our message out,” Miller said.
Things were not always so encouraging. During Castro’s early years in power, religion was officially shunted to the side in a fashion similar to the Soviet Union, which was the guiding star for Castro’s regime. Members of religious groups were not allowed to be part of the Communist Party and were denied jobs in government and academia. Many books by Jewish writers were banned at the time. On the other hand, even during the early years of the revolution, Castro made sure that religious groups were protected and were not victims of violence.
Most Jews fled to the United States. For the remaining community, the small size and the taboo on religion led to a nearly 90% intermarriage rate, according to some community members.
“The old people kept on coming to synagogue, but they didn’t bring their children and grandchildren,” said Miller, whose grandfather was the previous president of the congregation.
Things began to change in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
While Fidel remained a strict atheist, his interest in religious communities grew, peaking in a 1998 visit by Pope John Paul II. Later that year, the Cuban leader convened a meeting with representatives of all religions.
“He shook my hand and kissed me on both cheeks,” said Adela Dworin, the community president who has spent the past 37 years promoting Jewish life in Havana. “I didn’t wash my face for two weeks.”
When it was Dworin’s turn to speak, she invited Castro to visit the Jewish community during Hanukkah. Fidel said he did not know the holiday, so Dworin explained: “It’s a holiday commemorating the revolution of the Jews.”
Soon after, Castro came to the Jewish community center to celebrate Hanukkah.
These days, the main goal of local Jewish leaders is to attract young Jews who grew up in homes in which Judaism was hardly practiced or there was only one Jewish parent. One of the centerpieces of this effort is the conversion seminars for children of intermarried families. Three rabbis come from Argentina, Chile and Ecuador every second year. For men, the course ends with a circumcision overseen by a mohel and a urologist. Havana has no ritual bath, or mikveh, so converts use the ocean to finish the ceremony.
Among the most recent batch of converts was Daniel Motola, 28. He grew up with a Jewish father but little knowledge of Judaism. Then two years ago his grandfather asked him to carry on the family’s religious tradition, and Motola jumped in with abandon. He is now the community’s librarian and also one of its main activists.
During Rosh Hashanah, Motola sat near a table reserved for the so-called “religious group,” which studies and attends services on a regular basis. At the table was Jeilo Montagne, 26, who started visiting the synagogue seven years ago.
“I began looking for my roots,” Montagne said. “Now I come here because of the community life. We meet here every Saturday.”
The biggest missing link is a rabbi. A decade ago, the government allowed for a Jewish representative to go off to New York for rabbinic training at Yeshiva University.
“We’re still waiting for him to return,” Dworin said.
In the meantime, two representatives from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Argentina assist the community with services and teaching. Community activities include holiday and Sabbath services and a Sunday school attended by 60 children. Havana has its own kosher butcher, though Jews are restricted in the amount of meat they are allowed to buy, as are all Cubans due to rationing regulations.
Jewish life in Cuba, however, does come with some advantages, most notably in the complete lack of any security precautions outside Jewish communal buildings. While their neighbors in North America have gotten used to seeing police cars parked outside synagogues during the high holy days, Cuban Jews feel no need to take this precaution.
“Look, it is completely free,” Dworin said.
“We never even think of having any guards,” she added. “We are totally safe being Jews in Havana.”
The bigger point of anxiety these days is the status of the country’s leader. Ever since Castro underwent surgery in the summer of 2006, his health has been a steady source of speculation. The government’s propaganda has insisted that Castro is still running the country — from lengthy articles (titled “Reflections of the President”) in the daily newspaper Granma to signs painted on buildings, congratulating the leader for his 80th birthday, which passed more than a year ago.
But meanwhile, the Cuban government has at least temporarily transferred power to Castro’s brother Raul, whom many in the country view as the future. Observers say that the new regime will not likely mean any big changes for the Jewish community.
“I cannot imagine any circumstances which will be negative for the Jews,” said Julia Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Sweig said that the two leaders have the same views on issues of religious freedom.
Dworin said there is some concern that any big changes in the economic situation could cause some young Jews to leave for the United States.
“We have these great young professionals who are active in the community, but many of them still speak about leaving,” Dworin said. “If things improve here, maybe Cubans won’t want to leave.”
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To hear another perspective, including an interview and images, (including 4 colorful ones by a young Jewish Cuban),listen to the recent interview about Congregation Beth El/Sudbury's Jewish Cuban project on NPR/WBUR "Here & Now" (including slide show): http://www.here-now.org/shows/ http://www.wbur.org/archives/ Linda J. Hirsch, Photographer/Photojournalist "She Who Makes Memories With Light" 7 Highgate Rd. Wayland, MA 01778 LJVHirsch@comcast.net
I was in Havana this winter and I was fortunate enough to spend time at Beth Shalom and speak to Adela, William, and Jeiro, among others. I can assure you that these are Jewish people with their hearts in the right places. They truly care about the education and continuation of the Jewish community in Cuba and are NOT government agents.
A fairly superficial report, if true in its essentials. Even with U.S. embargo, humanitarian visits by Jewish groups from the States are still possible, and a continuing source of support that supplements that provided from Spanish-speaking Jewish world. Odd -- there was a mikveh at the Orthodox synagogue in the Old City, at least as of two years ago. It might not have been available to these converts, but perhaps assertion that there is none reflects something of the way in which this largest and richest portion of Cuba's Jewish community overwhelms attention to smaller, poorer Orthodox and Sephardi congregations and those outside the capital.
"Among the most recent batch of converts was Daniel Motola, 28. He grew up with a Jewish father but little knowledge of Judaism. Then two years ago his grandfather asked him to carry on the family’s religious tradition, and Motola jumped in with abandon. He is now the community’s librarian and also one of its main activists." "Motola jumped in with abandon?" Excuse me, did you mean with determination? Is Mr. Guttman trying to denigrate Jewish adherants to their tradition? I am afraid I already know the answer.
I spent Yom Kippur 5764 at this synagogue, four years ago today. The community was warm and very welcoming, and I felt freer as a Jew than I ever have in the USA, even in L.A. or New York. It was the most beautiful service I had ever attended, and I shared it with a vital, diverse group of committed Cuban Jews. The service was co-led by an Argentine man and a Cuban woman; it was a fitting expression of gender equality in communist Cuba. One of the most interesting and baffling things I saw in the beautifully renovated synagogue was a set of photographs in a display case in the foyer. They depicted the leaders of the congregation, many of whom were present that day, lighting a Hannukkah menorah with none other than Fidel himself. I never got the full story behind those photos until reading this article.
To Ben Levi: Having davened in that synagogue, I can vouch that the prayers were conducted in Hebrew, while both the translations in the makhzor and the drash given by the rabbis were in Spanish. I am sure that a little English is helpful when a large group of non-Spanish-speakers is present, though there weren't any that day. I am a little shocked by your assertion that Cuban and Jewish identity are somehow mutually exclusive. How quickly we forget that, for the past 2,000 years, Jews have been in diaspora throughout the world. Ours is an identity uniquely forged of two distinct metals: the culture of our home country and the heritage of our people. It is this duality that makes the panoply of Jewish civilization so rich and varied, as for millennia we have both contributed to societies throughout the world and maintained our own, unique cultural identity. I agree with you that language is one of the most important signifiers of identity, but I feel I must remind you that, throughout history, "a Jewish community that... speak[s] its own language" might variously have spoken Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Yiddish, Ladino (Spanish), or any number of other Hebraic dialects of the language of the home country. The misconception that Hebrew is the only Jewish language is a recent one, born more of political convenience than either historical fact or religious doctrine.
I what Ben Levi is saying is: If Jews don't live in the shtetl, at least figuratively, then they stop being Jews. Thanks for straightening the rest of us out, Ben Levi.
To Ben Levi: Having davened in that synagogue, I can vouch that the prayers were conducted in Hebrew, while both the translations in the makhzor and the drash given by the rabbis were in Spanish. I am sure that a little English is helpful when a large group of non-Spanish-speakers is present, though there weren't any that day. I am a little shocked by your assertion that Cuban and Jewish identity are somehow mutually exclusive. How quickly we forget that, for the past 2,000 years, Jews have been in diaspora throughout the world. Ours is an identity uniquely forged of two distinct metals: the culture of our home country and the heritage of our people. It is this duality that makes the panoply of Jewish civilization so rich and varied, as for millennia we have both contributed to societies throughout the world and maintained our own, unique cultural identity. I agree with you that language is one of the most important signifiers of identity, but I feel I must remind you that, throughout history, "a Jewish community that... speak[s] its own language" might variously have spoken Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Yiddish, Ladino (Spanish), or any number of other Hebraic dialects of the language of the home country. The misconception that Hebrew is the only Jewish language is a recent one, born more of political convenience than either historical fact or religious doctrine.
For Raphael B. Leib - I think it's misleading to assert that a Diaspora community such as Cuba is maintaining its own "unique cultural identity". Even in larger and wealthier Jewish communities such as in the USA, you find that a clear majority of Jews have received but a few hours of Jewish instruction. Jews have very little knowledge of their own heritage - but they are very much at home in the surrounding non-Jewish culture (which is now their primary culture). This was not the reality of Yiddish speaking communities, for example, where the Jews produced their own culture from their own point of reference. They were at home in the Jewish heritage, and the culture of the Poles or Lithuanians was someone else's culture. In the watered-down Jewish reality of today's Diaspora in which you can hardly find a Jew who could tell you the 12 months of the Hebrew calendar or could pass a basic test in Biblical literature or could even recognize his own name in the Hebrew script - one can only speak of maintaining a mere remnant of a rich civilization. By the way, I did not even hint that Hebrew is the only Jewish language - only that Spanish (or English) is not! In today's Jewish reality, there are only a few Jewish communities that still speak their own language (Yiddish in various neighborhoods) - but basically only modern Israel stands out as a Jewish collective existence maintaining life in a Jewish language. That's not a statement of "political convenience", rather it's simply the truth.
What do you mean, Yosef? Are you suggesting that a Jew who speaks a Jewish language is a shtetl (presumably, you mean a "backwards") Jew? You should take note that also intellectual Jews of major cities in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe (Vilna, Warsaw) lived their everyday lives in Yiddish. Moreover, Hebrew-speaking Tel-Aviv is not exactly your little shtetl. The abandonment of Yiddish might be an expected result of immigration to the USA (or Cuba), yet it is still an obvious expression of an assimilation process and the loss of Jewish culture. Quite often in the Forward, you run across the term "renaissance", such as in the link from the front page to this above article. Now, it is absolute nonsense to speak of "renaissance" (rebirth) in circumstances of such meagre Jewish cultural expressivenesss; yet, this improper term at least admits that Jewish culture has been until now in a state of extreme crisis.
In the former USSR all leaders of the 'official' Jewish community were government agents. Keep that in mind when listening to an official of the Cuban Jewish community. I wonder where the Cuban refuseniks are?
I was in Havana this winter and I was fortunate enough to spend time at Beth Shalom and speak to Adela, William, and Jeiro, among others. I can assure you that these are Jewish people with their hearts in the right places. They truly care about the education and continuation of the Jewish community in Cuba and are NOT government agents.
This is a very confusing article: "The service itself was conducted in Spanish, with some translation into Hebrew and English". I wasn't aware that Jewish prayers needed a translation into Hebrew. How is it possible that in a Jewish newspaper it wouldn't be self-evident that the Spanish is the translation? The article speaks of "our way back from assimilation". Come on. A Jewish community that does not speak its own language is a community in which assimilation is a simply a fact of life. One's language is the chief carrier of identity, and there is no doubt that Cuba's Jewish community has a Cuban, not a Jewish, identity.
For Ben Levi: Sorry about the repost; I think my previous comment must have been submitted again when I hit "refresh." I appreciate your point about the importance of having an identity that is distinct from the surrounding culture, and the role that language plays in maintaining that identity. However, I take your comments to mean that you feel the only way that Jewish civilization can survive is in isolation from outside influences. I strongly disagree. After the catastrophe of the Shoah, isolationism is an understandable response from a community still reeling in shock and horror. But it behooves us all to remember that the Jewish culture that has survived the millennia in Diaspora is one that has existed in dialogue with, rather than separation from, the host culture. In his review of Peter Cole's _The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492_, Harold Bloom counts "at least seven great Jewish Diasporas: Babylon-Persia; Hellenistic Alexandria; Muslim and Christian Spain, including Provence-Catalonia; Renaissance Italy; Eastern Europe–Russia; Austria-Hungary together with Germany; the United States." In each of those Diasporic communities -- indeed, in many others -- Jews spoke a dialect of the host country's language: Aramaic and later Arabic in the Middle East and North Africa, Ladino (Spanish) in Southern Europe, Yiddish (German) in Northern and Eastern Europe, even Judeo-Malayalam in Kerala, India. For my part, I grew up in a third-generation American Jewish family. My parents, who speak American English peppered with Yiddish words and phrasing, attend a Conservative synagogue, where I attended Hebrew school classes and learned not only the months of the year (incidentally, there are 13 this year, not 12) but how to read and write Hebrew and analyze Biblical literature. Perhaps a linguist would argue that our family spoke a "Jewish dialect", but I'd call it pretty standard English. Still, I don't feel any less "at home in the Jewish heritage", nor do, I believe, the millions of American Jews with similar experiences to mine, for lack of Yiddish. We need look no further than "hip" Jewish-American pulications like Heeb to see that DIasporic Jews are still "produc[ing] their own culture from their own point of reference". Certainly, the magazine is an irreverent English-language dialogue with American popular culture, but it is written by, for, and about Jews and is no less authentically Jewish than, say, the Yiddish-language Borscht-Belt broadsides of bygone days. Finally, I must refer again to my own experience in this Cuban synagogue. At this shul I encountered a lively, warm, and welcoming community, who think of themselves and their practice as every bit as Jewish as any other synagogue in any other country. They conduct services in Spanish the same way an American Conservative or Orthodox shul conducts its services in English: namely, the rabbi's sermon, the President of the synagogue's announcements, and the prayerbook's translations are in Spanish, and everything else is in Hebrew. A few miles away is another shul, this one much older: it is the Orthodox Sephardic synagogue in Old Havana. It was built close to 500 years ago, along with the rest of that part of the city, and is still used today by Jews whose ancestors were speaking Ladino (a Jewish dialect of Spanish) while the inhabitants of Cuba still spoke Taíno. They might take issue with the assertion that their Spanish is not a Jewish language.
Hmm, it seems neither my links nor my formatting survived the posting. Here are the links I included in the above: Harold Bloom's review of Cole's book on Golden-Age Jewish literature from Spain and Provençe http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20338 Wikipedia article on Judaeo-Malayalam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Malayalam
For Raphael B. Leib: By no means do I mean to say that Jewish civilization can survive only in isolation from outside influences. All peoples are influenced by others, and this includes the Jews as well. However, it is clear from looking around at the world we live in that there are many, many peoples who speak their own language AND are part of the world community. There are places in the world where there are different language communities all living in one country. Would you accuse the Frisian community of the Netherlands of isolationism because they speak their own distinct language? I'm always amazed that Jews have different rules for themselves than they would have for others. In other words, a Jew would mourn the cultural loss if someone else's language would become extinct - but if the Jews speak their own language, that would be a negative phenomenon of isolationism or "living in the shtetl". No, the Jews are a people, and a people has its own language. The loss of Jewish languages in all the Diaspora communities is a major change in the sociology of the Jews. It marks a change from primary identity to a secondary or even a marginal Jewish identity. Many American Jews are hardly aware that the Jews are a people. Well, the loss of language cannot be undone, so perhaps it's even a waste of time mourning this cultural tragedy. Yet, it is simply absurd to speak of "revival" and "renaissance" that the Forward so often declares. It's perhaps difficult to declare that Diaspora Jewish life is in the midst of crisis. However, it is a disservice to pretend that everything is just going fine. The same spirit of criticism that a Jewish newspaper like the Forward can direct at Israel should be directed also at the Jewish reality in America. Just as we're "big kids" in Israel and can handle the tough criticism - so too should American Jews be big enough to admit that things are going wrong, and that something has to be done urgently.
For more updates about Jews of Cuba, search the Archives at www.radiosefarad.com or go to this direct link to hear a recent, bi-lingual (Eng.-Sp.)interview: Cómo ayudar a los judíos de Cuba, con Linda Hirsch
An English version will son be posted.