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In the annals of Jewish film festivals, “Sin La Habana” is likely the only entry to begin with a Santeria ritual involving the sacrifice of chickens. Sadly, the film, playing as part of New York’s Jewish Film Festival Jan. 15, is also one of a select few to spotlight a Mizrahi bris. The feature debut…
In honor of Indigenous People’s Day this past Monday, I thought it would be fitting to share an English translation of this excerpt of the exquisite lyric poem, “Hatuey”, written by the Cuban Yiddish author, Osher Penn. You can read this fragment in Pen’s original Yiddish here. Hatuey was a Cuban indigenous freedom fighter from…
If you want to eat at Miami’s oldest and most authentic Jewish deli, you’ll have to drive to Hialeah, Miami’s most Cuban neighborhood. You drive down a gritty industrial street, once home to a thriving district of Jewish-owned garment factories. One side is lined with sprawling warehouses, auto body and tire shops, the other with…
The graffiti messages scrawled around Miami in March, on the eve of Passover and Holocaust Remembrance Day, were shocking: “The Jews are the Problem” “Zionism is Satanism.” Most ominously in this city filled with Cubans and other Latin Americans who fled communist governments, was this one: “Communism is Judaism.” The phrase echoed a trend towards…
Read this article in Yiddish Of the many stories my father has told me about his past, my favorite is the one about the day he became an American citizen. It was February 17, 1967. My dad sat inside the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, alongside a mosaic of others, waiting to…
In the very first edition of the Forverts newspaper, published during Passover 1897, Cuba made headlines. “Bravo Kubaners,” read our story in support of an independent Cuba, freed of Spanish rule. A century or so later, as we celebrate Pesach 2020, Ben Weitz figured it was the perfect time to tell the tale of his…
(JTA) — The oldest Jewish cemetery in Cuba is undergoing rehabilitation. The Havana burial ground is being restored as part of an initiative by the city historian’s office ahead of the 500th anniversary of the Cuban capital’s founding, which will be marked in November, The Associated Press reported. In addition to the cemetery, located in the…
(JTA) — Leaders of Cuba’s Jewish community sent an open letter to the U.S. Jewish community calling for a strengthening of ties and expressing concern over a reversal of policy toward the island nation. “The Jewish Community of Cuba, since its founding, has maintained ties of friendship and brotherhood and sisterhood with the Jewish people…
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