The American Jewish community has always seemed uneasy about the case of Alan P. Gross. On the one hand, he is an American citizen, a Jew from suburban Washington who was arrested in Cuba in 2009 for doing nothing worse — so Gross’s supporters claim — than trying to improve telephone and Internet services for…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with Forward artist in residence Eli Valley about his newest comic in which a sea monster visits the AIPAC conference. Then, staff writer Paul Berger talks about the ongoing saga of Alan Gross, a Jewish American aid worker who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba….
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with Forward staff writer Paul Berger and opinion editor Gal Beckerman about new revelations concerning Alan Gross, a Jewish American aid worker who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba. Then, Forward fellow Naomi Zeveloff stops by to discuss an about-face for the hawkish Israel advocacy…
I’ve been following the Alan Gross saga for the past two years now and have often felt alone. The story of the seemingly hapless technology expert who found himself jailed in Cuba for trying to help the miniscule Jewish community connect to the internet has never gotten much pickup among American Jews and has elicited…
The wife of jailed American contractor Alan Gross said she was “simply heartbroken” that the Cuban government refused to release him along with nearly 3,000 prisoners being freed in an amnesty. “To receive news in the middle of Hanukkah that the Cuban authorities have once again overlooked an opportunity to release Alan on humanitarian grounds…
To understand the reason that Alan Gross, an American citizen, has been languishing in a Cuban jail for the past two years, it is instructive to listen to an exchange that took place recently at a hearing of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.) demanded that Wendy Sherman, undersecretary of state…
An emotional Judy Gross recently pleaded with thousands of Jewish community leaders to help free her husband from a prison in Cuba, marking a public shift in what has been, up to now, a strategy of quiet diplomacy on his behalf. “Let the Cuban government know that the Jewish community wants Alan home,” Gross implored…
Life is getting better for Cuba’s Jews — and for the country’s Scrabble players. Just ask a guy named Fidel. That’s the gist of an entertaining feature in yesterday’s L.A. Times, which tells the story of Fidel Babani, a member of Cuba’s tiny Jewish community and the president of the Cuban Scrabble Association. Dubbed “Señor…
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