Alan Gross, imprisoned for five years in Cuba for his efforts to assist its Jewish community, said of Cuban leader Fidel Castro: “history will never absolve him.” Castro’s death at the age of 90 was announced on Friday night by his brother, Raul, Cuba’s current president. “History will never absolve him. But perhaps now the…
In February 1961, the Newark-born socialist, anti-Communist poet Louis Ginsberg wrote a fretful letter to his son. The poet Allen Ginsberg, among his many other vagaries, seemed over-optimistic about the Castro regime in Cuba, as his father cautioned: “Visitors tell of being in manipulated throngs chanting pro-Soviet and anti-American slogans in whose frenetic atmosphere it…
(JTA) — Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whose 49-year rule was marked by an anti-Israel stance to match his deep antagonism to the United States and the west, is dead at age 90. His brother and successor since he stepped back from power in 2008, President Raul Castro, announced his death late Friday evening. Under…
Fidel Castro died Saturday at age 90. The former Cuban strongman was nothing if not a controversial figure — a socialist hero to some, a heartless dictator to many others. His relationship to the island’s small Jewish community — now just 1,500, down from a peak of 15,000 — was also far from clear-cut. On…
Alan Gross tweeted that history would judge Fidel Castro harshly but said he hoped that Cubans would push for a new age of freedom after his death. The Jewish aid worker, who spent years in a Cuban prison after being accused of “acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state,” said “history will…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found himself in a pickle in 2010 when, after he expressed his appreciation for remarks by Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro, who passed away Saturday, he inspired the anger of some in the U.S. and was forced to apologize. Speaking to The Atlantic, Castro told Jeffery Goldberg at the time that…
Just by coincidence, forty-eight hours after President Barack Obama announced a coming détente with Cuba, I was in Havana. And talking to a kosher butcher, of all people. Yes, Havana has a kosher butcher, which sounds like the punch-line of a joke. There are, after all, only 1,500 Jews left in all of Cuba, the…
This exclusive interview took place the morning of February 3 at the gracious hacienda of Fidel Castro just outside Havana, overlooking the ocean. The idea was initiated by Castro through a signed letter hand-delivered to the offices of the Backward by an officer of the Cuban army. “In the spirit of friendship and brotherhood, I…
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