The Miracle of Cuba: 50 years after the revolution, Cuba is experiencing a real rebirth of

Jewish life
By Julian Voloj
Cuba is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its revolution. Along the streets of Havana, there
are banners with inscriptions such as La Libertad No Se Puede Bloquear (Freedom cant be
blockaded), and many buildings are decorated with brand-new portraits of the revolutions
heroes, including, most notably, Fidel Castro, who has now stepped down as Lider Mximo, and
Ernesto Guevara, the legendary Argentine doctor commonly known by his nickname, Che.

Young people in the Patronato

Synagogue

The anniversary of the revolution is evident

everywhere, but another anniversary, also connected
with an Argentine, is occurring silently. Eighteen
years ago, when the dissolution of the Soviet Union
was inexorably under way, Alberto Senderey, a
native of Buenos Aires who is the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Committees Director for Europe
and Latin America, visited the Caribbean island and
met with government representatives to negotiate a
possibl
e
resumpt
ion of

the Joints work in Cuba.

Though many assume that the first Jews came to
what now is Cuba along with Christopher
Columbus, Jewish immigration did not begin until
after the Spanish-American War and the recognition
of Cubas independence in 1898. American Jews
founded the United Hebrew Congregation, the
American synagogue, in 1906. Many of these
Wall painting
Ashkenazi Jews came originally from Romania,
Poland, and other East European countries, which earned the Jews in Cuba the common
nickname Polaco (Pole). After World War I, they were joined by Sephardi Jews from the
Ottoman Empire, and starting in 1924, thousands of East European Jews on their way to the
United States stopped off first in Cuba for a few years, as a way of circumventing the antisemitic
East European quota of the American immigration authorities.

The political riots of the 1950s, which ultimately led

to revolution, had their roots in social injustice and
corruption, which were especially characteristic of
the 1920s and 1930s. Cuba had become a
playground for rich Americans, and the casinos and
hotels were almost exclusively in American hands,
including those of Jewish gangsters such as Meyer
Lansky.
Though there was no antisemitism in Cuba, Jewish
life there ended with the revolution of 1959. A small
In the Orthodox synagogue
number of Jews fled to Israel, but most Cuban Jews,
like their Christian compatriots, went to Florida, where they hoped for a speedy return. The
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) set up an office in Miami in the early 1960s to help the
thousands of refugees. By 1965, about 90 percent of Cubas Jewish population had fled,
including all the rabbis and cantors.
Even though officially one could belong to a
religious community, the government viewed
religion as the opiate of the masses, a quote made
famous by Karl Marx, one had little opportunity to
make a career for oneself in Cuba.
Havanas synagogues were never closed completely,
but until the early 1990s, Jewish life was virtually
nonexistent. The so-called Cuban minyan came into
being, which required only seven men and three
Torah scrolls instead of the traditionally necessary
Art work, an expression of Cuban-Israeli
ten men.
friendship
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changing realities in the no-longer-socialistbrother countries, Cuba had to become more open, and at the Fourth Party Congress in 1991, it
was decided that members of Cubas Communist Party were no longer forbidden to belong to a
religious community.
The next year, the Cuban constitution was amended.
Now Cuba officially changed from an atheistic
country into a secular one. Dr. Jose Miller, a doctor
from Havana, turned to the Joint at this time to get
help from the United States for the small Jewish
community, which already was receiving assistance
from the Jewish communities of Mexico and
Canada.

Chair in the Centro Hebreo Sefardi

What started with one rabbi from Mexico and four

social workers from Argentina led to an unexpected
2

renaissance of Jewish life in Cuba, a turn of events that not even the boldest optimists could
foresee in those days.
While more than 15,000 Jews lived in Cuba before
the revolution, there are only approximately 1,500
today, and it is a permanent challenge that often the
most active members of the community emigrate to
Israel, explains Fernando Lapiduz, who is presently
working for the Joint as a cantor and social worker
in Cuba.
There are three active synagogues in Havana today.
Adath Israel, the Orthodox synagogue, is located in
Entrance to the Ashkenazi cemetery
the historic downtown district. From the legendary
Malecn, Havanas seafront, it is only a short walk to the synagogue. Narrow, dark, and, most of
all, dirty streets lead to it. Adath Israel is in the center of the former immigrant quarter, which is
comparable to New Yorks Lower East Side, and even today the area still has an impoverished
air.
The building at the corner of Picota and Acosta,
built in 1959, is rather nondescript from outside; its
Jewish character is expressed at the entrance by a
Star of David and Hebrew lettering above the door.
Downstairs is a small, simple prayer room that is
used for daily services. If you go upstairs, you find
the large prayer sanctuary, a modern synagogue,
which was completely renovated in 2005, thanks to
donatio
ns from
abroad.
We get our kosher food from Panama, explains
Yacob Berezniak, the dynamic second president of
Adath Israel. Yacob is a prime example of the
rebirth of Jewish life in Cuba. His father, Abraham,
who passed away in 1998, had his bar mitzvah in
Adath Israel in 1959, the year of the revolution. In
the early 1990s, after Jewish life was no longer
taboo, Abraham Berezniak became president of
Adath Israel. His wife, Nelsy, was one of the first to
Desecrated grave in the cemetery
convert to Judaism in 1993, so that she and
Abraham could marry again under the chuppah. Yacob had his bar mitzvah in December 1994.
My father started taking me to this synagogue when I was 2 years old. Adath Israel is a part of
me.

Also located in Havanas old town, besides the

Ashkenazi Adath Israel community, was the
Sephardi Chevet Ahim, Cubas oldest synagogue,
though it which was closed in 1995. Today the
Centro Hebreo Sefardi in Havanas elegant Vedado
neighborhood is the only Sephardi center. The
construction of the building on Calle 17 was begun
in 1957 but not completed until 1960, after the
revolution. At the entrance, there is still a plaque
with the names of those who donated funds to build
the temple. Almost all fled to the United States.
Like my family, most of Cubas Sephardi Jews
come from Turkey, explains Mayra Levy, the
Centros chairperson, assuring me that the
Sephardic community is very active, though small.
The imposing building next to the present-day
Centro originally was also the property of the
Sephardic community. It housed the main sanctuary,
which now is used as a rehearsal room by the AfroCuban band Sintesis. The former prayer room
provides impressive testimony to the glorious past
The synagogue of Santiago
of Cubas Sephardic community, and a quieter
witness is located next to the bimah in the small
prayer room: Two marvelous leather chairs with Hebrew inscriptions, engraved Israeli and
Cuban flags, Stars of David, and a lions head on the armrests. The chairs were made shortly
before the revolution for a bar mitzvah in the Centro Hebreo Sefardi, but the family fled to the
United States and left the chairs behind.

The Santiago communitys Israeli dance

group

Also in Vedado, Havanas elegant residential area,

is Cubas main synagogue, El Patronato. After years
of decline, the synagogue, which dates from 1953,
was restored to its original grandeur with funds from
the Miami Jewish Federation and the Weinberg
Foundation. When it was built, the Patronato was
the synagogue of Cubas Jewish elite. Today it is the
center of the Jewish renaissance, and added
emphasis is lent to its significance by the fact that
Fidel Castro came here in 1998 for a Hanukah
celebration.

Today the Patronato holds, besides its large

community hall, a computer room, a youth club, the office of the Joint Distribution Committee,
and, most notably, a pharmacy, which donations from abroad have made one of the countrys
best. Rosa Behar, a pharmacist, founded the pharmacy in 1993 with the help of her daughter,

Rebecca, who now lives in Israel. Everything from Advil to Zoloft is available there, in a product
range that can by no means be taken for granted in
Cuba.
In addition to the three synagogues, there are two
Jewish cemeteries, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi,
in Guanabacoa, at the edge of Havana. Even though
visitors rarely manage to find their way here, the
Joint Distribution Committee pays the wages of
cemetery custodians. A few tombs that have been
broken open suggest the reason why. Afro-Cuban
adherents of Palo Mayombe, a mixture of the
Central African Bantu culture, Santeria, and Spanish
Catholicism, believe that Jewish bones possess
Fernando Lapiduz with Eugenia Farin
magical powers because they belong to unbaptized
Levy, the President of the Jewish
souls, and therefore bones were being stolen from
Community of Santiago
the cemetery on a regular basis.
Even though Havana is the undisputed center of the Jewish renaissance, there are smaller Jewish
communities outside the capital as well, in places such as Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus,
Camaguey, and Guantnamo. When the Joint resumed its work in Cuba in the early 1990s, social
workers traveled around the country to find Cubas remaining Jews. Many of the communities
are quite isolated, Fernando Lapiduz explains. So nationwide events like the Israeli dance
competition are very important for the small communities. There they can establish contacts with
other Jews in Cuba. That becomes more understandable when you consider that public
transportation in Cuba is virtually nonexistent, and many people have no car of their own.
Santiago, in the southeastern part of the country, is
the home of Cubas second-largest community, with
only 120 members. In comparison with the
synagogues in Havana, the Comunidad Hebrea
Hatikva is a very modest community center, but
Eugenia Farin Levy, the communitys chairperson,
says proudly that the synagogue is the oldest active
synagogue building in Cuba. The Jewish
community of Santiago was founded in 1924, and
the synagogue was dedicated in 1939. Jaime Gans
Grin, the communitys historian, celebrated his bar
Jaime Gans Grin
mitzvah here in 1953. After the revolution, the
building was used as a dance hall, and it was returned to the newly founded Jewish community
only in the 1990s. When we were renovating the building, we werent sure at first exactly where
we should put the Aron Kodesh with the Torah scroll. One of the workman tapped the wall with
his hammer, and like a miracle, the plaster fell off the wall and the indentation for the old Aron
Kodesh was visible. The community held a rededication ceremony in 1995.

Un milagro, a miracle, is how Jaime Gans Grin sees it as well, all this is a miracle. You
probably cant find a more accurate description for the rebirth of Jewish life in Cuba.