The Aftermath of the Elian Gonzalez Affair: A Jewish Perspective

Now Elian is back in Cuba the issue is no longer active. Nonetheless the residual impact of the case will continue to reverberate for months and possibly years. For the Cuban Americans--particularly those with more hard line positions--it will be a time of reflection and reevaluation. They have repeatedly expressed frustration that most of their fellow Americans did not understand (in their view) or sympathize (according to a less charitable interpretation) with their position. Many Americans saw them as shrill, hysterical, and fanatical-characteristics that helped neither them nor their cause. Few disagree that President Castro is a dictator and that the government of Cuba has unjustly confiscated businesses and generated mass migrations from Cuba, but it seems a great leap from that to the position that a group of relatives who had previously met the child only once should receive priority over Elian's own father. They picked the wrong cause and they fought the propaganda war in the wrong way.

A number of news reports suggested that the Cuban government was claiming victory in the propaganda war with the Cuban exiles, but it seems more likely that the exiles lost the battle all by themselves. Many of their spokespersons made inaccurate, exaggerated or blatantly false statements on TV, which didn't help their cause either. I heard respectable representatives argue, for example, that Cuban parents have no rights over their children in Cuba, but rather that the children were the property of the state. While this of course has a basis in the idiosyncratic Cuban Communist ideology, the way that it was presented was so distorted as to make it unrecognizable.

Elian was a symbol for both the Castro government and the conservative segment of the Cuban American community. For the conservative Cuban Americans the little boy represented freedom, specifically their struggle to leave Cuba as it became increasingly Communist and non-democratic. Most had their businesses confiscated and they felt betrayed by the revolutionary government, which many of them initially supported. For Castro, Elian Gonzalez represents an opportunity to proudly reassert the Cuban commitment to Cuban sovereignty. Castro has always been able to combine Cuban nationalism with loyalty to his own form of revolutionary government. The issue was ideal, because most Cubans could easily support the cause of returning Elian to his father to Cuba whether or not they were supporters of the regime, whether or not they were Communist sympathizers, and whether or not they felt the country was being managed competently.

Many American rabbis discussed Elian in their sermons. Most are on the constant lookout for topics that their congregants will be able to relate to, and that they can conceptualize with a Jewish religious context. The Elian episode fit very nicely.

Richard J. Shapiro of Congregation B'nai B'rith in Santa Barbara, California, argued that "there are many appropriate and moral ways in which we can express our disagreement with the government of Fidel Castro, but holding a 6-year old boy hostage is not one of them (1)." Shapiro writes that he supported the federal government decision to forcibly remove the little boy from the home of the "Miami relatives":

"I have never been more proud to be an American: proud that President Clinton and attorney General Reno decided that upholding the law was more important than playing to the crowds. It would have been very easy to grant young Elian asylum here, to grant his extended family custody of a motherless child and leave it at that. But this is a country of laws, and this child also has a father. We may detest the political system of Cuba; we may even believe that we have a right to work for its overthrow. But that isn't the same thing as denying a father and son their god-given right-absent any evidence of abuse or neglect-to be together. Juan Miguel Gonzalez has a right to raise his son, and if that means doing so in Cuba, as much as I might believe they would both be better off herein the United States, then so be it. I am proud that once again we can be seen in the eyes of the world as a nation of laws, not of political expediency."

An interesting aspect of the lengthy debate on Elian was the comparison that was all too frequently made between Cuban migrants to the U.S. and holocaust refugees. Both politicians and commentators made this comparison, directly or indirectly, a comparison that is of course ridiculous. It is not necessary to add which side was using this polemical tool. New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani stated that the federal troops that took Elian from his relatives' Miami home were "storm troopers". Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire called the Wye Plantation in eastern Maryland--where Elian stayed with his father-a "concentration camp". One of Smith's aides later said that the Senator had meant to say "re-education camp" rather than "concentration camp." (2)

Aviva Slesin, who was a "hidden child" in Lithuania during the holocaust, has compared the Elian Gonzalez case with Jewish children hidden from the Nazis during World War II. She writes that former hidden children describe the psychological ramifications of their traumatic separation from their parents, the bonding process that occurred with their rescuers, and the difficulties that occurred once they were reunited with their parents. Although she admits that the historical and political context is radically different, Slesin argues that the psychological stages and events that the hidden children went through are parallel to those that Elian has and will experience.

Slesin writes that having suffered the forced separation from her parents during World War II, she and other hidden children that she knows felt that in Elian's case it would be highly beneficial to him to be reunited with his father as soon as possible. She wrote that during the holocaust some Jewish parents were able to give their children to sympathetic gentiles as their only possible way of saving those children from virtually certain death. Despite the urgency of the situation, the children felt abandoned. Once they were living with their new family most of the children quickly transferred their loyalty to their adopted family. In the cases where the children's birth parents survived and returned for them after the war, it was by no means always a happy reunion. According to Slesin many of the children didn't want to go back with their parents, and felt that they were being abandoned yet again. She therefore believes, based on her own experiences, that it would have been far better if Elian had been returned to his father almost immediately. The extended period of time that he spent with the "Miami relatives" meant that like Jewish hidden children he will now have to reestablish loyalty to his father and he might possibly feel guilt at "abandoning" his foster family.

The Elian Gonzalez affair is on one level a family custody case. On another level it is a manifestation of a propaganda war between Cuban communists and capitalists, the latter in exile. But on yet another level it is a story filled with religious themes. Elian has been depicted as a messianic figure; many Miami Catholics have told and retold the story that dolphins saved him at sea. The concept of dolphins as saviors has a Christian basis, but those Christian sources may have borrowed it from a Midrash on how dolphins saved some Israelite children who lagged behind during the parting of the Red Sea. Interestingly, it is not just the Catholics who interpreted the Elian saga in religious terms. One of Elian's main lawyers is Spencer Eig, an Orthodox Baal Teshuva who frequently put the fight to keep Elian in Florida in the context of the child's right for religious freedom. Eig compared the Gonzalez case to that of "a Jew from communist Russia making it to Israel and then having to be sent back."(3) Eig appeared frequently on TV with his large black yarmulke, an identifying symbol that none could miss. At the same time, we all understand that Eig's position on Elian is not the only stance that American Jews are likely to take.

Now that Elian is home in Cuba, the American Jewish community may disagree profoundly on what our government policy should be toward Cuba. As relations between the countries continue to thaw, many of us may have the opportunity to visit Cuba and to draw our own conclusions. While few are likely to come away from the experience demonizing Fidel Castro, neither are we likely to see the revolution as a success. Cuba's unique history has created a society unlike that of any other country in the world. Beset by economic crisis, the Cubans are hungry, frustrated, and waiting for change. Nevertheless many retain a certain fondness for what the revolution has done for them, and have ambivalent feelings about what the future may bring. As Jews and as Americans we have an obligation to help these wonderful people to build a future of hope and of peace.

1. Richard J. Shapiro, "From the Rabbi", Congregation B'nai B'rith Bulletin, volume 72, number 9, (May 2000), p. 4.

2. "Apology is Asked over Elian Imagery", Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, (May 12, 2000), p. 20A.

3. "Elian's Lawyer: Why an Observant Jew is Fighting to Keep Him Here," Chicago Jewish News, (January 28, 2000), p.3.