A Jewish Renaissance in Castro's Cuba

The Camaguey Jewish community now has approximately twenty-seven Jewish families. In 1998, on Rosh Hashanah, they rededicated a new synagogue building in a white-washed turn-of-the-century house, connected to a row of homes in the center of the city. The funding for the synagogue came from Ruben Beraja, an Argentinean Jew affiliated with the International Congress of Latin American Jews. He provided the $6,000 purchase price. Alberto Roffe, a car mechanic whose grandfather emigrated from Turkey after World War I, leads the community.

Johandy Crespo, the community's youth group leader, told an American reporter, "The new Tiferet Israel is a reconnection with the past. This is our future." [34]

Merle Salkin, the Director of the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia, has made several trips to Camaguey in order to teach Hebrew to the Jewish community. Salkin's congregation donated an additional $3,000 for the Camaguey synagogue as well as for Siddurim and other ritual items. He explains, "This community reinvented itself in a few years. It was never organized. Families never knew what other families were doing." [35] Salkin reports that after the religious revival began, "people started coming out of the woodwork, asking questions and signing up for conversion classes." [36]

American and Canadian Jewish Aid to Cuba

In the last several years there have been a significant number of foreign Jewish visitors, many of whom brought essential items for the Jewish community, but the earliest foreign organization to help the Jews of Cuba was the Canadian Jewish Congress. By far the most important Jewish communal organization assisting the Cuban Jewish community has been the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). The JDC has long been involved in helping underprivileged and/or persecuted Jewish communities around the world. It began operating in Cuba in 1992 and is universally praised for sending representatives to run services, teach classes and organize activities. These representatives have also trained a new generation of Cuban-Jews to perform these skilled functions on their own.

Other American organizations have also become involved. In February 1997, B'nai B'rith announced the formation of a Committee on Cuban Affairs, to be chaired by Elizabeth (Betty) Baer, wife of B'nai B'rith's International President Tommy P. Baer. The Committee was formed in the aftermath of a B'nai B'rith humanitarian mission in which thirty-two members of B'nai B'rith brought medicine, food, and clothes into Cuba. Six of the 32 participants were Cuban-born, including Michael Mandel, a cantorial student who performed concerts of Jewish songs for the Cuban community. [37]

The MiamiJewish Federation is funding the renovation of the Patronato, with much of the impetus coming from Cuban Jews living in South Florida. Now there is a constant stream of American visitors to the Patronato and other synagogues throughout the country. Many local Jewish Federations run missions to Cuba and some have adopted specific communities or projects. Individuals from various Jewish communities have also taken a special interest in the Cuban Jewish community. Frieda Dow of Houston made her third trip to Cuba in the spring of 1998 to bring supplies and encouragement to the Havana Jewish community. "They need the support of the Jewish people throughout the world, to know that we are there for them. They need to know that we want to bring them back into the mainstream." [38] American visitors benefit a great deal from this symbiotic relationship with the Cuban Jews.

Traditionally, the focus of foreign support by American Jews was geared toward the State of Israel, but in recent years Israel has become increasingly affluent.

Although there remain deep pockets of poverty in the country, many American Jews no longer feel that Israel needs them the way it did in the early years. Further, Israel's security appears to be less threatened than it did in any point in its history.

There is, therefore, a void that needs to be filled. For many American Jews the changes in the security situation of Israel come at a time when they are interested in turning inward and developing their own sense of spirituality. They are not looking to replace or supplement their earlier projects. And there are those for whom the project has to have a high level of urgency. In many ways Cuba is an appropriate setting for American Jews to express their solidarity with Jews around the world. There is no physical threat to their survival, but instead American Jews are helping the Cubans to rebuild their spiritual lives, individually as well as communally.

The Call to End the Blockade

The renewed attention to Cuba's Jews has prompted some of the more politically liberal members of the American Jewish community to press for the end of the United States' blockade on Communist Cuba. The Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism submitted a resolution "On Opposition to the United States Embargo on Cuba" at the Orlando biennial conference of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC). [39] The resolution was not debated or voted upon due to a lack of time and is scheduled to be dealt with by the UAHC Executive Board in Summer 2000. This resolution was notable in that it was uncompromising in its disapproval of a prolonged embargo of 40 years because it "no longer serves a meaningful purpose and has had an increasingly devastating effect on the people of Cuba." [40] It noted that in April 1997, the Commission had urged President Clinton "to lift the ban on direct flights to Cuba in order to facilitate the provision of humanitarian supplies," and that it brought the matter before Congr ess in April 1998, urging it to pass the Cuban Humanitarian Trade Act, which would provide for an exception to the embargo for the provision of humanitarian relief by allowing citizens and permanent residents of the United States to fly to Cuba for humanitarian research and journalistic or religious purposes.

The resolution quoted Pope John Paul II, who said during his January 1998 visit to Cuba:

In our day, no nation can live in isolation. The Cuban people therefore cannot be denied the contacts with other peoples necessary for economic, social, and cultural development, especially when the imposed isolation strikes the population indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials of decent living, things such as food, health, and education. All can and should take practical steps to bring about changes in this regard. [41]

The UAHC resolution therefore called for the following three steps to be taken:

(1) Call upon the President and Congress to revoke the embargo on Cuba except for military and police equipment; (2) Call upon the Prime Minister of Canada and the Canadian Parliament to encourage the United States and other nations that currently have Cuban embargoes in place to lift those embargoes; and (3) Urge the governments of the United States and Canada to work strenuously to persuade the Cuban government to end its repressive policies. [42]

The Future

Although there have been repeated prophecies of Fidel Castro's fall he has managed to retain power longer than predicted. Yet almost everyone speaks of when the government will change, rather than if. Tourism continues to grow and bring in substantial amounts of hard currency; at the same time it increases the gap between those who have access to dollars and those who don't. The stagnant peso economy means that those who work for salaries earn less; as a result many professionals become desperate to leave the country or find alternative sources of income. Stories abound of doctors moonlighting as bellhops and of nuclear engineers driving taxis.

Castro has wisely allowed Cubans to receive remittances sent from family members who have successfully emigrated. Remittances from abroad are the third largest source of hard currency for the country. [43] The largest has become tourism and the second largest is the sugar industry. Nodarse estimated that between 1989 and 1997, Cubans living abroad sent at least three billion dollars to relatives and friends in Cuba. Others believe it may have reached as much as $800 million a year. If this is true, then remittances would be the largest source of hard currency, exceeding profits from both tourism and sugar cane production. Much, if not most, of that money is spent in government-owned stores.

But the attempt to stifle capitalist economic competition has produced many problems. Employees steal whatever they can from their employers. Because of low salaries and the lack of other opportunities most employees see this as a legitimate fringe benefit of the job. Thus, a Cuban who works in a restaurant will bring food home every night, while one who works in a gas station may bring home diesel fuel. [44]

Corruption is endemic and is quietly tolerated by the government; the alternative could cause a violent and potentially fatal blow to the regime. Yet it is apparent to all that the quality of state-supplied services is declining drastically. The government has allowed limited development of a primitive free market system which it has found difficult to regulate.

The expectation that Cuba's government would undergo a rapid change has made the slow changes that have occurred seem anticlimactic. Pope John Paul II's visit generated tremendous publicity and a steady stream of stories magnifying the country's social problems. Much attention is given to the phenomenon of the balseros, the rafters who attempt to sail from Cuba to the United States in small boats, homemade rafts (balsas), or even inner-tubes, [45] with Eli[acute{a}]n Gonz[acute{a}]lez the most celebrated notable. There has also been much attention to the growing phenomenon of prostitution, which is particularly ironic considering that the Revolution was partly a moral reaction to the corruption of the Batista regime. [46] And as cigar smoking has come back into fashion, Cuba has become the subject of considerable interest for its famous cigars, notably Cohiba, which Fidel himself smoked before giving up the addiction.