by Warren Lichtenberg

Created on: May 03, 2008   Last Updated: February 11, 2009

My wife and I traveled with 22 others from Bethesda Jewish Congregation (BJC) on a religious mission to meet with what is left of the Jewish community of Cuba. At one time, there were approximately 25,000 Jews, 80% of whom were Ashkenazim and 20% Sephardim. Now there are less than 1500, of which 98% are Sephardim, primarily of Turkish decent. Most Jews got out while they could in the 1959-60 time frame. When Fidel Castro came into power in 1959, private businesses were expropriated, and professionals like doctors, dentists, and pharmacists became employees of the state. There was very little need under communism for lawyers. Of course, this hit the Jewish community quite hard. Only the poorest Jews remained. Also, Cuba became officially an atheist state. Most churches and synagogues closed. The only shul to remain open was the Sephardi Synagogue (Centro Hebreo Safardi de Cuba) in Havana. As you can imagine, attendance was minimal. They even began to count women as part of a minyan. This all changed with the Pope's visit to Cuba about 6 or 7 years ago. There are now 3 shuls in Havana, one conservative (El Patronato-Beth Shalom), one orthodox and one Sephardic. There is also a shul in Camaguey and in Santiago de Cuba. We visited each of the three in Havana. The Siddurim were written in Hebrew, Spanish and Spanish transliteration. Spelling in the transliteration was interesting. Baruch was spelled Baruj. At each shul, we opened a Torah and our leader, El Rabbino Sunny (Hazzan Sunny Schnitzer of BJC), explained the origin of each scroll. He showed us on one Moroccan Torah how the Hebrew letters differed from Eastern European scrolls. The shuls we visited had all recently been refurbished (mostly with funds from the American Joint Distribution Committee) and provide many services to the community. A few of the Ashkenazim are still able to speak Yiddish, but almost none of the Sephardim could speak Ladino. There are a few Jews high up in the Castro hierarchy, but they do not attend services, although one has grandchildren who attend Sunday school. With that exception, there seems to be little fear among others to attend. There is a kosher butcher shop in Havana that is open one day a week. People who buy their meat there are subject to the same rationing as other Cubans. The butcher has meat, but not chicken. Dark meat of chicken (the cheapest part) is imported, mostly from Canada and is not kosher. The chickens that they do have in Cuba are used to produce eggs.

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