Tuesday, June 28, 2016

History of the Jews in Cuba


History of the Jews in Cuba 

Chevet Achim
(built in 1914,
oldest synagogue in Cuba)
Inquisidor entre Luz y Santa Clara
Habana Vieja
La Habana 10100
Phone: 53 (7) 8 32-6623 

(This building, owned and maintained by Centro Sefardi, is closed and not used for ritual or community purposes. It may be viewed by appointment. Contact Jose Levy Tur - address and phone above.)

Jewish Cubans, Cuban Jews, or Cubans of Jewish heritage, have lived in the nation of Cuba for centuries. Some Cubans trace Jewish ancestry to Marranos (converts to Christianity) who came as colonists, though few of these practise Judaism today. More than 24,000 Jews lived in Cuba in 1924, and more immigrated to the country in the 1930s. But during and after the 1959 communist revolution, 94% of the Jews left for the United States and other countries.[1] In 2007 an estimated 1,500 known Jewish Cubans remained in the country, overwhelmingly located in Havana.[2] Several hundred have since emigrated to Israel.
History
There was significant Jewish immigration to Cuba in the early 20th century: from Turkey following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and from eastern Europe and Russia. By 1924 there were 24,000 Jews in Cuba, with many working in its garment industry.[1] In the 1930s, additional Jewish immigrants came from Europe as a result of Nazi and fascist persecution; some hoped to get to the United States but decided to stay in Cuba. In 1959 before the Revolution, an estimated 15,000 Jews lived in Havana, where they had five synagogues.[2] More Jewish Cubans lived outside the capital.
Nearly 95% of Jews left Cuba for the United States after the arrival of Fidel Castroand his implementation of a communist government.[1] As part of the middle class, some Jews were made to serve in forced labor camps in the 1960s, but they were not targeted as an ethnic group by Castro's government.[1]
Several Jews played prominent roles in the Revolution, including Fabio Grobart, Manuel (Stolik) Novigrod, and Enrique Oltuski.[3]
Since the late 20th century, a large Jewish Cuban-American community has developed in South Florida. Modern Cuba has some new communities of Middle Eastern descent, including Jewish and Lebanese populations.
The Cuban Coordinating Commission, the official governmental unit for the Jewish Community, recognized 1,201 persons as Jewish in 2001 for the purpose of distributing Passover food.[1]
In February 2007 The New York Times estimated that there are about 1,500 known Jews living in Cuba, most of them (about 1,100) living in Havana.[2] Cuba has onekosher butcher shop on the entire island. For a time it had no rabbi, but by 2007, one was based in a Havana synagogue. He often encourages visiting Jews to giveTzedakah (charity) for the Jewish Cubans and for Israel.[2] Alan Gross traveled to Cuba to help the small Jewish community, but he was detained in Cuba from 2009 to 2014. Some Jewish Americans originally from Cuba are also fierce critics of the Cuban regime like Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and academic Ruth Behar. Israel also continues to have an embargo against Cuba.
Adath Israel is the only Orthodox synagogue remaining in Cuba.[2] In December 2006, the Cuban Jewish community celebrated its 100th anniversary.[1]
See also
References
  1. "Cuba", Jewish Virtual Library
  2. [1]
  3. Metz, Allan (1993). "Cuban-Israeli Relations: From the Cuban Revolution to the New World Order". Cuban Studies 23: 115.
Further reading
  • Jay Levinson, Jewish Community of Cuba: The Golden Years, 1905–1958, Nashhville, TN: Westview Publishing Company, 2005.
External links

 Adio Kerida 

Adio Kerida: Goodbye my Dear Love is an award-winning 2002documentary by American anthropologist Ruth Behar that follows her trip to Cuba, which her family left when she was four. She searches for memories from her past and investigates the dwindling Sephardic Jewish community that remains, estimated at less than 800 in 2011.
Summary
Ruth Behar was born in Havana, Cuba before theCuban Revolution and was four years old when her family immigrated to the United States. She is a professor at the University of Michigan and travels to Havana to explore what remains of Jewish Cuba. As immigrants there in the early 20th century, her father and grandfather, Sephardi Jews from Turkey, once worked as peddlers in the city.[1]
Behar presents Danayda Levy as an example of the complex present of Cuban Jewry. Danayda's mother is a Jehovah's Witness, and her father Jose is president of the Sephardi Jewish center.[1] She is interviewed with her sister while they are in their parents' apartment. Her sister now practices Santería, an Afro-Cuban creole religion developed by African slaves in the New World, and incorporating practices from historic Nigeria. Danayda is committed to Judaism and can read in Hebrew from theTorah with her father's help.[1]
Ruth Behar's mother was Ashkenazi, with relatives from Poland and Germany. Her father's family was Sephardic in ancestry and from Turkey. They told of being expelled from Spain in 1492 and making their way around the Mediterranean to theOttoman Empire. The family left Turkey after the First World War and social disruption following break-up of the empire.[1]
"It is said that when our ancestors left Spain, they took the keys with them," says Behar, "always believing in the possibility of return."[1] Given the Jewish abandonment of Havana, many elements of their history remain. Her parents’ former apartment has not been changed; she finds the furniture where she remembered it. The Sephardic cemetery has numerous gravestones with the Behar name. On a street named Inquisador (Inquisitor), Behar visits the remains of her father's former temple. (At the time of the Revolution, there were five Jewish temples in Havana.) She asks, "Who am I in Cuba? A returning native, a reluctant anthropologist, or a tourist?"[1]
Reception
The film received awards at some regional film festivals and was shown widely around the United States in college venues. It received the following awards:[2]
  • East Lansing Film Festival - Documentary Award
  • San Fran. Bay Area Latino F F - Jury Award
  • Cine Festival - PREMIO MESQUITE Honorable Mention
Visual Anthropology Review: "Personal, poetic, and reflective...offers a glimpse into a relatively unknown realm of the Cuban reality. Recommended."[2]
Library Journal: "Offers an easy-to-view introduction to a fascinating culture. Libraries with strong Jewish studies collections should definitely have this one."[2]
See also
Other films about Cuban Jewry:
References
  1. "Adio Kerida". The Jewish Channel. 2007–2014. Retrieved July 28, 2014.
  2. Review: 'Adio Kerida' ", Women Make Movies website, 2002, accessed 24 August 2014
External links

 Abraham and Eugenia: Stories from Jewish Cuba 

Abraham and Eugenia: Stories From Jewish Cuba is a 1994 documentary directed by American Bonnie Burt.[1]
Summary
Abraham and Eugenia: Stories From Jewish Cuba tells the story of two people living on the communist island nation who have held onto their faith in the years since the revolution.
Abraham, a Jewish-Cuban and the only kosher butcher left in Havana, expresses the intensity of pressure to integrate into the society. He acknowledges that there is a lack of anti-Semitism, which makes it easier to get along. But Abraham is concerned that without working at it, the younger generation will live "as an average Cuban" and fail to carry on Jewish traditions.
Soon after Castro took power in 1959 up until the early 1990s, 94% of the Jewish population left Cuba. Before then, there had been 15,000 Jews in Havana alone. Shortly after the fall of the USSR, the communist party of Cuba announced a relaxation of some of their principles and the toleration of religion. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, aid to Cuba was stopped and people suffered material shortages: in 1994 Bonnie Burt traveled to Cuba and found there was a lack of medication, power outages are an everyday occurrence, and groceries per-household are extensively limited throughout the island. Within these conditions, she filmed Abraham and Eugenia, and a revival of Judaism in Cuba.
Burt shows Abraham preparing for his son Yacob's Bar Mitzvah. It is the first such event in Havana in over 15 years. At the service Abraham notes that their congregation has not had a rabbi in about 30 years, but they have been able to persevere.
In the rural, undeveloped area of Cuba's inland, Burt introduces Eugenia and her sister. They were raised in the same countryside that developed the radical leaders of the Cuban Revolution. Eugenia and her sister wanted to respect their religious father's desire that they wed men only of the Jewish faith, but found it impossible to find mates when most of the remaining Jews lived in Havana. By the time the women reached their 30s, they decided to marry Gentiles rather than remain single forever. With her husband's understanding, Eugenia was rearing their children as Jews.[2]
The Jewish population is at a significantly low level; the pious societies ofCamagüey, Cienfuegos and Santiago stand at fewer than 100 Jews per town. They lack synagogues to congregate and worship in. To strengthen Jewish living and retain a quorum of Jewish men, more people are considered necessary.
The documentary notes that Cuba's Jews had been from both Sephardic and Ashkenazy traditions, coming from Turkey, Poland, Germany and other parts of Europe, with most immigrants having arrived. With the liberalization of policies in the 1990s in Cuba, they hoped to attract new immigrants.
Reception
Paul Kaplan of Library Journal described this as "a very thoughtful film, easy to view with its large English subtitles. It is recommended for school and public libraries that emphasize Jewish, Latin American, or ethnic studies."[2]
Notes
  1. Bonnie Burt (March 2005). "Abraham and Eugenia: Stories From Jewish Cuba". Women Make Movies. Retrieved July 25, 2005.
  2. Paul Kaplan, Review: "Abraham and Eugenia: Stories of Cuban Jews", Library Journal, March 1997, at Jews of Cuba website, accessed 24 August 2014
See also
References
External links
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