B’NAI BRITH CUBAN JEWISH
RELIEF PROJECT
Selected Cuban Jewish Communities
The goal of the Cuban Jewish
Relief Project (CJRP) is to help ensure that a vibrant Jewish
community not only remains, but flourishes, in Cuba. The CJRP brings much needed material goods,
medicine, and Judaica to members of the Cuban Jewish community. And
given the fact that only a small number of Jews now live in
Cuba, the CJRP stands with the community so that they do not
feel alone
With the help of the Cuban Jewish Relief Project, the Cuban
Jewish community is strong and is better able to cope with
daily challenges. Its strength is evidenced by the commitment
and spirit of community members, and its challenges underscored
by economic concerns and the difficulties finding the essentials,
such as prayer books and matzo, to lead a Jewish life. The
Project helps make it possible for Cuban Jews to live Jewish
lives so that they can celebrate the holidays, attend synagogue,
learn Jewish history, traditions and Hebrew, and teach their
children what it means to be Jews.
The Project, which Stanley Cohen founded in 1995, works with
the community in many ways. For example, the Project
has donated Torahs to communities who otherwise would not have
had one, along with other essential Judaica; supported the
restoration of the community’s cemeteries and the teaching
of the Jewish religion; donated needed medicines that are distributed
to the Jewish community as well as to the general Cuban community;
and worked with the community to help ensure that community
members have the essentials of daily life, including adequate
clothing and safe places to live.
A majority of the members of the Jewish community live in
the following communities:
HAVANA
Havana is the Cuba’s capital, major port, and leading
commercial centre. It is an exuberant and lively city, the
island’s cultural center, and one of the most beautiful
cities in the world. However, its beauty has badly faded
from decades of neglect and disrepair. The city/province has
2.1 million inhabitants, and the urban area over 3.5 million,
making Havana the largest city in both Cuba and the Caribbean.
Havana is the center of the Cuban government and the ministries
and headquarters of businesses are based there. The government
will have to confront the severe negative economic consequences
from the 2008 hurricanes and the global economic downturn.
Havana’s long history mirrors that of Cuba itself, with
Spanish colonization and an American occupation prior to the
1959 Revolution lead by Fidel Castro. Following a severe
economic downturn after the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991 and with it the end of its $6 billion annual subsidy to
Cuba, coupled with the negative economic impact of the U.S.
embargo, the Cuban government turned to tourism for financial
support. Tourism is the country’s largest source of revenue. Funds
thereby generated have been used to begin rebuilding Old Havana
with its severely run-down colonial, art nouveau, and art deco
buildings, and rehabilitate some streets and squares. (Tourism
from the U.S. has been severely limited because of restrictions
associated with the embargo.)
Most of the approximately 1,500 Jews who live in Cuba today
reside in Havana. (At the time of the Revolution, the Jewish
population of the island was about 15,000.) People have been
able to freely practice their religion since the 1991 Cuban
Communist Party decree that Party members could have religious
affiliations, the 1992 change in the Cuban Constitution making
the state secular, and the 1992 departure of the Soviets from
the island. In 1994, the first Bar Mitzvah took place in over
twelve years and the first formal bris in over five years.
The Jewish community center, the Patronato, is located
in Havana and is overseen by Adela Dworin, a long-time important
leader and the President of the Jewish community of Cuba. On
any given day, people hold meetings there – including
the B’nai Brith Maimonides Lodge, and teenagers meet
to, for example, practice folk dances for a community festival.
The Patronato has a computer study center and a Sunday school
which offers Hebrew lessons. Both Jews and non-Jews fill their
prescriptions at the pharmacy located on the top floor. The
pharmacy is staffed by the indefatigable Dr. Rosa Behar and
has medicine donated largely by CJRP that is hard, if not impossible,
to find elsewhere in Cuba.
Bet Shalom, a conservative synagogue, is located alongside
the Patronato. This beautiful building was in disrepair until
the mid-1990s, but is now fully functional thanks to contributions
from B’nai Brith, the Joint Distribution Committee, the
Federation, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and many individuals.
Equally important to Jewish life in Havana and Cuba are Adath
Israel (the Orthodox synagogue) and Centro Sefardi (the Sephardic
Center). The Sephardic synagogue also is affiliated with the
Conservative Jewish movement in the U.S.
The Adath Israel synagogue is located in Old Havana. Its
beautiful wooden altar is carved with scenes from Jerusalem
and historic Havana. The synagogue, which houses the only mikvah
in Cuba, was completed in 1959 near the city’s port where
most Jews lived upon their arrival in Cuba. It is in a neighborhood
of crooked, narrow streets and buildings in much need of repair.
The synagogue offers breakfast and lunch daily, makes
challah for synagogue and Sephardic Center members for the
Sabbath and High Holidays, and holds daily religious services,
with men only reading from the torah since it is an Orthodox
temple. The energetic and enterprising synagogue treasurer, Yacob
Berezniak Hernandez, is continually looking for ways to help
synagogue members.
The Centro Sefardi’s long-time leader was Jose
Levy Tur, a former merchant marine who taught himself Hebrew
and Jewish history. He made the difficult decision to
leave Cuba, making aliyah to Israel in 2007 to join his daughter. The
Centro Sefardi now is lead by the dynamic Mayra Levy who is
a doctor. Mayra is a strong leader who is in the process of
reorganizing and expanding the synagogue. El Centro is the
last remaining institutional legacy of Sephardic life in Cuba.
The center holds weekly services in a small room because the
main sanctuary has been rented out and is no longer in use
for Jewish prayer and ritual. On Friday nights and Saturday
mornings, older Sephardic Jews gather to eat together and pass
the time chatting after prayers. El Centro also has a Sunday
school for adults that 60 people attend, houses a small pharmacy
where much needed medicines are distributed, offers cooking
and sewing lessons, and has a media room where members can
watch DVDs.
The Havana Jewish community has two cemeteries in Guanabacoa,
on the east side of Havana harbor. The Cemeterio de
la Comunidad Religiosa Ebrea Adath Israel is for Ashkenazim
and dates from 1912. People enter the cemetery by walking under
a Spanish colonial gate with a Star of David. To the
left of the gate is a small memorial to the Holocaust. Behind
the Ashkenazic cemetery is the Cementerio de la Union Hebrea
Chevet Ahim for Sephardic Jews which also has a memorial
to the Holocaust
SANTA CLARA
Santa Clara is the capital city of the Cuban province of Villa
Clara, and is located near the center of the country, a location
that helped ensure its growth. Santa Clara was founded by 175
people on July 15th, 1689, and has a population of about 235,000. Santa
Clara is central to modern Cuban history because it was the
site of the Cuban revolution’s last battle. In
late 1958, two leaders of the revolution, Ernesto Che Guevara
and Camilo Cienfuegos, defeated Batista’s forces and
soon thereafter Batista fled Cuba. At the entrance of
Santa Clara is a mausoleum that contains the remains of Che
Guevara and sixteen of his fellow combatants who were killed
in 1967 in Bolivia.
David Tacher Romano heads the small Santa Clara Jewish community
of about 40 people. David is a passionate activist and philosopher-leader
who works to, not only help the Santa Clara Jewish community,
but teach other Cubans about the history of the Jews and the
reasons why Israel exists. David helped recreate the Santa
Clara Jewish community, much having been lost after the Revolution,
with the synagogue and cemetery turned over to the government
because of the dramatic decline of the Jewish population.
Much has changed in the last decade. Despite facing many challenges
including having no synagogue or torah, little knowledge of
Judaism or Hebrew, and a Jewish cemetery abandoned and lying
in ruin, David is helping to rebuild a vibrant community. In
2008, he acquired a synagogue that the Cuban Jewish Relief
Project will help to decorate. Its torah was donated
in 2005 by Steven Yoselevich, a board member of the Cuban Jewish
Relief Project. The synagogue will serve members from Santa
Clara as well as smaller communities nearby.
Under David’s leadership, the cemetery was restored
in 2000, with David then turning to another challenge: building
a Holocaust memorial. David believed it was important
to preserve in this small Cuban community the memory of the
six million Jews who perished during World War II. With
his leadership, a memorial was created with assistance from
the American Jewish community and the U.S. Holocaust Museum
donating stones from the Warsaw Ghetto. Visitors to the memorial,
which is situated in a corner of the cemetery, pour water on
a pine tree David planted with sand from the Negev and water
from the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River
that he brought back from a visit to Israel.
CIENFUEGOS
Cienfuegos, a sea-side city on the southern coast of Cuba
with a population of about 150,000 people, is the capital of
the province of the same name. Located about 155 miles east
of Havana, Cienfuegos is known as "La Perla del Sur"(Pearl
of the South) because of its beautiful bay. Its elegant nineteenth
century architecture and wide and straight streets reflect
French influence from immigrants from Bordeaux and Louisiana
who settled in Cienfuegos in the 19th century, and plantation
owners who fled Haiti after the revolution there. In 2005, UNESCO inscribed
the urban historic Centre of Cienfuegos on the World
Heritage List.
Within this beautiful city, a small and vibrant community
of about 25 people is practicing their Judaism against the
odds. Rebeca Langus Rodriquez, a school teacher, is the community’s
leader and her home, which she shares with her husband Ramon
and her two children, David and Danielito, is the center of
the Cienfuegos Jewish community. Community members come there
for services, to study Hebrew and Jewish history, and to read
the religious texts and other books that Americans have donated
and fill up the bookshelf with the Star of David which Ramon
built.
Rebecca warmly welcomes visitors to her small second-floor
apartment where she tells visitors about how pleased she is
to be able to practice her Jewish faith and the challenges
the community faces. These include the need for medicine
and basic necessities of daily life (such as vitamins and underwear),
the lack of books in Spanish about Jewish life, Hebrew and
religious texts, and substandard housing.
SANCTI SPIRITUS
Sancti Spiritus is a charming colonial city in central Cuba
with a population of about 134, 000 people. It was founded
in 1514 and is the capital of Sancti Spiritus province. Sancti
Spíritus was one of the original seven Cuban cities
founded by the Spanish in 1514 and has charming narrow cobblestone
streets and colonial architecture.
Jose Isidoro Barlia Loyarte, a math teacher, is the president
of the small Jewish community of about 35 people. His
wife, Daisy Bernal Mayea, is a pharmacist who learned Hebrew
and studied Jewish history. She now teaches monthly religious
services at their home, a pink house with grillwork formed
into Stars of David on all its sides.
CAMAGUEY
Camagüey is a city and municipality in central Cuba and
the capital of Camaguey Province. It is located in a large
agricultural region in the east-central part of the island
300 miles southeast of Havana, and is a center of communications,
education and culture. It is the nation’s third largest
city, with buildings of beautiful colonial architecture needing
restoration, winding and blind alleys and forked streets that
lead to squares of different sizes. This design made
the city easier to defend from pirates when it was first built
in the sixteenth century.Camagüey is also known as the
City of tinajones due to the big clay containers that had been
used to store rainwater, but today largely have an aesthetic
function. In 2008, the old town was designated a UNESCO
World Heritage Site. However, in September 2008 Camaguey
suffered damage as centuries-old buildings were smashed by
hurricanes and homes and crops were destroyed.
The Jewish community thrived in Camaguey, with a synagogue
opened in 1927 that welcomed World War II refugees. However,
many left after the war and others after the Revolution. The
Camaguey graveyard is the only functioning remnant of pre-Revolutionary
Camaguey, with the old synagogue having been turned over to
the government after the Revolution and converted into apartments.
The 50 people who make up the community belong to Comunidad
Hebrea Tiferet Israel. David Pernas Levy, a grandson
of the community’s first president in the 1920s, is the
current president. David took the lead in restoring the cemetery,
with help from the Cuban Jewish Relief Project. The community
opened a new synagogue in 1998 to which the Cuban Jewish Relief
Project donated a torah. The synagogue is a long and
narrow building with tall columns that support wooden rafters,
with a small number of religious texts shelved on a bookcase
to the side. Since there is no rabbi in Camaguey, as
is the case for Cuba as whole, members of the congregation
lead the service.
CARIBARIEN
Caribarien is located on the north coast of Cuba. It
was founded in 1841, and established as a municipality in 1876.
About 38,000 people live there. It serves as a shipping point
for agricultural commodities. Much of the city has fallen into
disrepair due to lack of care. The two sugar mills that used
to send their sugar exports through the harbor are now closed
and crumbling.
The Caribarien Jewish community is headed by Julio Rodriques
Eli. About 25 people meet in a home to conduct services.
SANTIAGO
Santiago is one of the most beautiful cities in Cuba, with
the sea and mountains nearby, and is located on the eastern
side of the island. It is Cuba’s second largest city
after Havana and its first capital. Santiago holds a significant
place in the history of the Cuban Revolution and is viewed
by many as the Cradle of the Revolution. Its architecture reflects
many different styles from the baroque to the neoclassical
and the city is filled with distinctive and culturally significant
buildings. Santiago also is the source of many of Cuba’s
music genres, is the country’s center of Afro-Cuban culture,
and holds one of the most spectacular carnivals in the country.
French and African words can be heard on the street, reflecting
the many French and Haitian families who settled in Santiago
in the late 18th century.
The Santiago Jewish community consists of 70 people and is
headed by the dynamic Eugenia Farin. Members reopened
the synagogue in 1993, are very welcoming of visitors, and
proud of their heritage and culture. Several community
members specialize in Israeli dance which they perform throughout
Cuba.
GUANTANAMO
Guantanamo is the capital of the province of the same name
with a population of about 180,000 people located on the far
east of the island near Santiago. While the city’s name
is well known now for the U.S. military base the U.S. controls
due to the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War, most
Cubans go about their lives unconcerned about the U.S. military
presence.
The 40 members of Guantanamo’s Jewish community
are lead by David Mizrachi who has built up the community and
kept it alive. The Cuban Jewish Relief Project donated a torah
to the synagogue which is housed in a home.
Judith E. Golub, January 2009
