HAVANA — A group of 20 Canadian Jews travelled to Havana recently to assist Cuba’s small and relatively isolated Jewish community of about 1,500 people.
HAVANA —
A group of 20 Canadian Jews travelled to Havana recently to assist
Cuba’s small and relatively isolated Jewish community of about 1,500
people.
Participants of a UIA Federations Canada’s Young Leadership
tikkun olam mission to Cuba gather in a restored part of old Havana.
[Rhonda Spivak photo]
The Canadians were part of a first-ever UIA Federations Canada’s Young Leadership tikkun olam mission to Cuba, Jan 26 to 31.
“We arrived in Cuba bringing duffel bags full of donations of medicines, as well as toothbrushes, soap, disposable diapers, and other essential items that are needed by Jews in Cuba,” Mindy Eklove, director of National Young Leadership of UIA Federations Canada, said.
The Cuban Jewish community gives out medicine to members of the Jewish community in need weekly.
“We are very grateful for what the Canadians brought,” William Miller, vice-president of the Cuban Jewish community, told The CJN.
Mission participants also helped divide and bag portions of powdered milk they purchased for the Cuban Jewish community. Powdered-milk rations in Cuba are only given out to children under eight.
“There is no fresh milk in Cuba, so there are many members of our community, especially those with babies and children, who rely on powdered milk,” Miller said.
Prior to 1959, when Fidel Castro came into power, there was an active Jewish community of some 15,000 Jews in Havana alone, many of whose ancestors originated from Europe and Turkey. After Castro nationalized private business and property, 90 per cent of the Jewish population, many of them business owners, left the island. The remaining 10 per cent were generally not observant Jews, and over the years, many intermarried.
Jewish communal life continued to decline until 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Cuba changed its constitution, allowing for religious freedom.
Adela Dworkin, president of the Cuban Jewish community, told The CJN that most Cuban Jews have one child.
“In some ways I feel that it is a miracle that we have survived. For years, we didn’t have enough Jewish people coming to pray in our synagogues,” she said. “We would have a ‘Cuban minyan,’ made up of eight adults, and then we’d count the Torah, and God, to make the necessary 10.”
Miller said that today, there are about 60 Cuban Jews a year “who make aliyah to Israel,” but in “2010 there were 100 Cubans who married Jews and underwent Conservative conversions.”
Dworkin told The CJN about her meeting with Castro in 1998.
“I asked him why he had never visited the Jewish community, and he answered, ‘because I was never invited,’” she said.
Dworkin then invited him to an upcoming Chanukah celebration at El Patronato, the Jewish community centre, housed in the same building as Beth Shalom synagogue, a Conservative shul.
When Castro asked what Chanukah is, Dworkin replied, “The holiday celebrates a revolution,” a word he likes. To Dworkin’s surprise, he came to the party and addressed the congregation in a lengthy speech.
Participants of the mission were welcomed by many spirited young adults at El Patronato. The young Cuban Jews, many of whom have travelled to Israel on Birthright/Taglit programs, sang and danced in Hebrew, waving Israeli and Cuban flags.
“The Cuban government has granted travel visas to anyone who has applied to go on these programs,” Dworkin said.
Shawna Goodman, campaign chair for Montreal’s Federations CJA’s Young Leadership Campaign, told The CJN that “we need to educate other Canadian Jews who travel to Cuba to take an extra day and visit the community in Havana and to pack a bag of needed medicines, shampoo, etc.
“The Cuban Jews cannot be forgotten… the highest form of tzedakah is to give them the tools to help themselves. They are the best investment ever and we have so much to learn from them.”
