• Submitted by: admin
• 12 / 03 / 2006

Cuba's Jews are enjoying a rare celebration of their own.

For the next month, the island's tiny Jewish community will mark its 100th anniversary with religious services, music, dancing, parties and speeches.

The festivities were to begin Thursday evening with a cultural gala at Havana's National Fine Arts Museum. On Dec. 1, local historian Maritza Corrales was scheduled to present her book, "The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba," at the biblically themed Hotel Raquel in the capital city's historic colonial quarter.

Throughout December, the Emuna dance company will perform contemporary Jewish folk dances in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara, while in Santiago de Cuba, the works of Jewish artists will be exhibited at Congregacion Hatikva. The leader of that synagogue, Eugenia Farin Levy, also will present her book, "History of Cuba's Jewish Community in Maps."

Some 1,500 Jews live in Cuba, more than 85 percent of them in Havana, according to Adela Dworin, president of Havana's largest synagogue, the Patronato.

Sources in Miami, however, put the actual number of Jews in Cuba at 600 to 800. They point out that nearly 700 Cuban Jews have left for Israel in the past 10 years, with nearly half of them eventually relocating to South Florida.

Dworin assumed leadership of the Jewish community in March after its longtime president, 80-year-old Jose Miller, died of a heart attack. Miller's grandson, William Miller, 30, is the community's vice-president.

"For us it's very sad not to have Dr. Miller with us because this celebration was his idea," Dworin told JTA in a phone interview Thursday from Havana. "The actual centenary of the community was in August, but we had to postpone it after he died."

Jews have been living in Cuba off and on for centuries, but it wasn't until 1906 that 11 American Jews living on the island established a Reform synagogue, the United Hebrew Congregation, with services in English. They also consecrated a cemetery in Guanabacoa, on the outskirts of Havana, officially marking the start of institutionalized Jewish life in Cuba.

By 1959 Cuba had an estimated 15,000 Jews, for the most part wealthy merchants with shoe factories, department stores and mansions. Following Castro's confiscation of private property, most of the Jews fled to South Florida, with smaller numbers immigrating to Israel and various Latin American countries.

Havana currently has three functioning synagogues, while Camaguey and Santiago de Cuba have one each. In addition, much smaller Jewish communities hold regular Shabbat services at private homes in the provincial capitals of Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus and Guantanamo.

Dworin said several prominent rabbis are in Cuba for the festivities, including Chile's Samuel Szteinhandler and Arthur Schneier, founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation. Also set to attend the opening-night commemoration was Caridad Diego, chief of religious affairs of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee.

The islandwide event marking 100 years of organized Jewish life in Cuba was supposed to include a visit to the Patronato by Fidel Castro himself. But that had to be canceled when the bearded leader was rushed to a hospital in late July for emergency surgery of an undisclosed nature. The illness forced Castro to turn power over to his brother Raul, 75, for the first time since 1959.

Source: JewishWorld.jpost.com