Penúltimos Días

Linda Hirsh en el Jerusalem Post.

Y una entrevista al rabino Barry Dov Schwartz, en el Newsday de hoy.

Visit full of surprises and hope;
On a mission to help Cuba’s small Jewish community, an LI rabbi and
his wife experience touching moments

BYLINE: BY PEGGY BROWN. peggy.brown@newsday.com

SECTION: LI LIFE; Pg. G02

The “conversos,” or Crypto- Jews … landed with Christopher Columbus
during the “Discovery” or came during the years of the Conquest and
colonial domination in order to escape the Inquisition …

 

- From “The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba,”

by Maritza Corrales

Whatever Rabbi Barry Dov Schwartz and his wife, Sonia, expected to see
at Bet Chayim, a Jewish cemetery on Havana’s outskirts, it wasn’t the
grave of an American soldier.

But there it was: a sepia-toned, oval photo set into a rectangular
piece of pure white marble, leaning against a gravestone lined with
bold Hebrew lettering. Despite more than 50 years’ exposure to the
subtropical climate, the photo still shows a handsome, dark-eyed young
soldier, his uniform cap jaunty on his head.

The words on the tombstone, translated by Schwartz – of Temple B’nai
Sholom, a Conservative synagogue in Rockville Centre – also were a
surprise:

“Isaac, son of Aryeh Leib Bender, who fell in a mitzvah war in Korea
on the 5th day of Sivan [July] in the year of 1952, may his soul be
bound up in the bond of life.”

A different island then

If the Bender family had brought their son’s body back to his native
Cuba after the communist revolution of 1959, they might not have been
allowed to write those words on his tombstone – calling the Korean
War, in which the West fought communist North Korea, a “mitzvah”
(“commandment” or “good deed”). Still, the dedication never was
removed.

That cemetery visit was one of many touching, even astonishing,
moments on the Schwartzes’ recent mission to Cuba to help the
country’s small Jewish community – a mere 1,500 souls in a population
of about 11 million.

Besides encouraging the practice of Judaism, the Schwartzes had an
economic goal. “The Jews suffer like other Cubans because of being
impoverished,” Schwartz said. They stuffed their luggage full of
over-the-counter and prescription medicines, school supplies and other
essentials hard to find in Cuba. Other agencies had provided religious
items, so they didn’t pack any, Schwartz said.

Of course, not just anyone can go to Cuba. It’s been under a U.S.
trade embargo since Fidel Castro and fellow revolutionaries, including
his younger brother, Raul – who took over in February as president of
the country with the ailing Fidel’s blessing – led the revolution.

But the Schwartzes – she teaches seventh-grade social studies at the
Bais Yaakov Academy for Girls, an Orthodox Jewish school in Kew
Gardens; he’s been spiritual leader of Temple B’nai Sholom for 36
years – applied for a religious exemption.

“There are a number of Jewish groups who go every year on a license to
help,” said Harry J. Silverman, executive director of the Southeast
Region, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the trip’s
organizer.

Cuba has six synagogues, including three in Havana, Silverman said;
one is Orthodox, the others Conservative. At times, a rabbi from
another country will supplement their lay leadership.

For Schwartz, travel often has been a mix of religious outreach and
social action. The Cuban mission “really intrigued me,” he said,
“because its purpose reminded me of my trip to the Soviet Union in
1984″ – when refuseniks, Soviet Jews, were denied permission by the
government to emigrate to Israel.

Schwartz and his state senator and friend, Dean Skelos (R-Rockville
Centre), traveled to Russia to see if they could help.

Skelos, who is not Jewish, said he put on tzitzit, tasseled
undergarments worn by religious Jewish men, “because we didn’t know if
they would be confiscated” by Soviet authorities if they were in the
luggage. Schwartz also smuggled in a ritual knife to be used for
koshering meat.

Changing times

The 1959 revolution changed nearly everything for Cuba’s 15,000 Jews,
with their history of nearly 500 years on the island.

An “exodus” of 90 percent of them, most to the United States, occurred
after Castro nationalized businesses, causing “a true demographic
catastrophe for their community,” according to “The Chosen Island” by
Maritza Corrales, a Cuban historian who acted as guide for part of the
Schwartzes’ trip.

Yet, there is no Cuban tradition of anti-Semitism, the Schwartzes said.

“It’s the only country outside the U.S. where you go into a synagogue
and there are no security guards,” Schwartz added. “It’s totally
safe.”

Yet, practicing Judaism was discouraged. “I think we all know what
happens when there’s nothing to work with – Jews do their best,” he
said.

Havana’s main synagogue, El Patronato, was used “minimally” for
religious purposes, Schwartz said, while being rented in the 1980s to
the Ministry of Culture for a theater. “They had the building and the
synagogue, but the people left,” Sonia Schwartz added. “You didn’t
have enough people to keep it going.”

But in 1992, the Cuban constitution was changed to permit the practice
of religion. “Castro visited the main synagogue in Havana” then, the
rabbi said. “They are very proud of that.”

Now synagogue attendance is growing. “They flock there,” he said.

“At the end of the Friday night services” at El Patronato, “maybe 15
little children came up to sing songs in Hebrew,” said Schwartz, who
was asked to give a “sermonette” there.

In the city of Cienfuegos, “there are no synagogues, but there are
groups of Jews who meet together to maintain their Jewishness,”
Schwartz said. “I think there are eight families who meet there. They
have a little Hebrew school. It’s amazing what they do to survive.”

“They said they were very inspired by having us come to see them,”
Sonia Schwartz said. “They said it helps keep them going. It was like
meeting your own family.”

Children helping

Just as there was a connection between American Jewish children and
those of refuseniks in the 1980s – many bar or bat mitzvah children
would read the name of a Soviet child who could study Torah only in
secret – there are American children now helping Cuban Jews.

Silverman said some Florida students “learned to tie tzitzit [tassels]
on the tallit [prayer shawls], and we presented them to the Sephardic
synagogue in Havana. When we joined them for services on Saturday
morning, we saw two men of the congregation wearing these tallitot.”

And Schwartz said bar mitzvah twins from his congregation – Max and
Alex Koenig of Rockville Centre – made a collection to contribute
supplies for the trip. Their mother, a physician, also sent medicines.

While in Cuba, the Schwartzes received an invitation to the bar
mitzvah of Alberto Mordecai Alvarez Fuentes.

“I saw this bar mitzvah boy as a symbol of the Cuban Jews,” Schwartz
said. “Before the ’90s, it was unthinkable that a boy would study
Judaism and know Hebrew and stand in front of Torahs – and, now, he
is.

“That’s the story of the Cuban Jews,” he said. “They consider
themselves part of the global Jewish community.”