By Doreen Hemlock
Havana Bureau
Posted January 7 2007
HAVANA ? Llina Appel remembers a thriving Jewish life after she moved
from Poland to this Caribbean capital 80 years ago. There were busy
synagogues, social clubs, kosher butchers and bakeries, plus big Jewish
weddings to attend.
But after Cuba nationalized businesses in the 1960s and declared itself
an atheist nation, most Jews left. Few of those remaining frequented
synagogues, partly because of concerns that open links to religion might
thwart advancement for their families.
Growing up during the initial decades of socialism in Cuba, Llina's
granddaughter Eva Grabosky recalls lighting Sabbath candles at home, but
not being religious. She married a non-Jew and neither mastered the
Yiddish spoken by her grandmother nor explored Jewish traditions.
But Llina's great-granddaughter, Laura Brizuela, now spends her Sunday
mornings learning Hebrew, folk dances and other lessons at the Jewish
Community Center in Havana. And she hopes to visit Israel one day, where
some of her Cuban friends recently moved.
The three generations -- ages 93, 42 and 11, who live together in a
Havana apartment -- illustrate the evolution of the Jewish community in
Cuba. The group has morphed from ebullient to nearly extinct to, now,
budding again. And the path is inextricably tied to Jews in the
neighboring United States, Jewish community leaders say.
U.S. Jews were among the founders of Cuba's first cemetery and
congregation a century ago. Some were members of the U.S. military, who
stayed after the Spanish-American War of 1898.
More recently, after Cuba switched from an atheist to secular state in
the 1990s, U.S. Jews have been key to funding a revival of Cuba's
synagogues. And they also provide donations for struggling Jews on an
island where salaries average $15 a month.
When community leaders gathered Nov. 30 to celebrate 100 years of Jewish
organizations in Cuba, with Llina's great-grandaughter dancing in the
show, organizers honored such U.S. Jewish groups as the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Committee.
U.S. aid is so vital that the Bush administration's tightening of
restrictions two years ago on U.S. travel to Cuba have hurt synagogue
coffers.
"Before, we'd get maybe 20 visits a day from Americans who'd put money
in the donation box. Now, we're lucky to get one," said Luis Rousso, who
manages Adath Israel, an orthodox synagogue in colonial Havana.
Llina Appel recalls how her family and thousands of other Jews mainly
from Europe, Turkey and Russia streamed into Cuba in the 1920s, '30s and
'40s, fleeing upheaval and persecution in their homelands and hoping to
reach the United States. Washington had quotas on immigration by country
then, so they selected Cuba as a way station en route to nearby U.S. shores.
Many Jewish immigrants congregated near the seaport in colonial Havana,
which they expected would be their exit route one day. Some even called
the island, "Hotel Cuba," said Adela Dworin, president of the Patronato,
Cuba's largest Jewish group.
As they waited, their community blossomed, with Jewish schools,
synagogues, social clubs, arts and businesses. Appel and her husband, a
Polish Jew she met in Havana, opened a leather tannery and shoe shop.
By the time World War II ended in 1945, up to 25,000 Jews lived in Cuba,
placing the island among the largest safe havens for Jews per-capita
during the Holocaust, Dworin and other Jewish community leaders say.
But many Jews left Cuba after World War II, mainly to the United States
or Argentina. The community numbered about 15,000, when Fidel Castro and
his rebels toppled the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in
1959 and ushered in socialism, leaders say.
By the late 1960s, up to 90 percent of those remaining left, after the
government seized their businesses or banned their private professional
practices, leaders say. Appel said nearly all her family left, most to
the United States, but she stayed to care for her aging mother and aunt.
Appel kept attending synagogue, but attendance dropped under Cuba's
atheist decrees. Appel's daughter, who had married a Cuban Jew in 1957,
did not emphasize religious teachings to the next generation, including
Eva Grabosky, now a computer science expert.
Appel remembers painful isolation in the early decades of the Cuban
revolution. She longed to see her family in the United States but
communication was nearly impossible. Aid from U.S. Jews withered.
But the fall of the Soviet Union and end of massive Soviet subsidies to
Cuba in the 1990s forced financially squeezed Havana to open up to the
capitalist world and religion.
Now, Appel rejoices when visiting the Adath Israel synagogue. Gone are
the termite-ridden beams and broken windows in the main sanctuary. And
the flood-damaged ceiling in the smaller sanctuary has been upgraded --
helped by donations from U.S. Jews.
The community has been rebuilding too. As synagogues and churches
offered food and other aid during Cuba's tough economic times in the
1990s, many Cubans found religion. Some converted to Judaism. By some
estimates, Cuba now has about 1,500 Jews.
Limits remain, however. There's no resident rabbi; visiting rabbis come
from Latin America for high holidays and other special occasions. Nor is
there is a resident mohel to perform circumcisions for male infants
required under Jewish law.
Finances also continue to be shaky. The Sephardic Center in Havana, for
instance, continues to rent one floor as a gym, and most Jewish groups
depend largely on foreign donations, leaders said.
Future growth remains uncertain too. Hundreds of Cuban Jews have left in
recent years for Israel, welcomed under Israel's right of return policy.
Cuba's Jewish youth raised amid economic hardship since the Soviet
collapse are among the most likely to leave.
Samuel Zagovalov, 59, Cuba's only kosher butcher, now has one child in
Israel and two in Miami. "I have my roots here in Cuba," said the son of
a Russian immigrant father and Cuban mother. "But that doesn't mean I
might not go one day to be with my children."
While Havana still has fewer synagogues than five decades ago, Appel
marvels at how the congregations are reviving. She's especially proud
that her great-granddaughter's generation is learning traditions to keep
the Jewish community alive and hopefully, thriving during another century.
"After the revolution, there were few Jewish youth groups," said Appel,
as her great-granddaughter showed off her Hebrew studies book. "The
future is the youth."
Doreen Hemlock can be reached at dhemlock@sun-sentinel.com.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-ocubajews07jan07,0,7113816.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba
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