Cuban Jewry enjoys religious renaissance

By Maya Bell 
Havana Bureau 
Posted March 3 2002 
TARARA, Cuba -- One recent morning, nearly 50 Cubans rode a bus to this beach east of Havana and, with great modesty, removed their clothes, their jewelry -- even their lipstick -- and immersed themselves in the cool waters of the Atlantic.

A few were old enough to be great-grandparents. One was young enough to fit in his mother's arms.

Many walked into the ocean as atheists.

But all walked out Jews, the sea serving as a mikveh, or ritual bath, necessary to convert to Judaism.

Married to a Jew for 12 years, Marlan Prinstein emerged from the ocean with her daughter, feeling as if she were reborn.

"For years, I felt Jewish, but I felt sad," she said. "I couldn't touch the Torah. I couldn't dance with it. Now I can."

The Havana lawyer's story is the story of the Jews of Cuba, a once vibrant community that all but disappeared when Fidel Castro confiscated businesses and declared the island an atheist state.

Now, a decade after the Communist Party allowed communism and religion to co-exist, the children of his revolution are discovering their roots, and la comunidad hebrea is rising from near extinction.

Methodists, Protestants, even evangelicals are experiencing similar revivals, but the Jewish community stands out for its resiliency.

Their numbers are tiny. Only 1,500 or so of Cuba's 11 million people call themselves judíos, a mere fraction of the 15,000 who lived on the island before Castro marched into Havana in 1959.

At that time, the capital boasted five synagogues, five Jewish elementary schools, a high school and an array of Jewish organizations and businesses.

With anti-Semitism rare on the island, Polish and Turkish Jews heading to America in the early 1900s used Cuba as a transit point, and stayed. Many became prosperous businessmen and professionals and, like the first wave of Cuban exiles in Miami, most fled when their properties and businesses were nationalized.

Today, there are only five synagogues and not a single rabbi, cantor or mohel who can perform Judaism's oldest ritual of circumcision. Yet the synagogues, once repositories only for the old, are alive again with the sounds of youngsters learning to read Hebrew, dance to Israeli music, recite Jewish prayers and celebrate Passover, Hanukkah and the High Holy Days.

Just this past Monday, dozens of people gathered in the community center of Havana's main synagogue, Beth Shalom, for Purim, the boisterous holiday celebrating Queen Esther's heroic deliverance of the Jews in ancient Persia.

Similar gatherings are happening in churches of all stripes, as the U.S. government permits humanitarian and religious organizations bearing medicines, money and other aid to visit Cuba, and the Cuban government willingly accepts the help.

It is not, however, unfettered freedom. The Cuban government still exercises tight control over publications and materials, making the simple act of renovating the crumbling Jewish cemetery or buying a van to carry congregants to synagogue a cumbersome process.

And just as with other faiths, young men and women like Tatiana Asís, trained by visiting rabbis, are turning to God for answers that the revolution never provided.

A doctor by profession, Asís, 30, is now a Jew with a passion.

On Friday nights, she can be found on the bimah, or pulpit, of Havana's main synagogue, gently swaying with a tallit, or prayer shawl, around her slender shoulders as she helps lead the Sabbath services. Standing by her side is the island's first native baal kore -- torah reader -- since the revolution began, a private man of 37.

Yet, just 13 years ago, when Asís began exploring the origins of her family name, she had never even heard the word judío before. She had no idea her father was one.

A member of the Communist Party, he turned his back on religion long ago, not wanting his faith to jeopardize his future.

It wasn't that Jews were forbidden to practice their religion. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which declared communism and Catholicism incompatible and suffered the expulsion of more than 100 priests, Jewish life was allowed to go on. Services continued. The kosher butcher shop in Old Havana remained open and, for 41 years, the Canadian Jewish Federation continued sending annual supplies of Passover food.

But like other believers, Jews often were outcasts from society, denied job advancements and carefully scrutinized.

So, like other believers, they hid or buried their beliefs, often crossing the street to avoid the synagogue they once entered. Asís' oldest half-brother, Moisés, who grew up in a different home with a different mother, was not among them.

Concerned about the generation growing up without Judaism, he started a Hebrew Sunday school at Beth Shalom for a dozen youngsters.

Curious, his little half-sister began attending the classes. The more she learned about Judaism, the more she felt at home. It hardly mattered that one's mother, not father, determines Jewish heritage. As soon as she was able, she converted.

"I knew I had a faith in something," Asís said, "but I didn't know what. Now, I have a faith and I know in what, and it fulfills my soul."

Dozens more followed her footsteps in 1991, when the Communist Party, reeling from the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the crippling deprivations that followed, began allowing people who believed in God to join its ranks.

That opening prompted Jose Miller, the chairman of Cuba's fading Jewish community, to turn to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York for help.

The JDC, whose mission is rescuing and rehabilitating Jewish communities abroad, dispatched a community development worker from Argentina, a rabbi from Mexico and a doctor from the United States. Each reported that Cuba's Jews were, like the rest of the island's population, in desperate need.

Their numbers had dwindled to 700. Food and medicine were scarce. People were sick and starving. Birds nested in the bimah of the main synagogue.

Practitioners were so few, synagogues rarely could muster a minyan, or quorum, of 10 men for prayer, leading to the invention of the "Cuban minyan." If only seven men showed up, three torah scrolls were allowed to serve as stand-ins.

With the approval of the Cuban government, the JDC began a recovery program that, bit by bit, has brought hundreds of Jews back into the fold. Some are like Asís, whose family line has Jewish roots. Others are like Prinstein, who married into the faith.

In the beginning, many came for the chicken dinners and medicines regularly supplied by the dozens of Jewish missions to Cuba. But, according to Adela Dworin, Beth Shalom's librarian and historian, they stayed because, like Asís, they feel at home.

So much so that the revival has its downside. As more Cubans turn to Judaism, more are moving to Israel. So far, at least 500 have emigrated, negating gains from conversions. Others, including Asís, hope to follow. Her reasons, she said, are personal, not political.

But that's not the case with Tony Funes, a member of the Sephardic congregation in Havana determined to leave for Israel. His incautious words show how tenuous the truce between religion and communism remains.

Sitting on a curb outside the sanctuary, Funes said the freedom to practice the religion he never abandoned cannot compensate for the lack of milk or meat for his daughters, or the absence of basic liberties.

"I'm Jewish, but I think like a Cuban so I understand," he said. "I understand that we have no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to travel, no freedom to choose how we will educate our children. And I understand that's not right."

Maya Bell can be reached at mbell@orlandosentinel.com.

Copyright © 2002, Orlando Sentinel