I CLOSE-UP
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Israelita de Nicaragua
typifies the conditions
for Central America's
war-torn citizens
The ark still stands in the empty sanctuary.
EMPTY SYMB
LILA ORBACH
Special to The Jewish News
M
anagua, Nicaragua — The
front doors, decorated
with four stars of David,
are locked and sealed
shut Managua's only
synagogue has been closed for near-
ly a decade. Yet it still stands, freshly
painted with white-trimmed windows
on an out-of- the-way street in a
middle-class Managuan neighbor-
hood. Unlike the other neatly
trimmed lawns of the homes lining
the street, the yard of the synagogue
is overgrown. Weeds and rubbish sur-
round the building.
Now a skeleton of itself, the lone-
ly, hollow structure is one of the last
surviving remnants of Nicaragua's
Jewish community, which at its peak
boasted of some 50 families and has
now dwindled down to nothing. Less
than a half dozen Nicaraguans living
in Managua admit to being Jewish.
But they are no longer practicing
their Judaism.
Tapping loudly on the front door
of the synagogue brings the startling
appearance of a small face at a side
entrance. It was a little girl. And
above her, there came another face,
and another and another — five
children, ages 4 to 16, each peering
out in curiosity, wondering who the
visitor was.
Their clothes were dirty and torn,
with no zippers or buttons. The
children had no shoes. Their teeth
were rotting. But they smiled, eager
to welcome visitors and to show off
their new home. The children were
alone. It was lunchtime, but there was
no sign of food.
As I walked in to explore what
was left of Congregacion Israelita de
Nicaragua, the children went back to
watch a movie on an old, black and
white television perched on a shelf in
the corner of the sanctuary. There
were no chairs, so they stood.Every
26
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1988
once in a while, they'd look up to see
what the gringa was doing.
The wooden ark, carved with four
Jewish stars, is empty except for an
old shoe that somehow found its way
inside. In the back of the room is a
cabinet that likely held prayer books
or perhaps prayer shawls. Now it
holds old cans, a banana peel and
empty cigarette packs. Leaning over
for a closer look into the cabinet, sud-
denly the white face of what looked
like a rat jumped out. To the delight
of the children, I started to scream.
"Don't be afraid;' the youngest
boy said in Spanish as he picked up
the rodent by a leash he had tied
around its neck. "This is Panchita."
Panchita is the family pet. And
the cabinet at the back of the
synagogue is its home.
The children and their parents
live in the synagogue's back room. All
seven share two old and dirty mat-
tresses without any bedding. The
bathroom is infested with flies. There
is no running water. A fire pit in the
yard serves as their oven.
The Huembes family moved to the
synagogue last fall from a shack in
one of the poorest neighborhoods in
Managua. The mother said she was
hired — she didn't know by whom —
to take care of the building.
Except for the Huembes family,
Panchita, and the five pigeons that
nest near the ark, Congregacion
Israelita de Nicaragua is an empty
synagogue in a country now empty of
any Jewish community.
Most of Nicaragua's Jewish
population had arrived from Europe
in the late 1920s and early 1930s, as
the first of the Somoza dynasty
assumed power. They worked in far-
ming, manufacturing and retail sales.
Although the Somozas proved to be
ruthless and repressive dictators, the
Jews were welcomed into the Nica-
raguan mainstream and were not
mistreated. Under the protection of
the Somoza family and its national
guard, the Jews established busi-
The caretakers' children: barefoot in the courtyard.