Hope Is Alive

It's hard to escape classic American cars in Cuba.

Detroiters learn the joys and challenges of Cuba's Jews.

Mark Jacobs I Special to the Jewish News

W

e passed around the

envelope and in-
serted a cash gift for
a bar mitzvah boy
we had never met.
Our group of 22,
mostly Jewish De-
troiters, was visiting
a synagogue for Shabbat services in Ha-
vana on Halloween night. As a uniquely
memorable treat, there happened to be
a bar mitzvah that night, a rarity for a
country that now has only about 1,300
Jews, down from a one-time population
of 24,000.
But as we sat with the congregation
and joined in their celebration, we had
no idea that a major historic moment
between Cuba and the U.S. was just
weeks away.
When President Obama announced
last Tuesday that the two countries
would begin the path toward normal-
ization of relations — a process that
will not be so simple — it represented
a thawing of decades-old tensions that
has already stirred up raw emotions
and controversy.
For Jews, the news is especially
personal, as a key component of the his-

28 January 2015 1

10 THUM

toric deal was the release of Alan Gross
said sadly. We assumed the issue was
from a Cuban prison where he has been settled, a sobering reality check to us
held for the past five years after being
curious tourists.
convicted and sentenced to 15 years
But with all other top-
for "promoting to destabilize activi-
ics, Dworin was hopeful
ties and subvert constitutional order."
and humorous.
His crime: attempting to bring the
"How long will you be
Internet to Cuba's Jewish community.
president?" we inquired.
She grinned, "This is
Gross' imprisonment was a central
topic of conversation when we met
Cuba, presidential terms
with the "presidenta" of the Jewish
last a lifetime?
Adele Dworin,
community in Cuba, Adela Dworin,
As head of the frail
"presidenta"
Jewish community, Ad-
a 70-ish woman with a warm smile,
of the Cuban
an indomitable determination and a
ela knows she must ask
Jewish
keen sense of humor.
Jewish visitors for help in
Community
the form of money, cloth-
Gross' imprisonment had been a
cause celebre within the Cuban Jew-
ing, medicine, books,
everything. There really is no choice;
ish community, a powerful reminder
of the dark side of Cuba, despite all
it's a matter of survival, and so there is
the beauty and friendliness we had
no shame or hesitation in her pleas.
"I have a Ph.D. in shnorring," she
encountered.
Dworin, as the premiere Jewish
says unabashedly. She told us of the
leader, had been a frequent visitor of
few times she met with Fidel Castro
Gross, and she told us how she tried
who, she says, eased up on religious
to boost his spirits and assist in his
restrictions 20 years ago. At that first
release, but to no avail. He had lost
meeting many years ago, she asked
more than 100 pounds and had fallen
why he never visited a synagogue.
into a deep depression and now, she
"Because you never asked me," he
told us then, she no longer held out
replied, so she invited him to come to
much hope. "I can do nothing', she
services and speak, which he did and

,

!),

spoke for "only" two hours about the
Old Testament. Fifteen years later,
during a return visit, she showed him
a picture of the two of them from years
earlier, to which he said, "You look the
same? Her reply, "You, too, and now
we're both lying?
But her humor didn't mask the
seriousness of the struggle Cuban Jews
face every day in a society gripped by
poverty, isolation from the U.S. and
repression Behind a closed door, we
asked what the Jewish community
really thought of communism and
Castro.
"We don't take a position either way,"
she quickly snapped, a reply clearly
rehearsed. "But how do you really
feel?" we pressed her. She gave us a
shrug and a half-smile. We had gotten
our answer.
To visit Jewish Cuba in 2014 is both
heartbreaking and heart-warming.
The community seems to be hanging
on by a thread. There are no rabbis left
on the island, only an occasional visit
from a few visiting rabbis from abroad.
The people, like all Cubans, live very
meager lives (a doctor, we're told, is
paid about $40 a month, less than a