“In some ways I had a more Jewish experience in Cuba than in Israel,” said Michael Rosenblum of Madison, who spent New Year’s Eve and day celebrating Shabbat in two 1920s era synagogues in Havana.
“The entire experience was incredible. It was fascinating to connect with a very small — really, the remnants of — a Jewish community.”
Rosenblum, the director of community outreach for the Madison Jewish Community Council, was one of 10 Madisonians who left for Cuba on Dec. 30 for one week.
The group’s main purpose was to visit the tiny Jewish congregation of Tiferet Israel in Camaguey, Madison’s sister city, according to Professor Robert Skloot, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of Jewish studies and theater and drama, who organized and led the trip.
“We traveled under a religious license given [to Beth Israel Center] by the Department of the Treasury” and otherwise would not have been able to go there under the U.S travel embargo, explained Skloot in a recent telephone interview with The Chronicle.
The group flew from Madison via Toronto to Havana, where they spent a couple of days. They attended services at the Orthodox [Adath Israel] synagogue and the recently renovated Conservative synagogue in the Patronato de la Casa de la Comunidad Hebrea, which also houses a large social hall, library and pharmacy, and serves as the center of organized Jewish community life.
Other highlights of the Havana portion of the trip included a stop at the Sephardic [Centro Sefardi] synagogue, a tour led by a historian of the Jewish presence in Cuba, a visit to Havana’s two Jewish cemeteries and time talking with leaders and members of the Jewish community.
On Sunday, Jan. 2, the group traveled across the island to Camaguey, Cuba’s third largest city, where Madison’s Beth Israel Center has had a relationship for about five years with Tiferet Israel, a congregation of 75-80, said Skloot, the only member of the group to have visited Cuba before.
Healing through medicine
In addition to supporting the Jewish community in its religious regeneration the Madison group was able carry much needed medical supplies to Camaguey.
“We took almost 700 pounds of medicine to the pediatric hospital [there]. We were able to do this because of a license held by a Madison organization, the Wisconsin Medical Project. Visitors [to the Patronato in Havana] often bring medicine, which is distributed to Jews and non-Jews. It is a result of the cruel and hurtful embargo the U.S. maintains against Cuba that Cubans are unable to obtain [essential] medicines,” said Skloot.
Madisonians Michael Soref and Sandy Wright, a couple who belongs to the Reform congregation, Temple Beth El, joined the trip because they had both “had a longstanding interest in Cuba and a longstanding opposition to the U.S. embargo,” said Wright in a recent telephone interview with The Chronicle.
“I was really impressed by the people we met who are really invigorating Jewish society. They don’t have any rabbis or Jewish studies teachers. It would be so easy to let it slip away. It makes one reflect on one’s religion,” she said.
According to the Web site “The Jews of Cuba,” Camaguey boasted a Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish community of 800 before the Communist revolution. But with the establishment of an atheist state and the nationalization of most of the small business run by Jews, the majority of the Jews fled the country.
“The [Cuban Jews] talked about how a lot of their membership was intermarried and how several people had converted. They have visiting rabbis and mohels from Argentina and Mexico and have had group conversions. They were very proud that they are adding to the Jewish community in this way,” Wright added.
After the historic visit of the Pope in the mid-1990s the Cuban governmet softened its policies toward religion and redefined itself as a secular rather than an atheist state.
There has since been a return to religion and the Jewish community has begun to reorganize. In 1998, the Tiferet Israel community was able to purchase a small colonial era house to reestablish its synagogue, said Skloot.
“They feel good about themselves. With outside donations — some from Beth Israel Center — they’ve been able to renovate the house they use as a [synagogue] and community center. And the Jewish cemetery is being cleaned with the help of government aid,” said Skloot
As a member of the group involved with the Madison-Camaguey sister city relationship, Skloot was able to visit Camaguey for the first time in 1998 and has been there four times since.
“I have an interest in [Jewish] diasporic experiences and I snooped around until I found the Jewish community,” which he knew was there through research he had done, he said.
“I think it was very meaningful for [the group], seeing Jews from other places who are very isolated from the U.S. It is a remarkable culture, though it is a culture of deprivation. The people are good-spirited and friendly, even to Americans. We are applying to renew our license and hope to return.”
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