As we enter the closing months of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Community Campaign 2003, my thoughts have turned, as they so often do, to my fascinating, informative and heart-warming experience as one of 28 participants in MJF’s mission to Cuba last December.
Throughout our contacts with Cuban Jews of all ages, I was repeatedly struck with the feeling of Klal Israel, that Jews, regardless of geographic, economic and religious diversity, have an intrinsic connection.
The rebirth of Jewish life in Havana, where persons who did not even know their Hebrew names only months ago are now competent and enthusiastic participants in religious and cultural observances, is being replicated in Jewish communities throughout the world.
Such re-emerging Jewish communities are a phenomenon especially in Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia and many cities within the former Soviet Union, where Jewish life was extinguished by mass genocide or a political policy of religious repression.
Our Cuba experience strengthened our feelings of hope for Jewish survival despite imposing obstacles. Through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, one of MJF’s overseas partners that is supported by the Community Campaign, we are at the side of these scattered Jewish communities rising from ashes with shaky but eager determination. Our contributions help provide not only Judaic educational support but also a measure of health and nutritional assistance.
In Cuba, we saw evidence of Klal Israel from many sources in cooperation with JDC’s efforts. For example, we visited an Orthodox synagogue that receives similar assistance from the Lubavitch movement. We learned that the Canadian Jewish communities funded the restoration of the Patronada all-purpose community building, and that Mexican Jews donated the Hebrew-Spanish prayer books.
The coordinator of JDC’s Cuba program was educated in a Buenos Aires ORT school and an Argentine rabbinical assembly. An ORT Technological Center in the Patronada has computer classes six days a week, and has brought Judaic and professional education to 349 students within the two years of its existence. Its 12 computers are also used to collaborate with the smaller Jewish communities throughout Cuba.
Economic depression has made hunger and malnutrition a problem, especially for Cuba’s young and elderly, as well as for many other Jewish communities worldwide. For example, through my ORT communications, I have learned that more than 4,000 children (about 25 percent) in ORT’s middle and high schools in Israel have little food because their parents are unemployed.
In Buenos Aires, where the Jewish population was formerly comfortably middle class, many embarrassed students get their only meal at school. It is not unusual for kids to wait at the door during lunchtime, hoping their mother will have found work and will bring them a sandwich.
Contrary to experience in totalitarian countries, Cuba’s general population did not have a guarded, wary expression. No one was barefoot or ragged as in other Caribbean cities. Music and color were everywhere — jazz and salsa festivals added to our entertainment. But Havana has no beaches — just sea walls and broken paved walkways.
Although we did not see visible signs of hardship or repression, we always sensed the presence of tough economic conditions. After a while, we began to make an effort to forgo some of the bread and chicken provided by the JDC at Shabbat meals, and we noticed that it quickly disappeared. We know that these meals, an important source of scarce protein, are an ongoing mitzvah made possible by our contributions to the federation’s Community Campaign.
I think all the participants will agree that the mission to Cuba was an eye-opener that strengthened our resolve to continue and to elevate our own efforts on behalf of Klal Israel.
Rosalie I. Gellman is a River Hills resident who supports many local and international endeavors.
