The OJC the Ohio Jewish chronicle. (Columbus, Ohio), 1994-06-09

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The Ohio Jewish Chronicle
Serving Columbus and the Central Ohio
Jewish Community since 1922   ■
VOLUME 72
NUMBER 23
JUNE 9,1994
30 SIVAN 5754
Israel and Palestinians
locked in tug of war
over Jerusalem
page 3
JCC, Capital University
in community partnership
page 3
Holocaust denial ads:
The right to refuse
. j>age 4
liberal activism gives way
to anti-Semitism at
Kent State University
page 4
I' .=
Hillel 'Karaoke' meets
ftmdraising goals
page 8
ABOUT THE COVER
Havana, Cuba's central synagogue is El
Patronato, the largest of its three synagogues.
Photo by David Frishbcrg.
■■■■■ In The Chronicle ■■■■
Community.. , 6-10
Federation 16
Fifty Years Ago :.' 9
FrontPage,... 2,3
In The News 12
Lifecycle : ; , 12
Marketplace ,. 11
ii
. New Generation „ 15 ,
Synagogues.. .*; ,13
•- Viewpoint.... , „;......„4, 5
eWorld's Week , : 2
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Ohio  Hist.Society   Libr
1902 Velma  Ave.
Columbus,   Ohio
43211 COMP
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Cuban Jewry struggling after the revolution
By David L. Frishberg
Special To The OJC
There is no cheese. There
are no tomatods. To make a
pizza, Cuban style, they sprinkle some sugar on a piece of
rolled dough and bake it in an
oven when fuel is available.
Since 1989, when the former
Soviet Union stopped sending
money and cheap oil and buying sugar at inflated prices,
Cuba has become a victim of
its own rhetoric with shortages, black-outs, rationing and
black markets as its chief commodities. Communism in Cuba
today is the equal distribution
of poverty with equal opportunity for Jews and non-Jews
alike.
There are about 1,200 Jews
among Cuba's nearly 11 million people with the vast majority living in Havana. There
are smaller communities in
Camaguay, Ciehfuegos and
Santiago de Cuba, but none of
them have a rabbi. Before the
1959 revolution, the Jewish
population of Cuba numbered
15,000. By 1962, over 90 percent had emigrated.
Today, there are close to
300 who remained who are
still alive. Some were commit
ted Marxists; some didn't
think it would last.
After the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, former General
Colin Powell said: "I only
have two bad guys left: Kim II
Sung of North Korea and Fie-
def Castro of Cuba." It is now
the thirty-fifth anniversary of
the revolution and there are
no signs that the fatigue wearing, Cohiba smoking Fidel is
about to be dethroned. No one
believes a civil war is imminent, especially when nobody
has arms and everybody's
hungry. Even the police are
accountable for their firearms
and must return all guns and
bullets at the end of their shift.
None of this has stopped the
pundits from frying to predict
the fall of Cuba, but if history
is a guide, their odds are slim,
AH the predictions of what will
happen in Cuba over the last
35 years have turned out to be
wrong.
Dr. Jose Miller, a surgeon at
the Hospital General Docente
Enrique Cabrera and a former
classmate of Fidel's at the
University if Havana, is the
president of the Patronato
synagogue and the de facto
head of Cuba's Jewish community.
The Great Synagogue, or El
Patronato, is the largest of Havana's three synagogues. The
other two are Adath Israel and
Chevet Achim both located in
Old Havana. Like Old Havana,
one of UNESCO'S World Heritage sites, they are in advanced states of decay and
crumbling.
Although Cuba severed relations with Israel in 1973 and
maintains an official anti-Zionist policy, Dr. Miller assures
visitors that the government's
policy on religion has liberalized and that Judaism is respected and given equal rights.
"No fascists, racists, anti-
Semites or Holocaust deniers
are tolerated," says Dr. Miller.
"In Cuba, a Jew is like any
Cuban>
As conditions have worsened, the Jewish community
has actually become closer
and, in some ways, is seeing a
revival, Hadassah has just
opened a chapter in Havana
and David Said Levy, a 22-
year-old telephone technician
from Havana, will become the
only native born rabbi in Cuba
when he completes his studies
at Yeshiva University.
Still, the community depends on outside help, and un
til Levy returns to Cuba, there
is no one to perform circumcisions, marriages or burials.
One ofthe outsiders taking up
the slack is Samuel Sztein-
hendler, a Conservative rabbi
from Guadalajara, Mexico,
who visits the Cuban community four times a year under
the sponsorship of the Joint
Distribution Committee. Rabbi Szteinhendler is an important link between two Hispanic neighbors, which are unburdened by the troubled history
of Cuban and American bilateral relations which comphV
cates American relief effort.
While the 32-year U.S. trade
embargo remains in effect and
U.S. policy restricts travel to
Cuba, those with a proper visa
(journalists, scholars, Cuban
Americans visiting relatives)
or those defying the ban
through third countries do not
go empty handed. The pharmacy at the Patronato, run by
Dr. Rosa Behar, is stocked
with large quantities of donated medicines from visiting
Jews and relief organizations.
The medicines, impossible to
find in Havana's empty-
shelved pharmacies, are distributed to both Jews and non-
sec-CUBA pg. 14
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