[Toronto Globe and Mail / 1994]
HAVANA—During services in the main sanctuary of the Great Synagogue of the Hebrew Community one recent Saturday morning, prayer leader Alberto Assis struggled to be heard above a chorus of chirping sparrows perched on a ledge above the pulpit.
The uninvited guests may have been the most visible sign of decay at Havana's largest synagogue, but there were many others: stained-glass windows were broken and covered with plywood, wood panels were missing from the walls, velvet seats were soiled with bird droppings, prayer books were tattered and yarmulkes torn.
In a nation gripped by one of the worst economic crises in its history - where food, fuel and other basic goods are in desperately short supply, where buildings, bridges and other structures are literally crumbling before one's eyes and power blackouts are a daily occurrence - the deterioration of the Great Synagogue is hardly unusual.
What is surprising, perhaps, is that the synagogue, and the people who built it, have survived at all.
“What is surprising is that the synagogue, and the people who built it, have survived at all. ”
In the 35 years since Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba's small but once-vibrant Jewish population has shrunk from 15,000 to less than 1,200. Thousands of Jews fled the island after the revolution when the government began expropriating their property and businesses, and those who remained were reluctant to practice their faith under a Communist regime that made no secret of its disdain for organized religion.
During the community's darkest hours in the 1980s, there were fears that the Jewish presence in Cuba, which dates back to Columbus's time, would vanish completely. Hebrew schools were closed for lack of students and funds, attendance at Havana's four synagogues dwindled to a handful of mostly old men, and a significant number of Jews - more than 90 per cent - were marrying outside the faith.
The Great Synagogue, once the most renowned Jewish temple in the Caribbean, was forced to sell part of its building in Havana's formerly fashionable Vedado neighbourhood to the government because it could no longer afford to maintain the facility.
"It was a very bad time," recalls Adela Dworin, the long-time executive secretary of the Great Synagogue's community centre. "Selling the building was like cutting off an arm."
But in the past few years, Jewish life in Cuba has been undergoing a remarkable renaissance. Last winter, 12 couples were remarried in a traditional ceremony at the Great Synagogue, the first Jewish wedding there since 1959. Also last winter, a group of 27 boys and men ranging in age from 4 to 50 were circumcised in an ancient ritual called a bris. In December, a Cuban boy had a bar mitzvah in the synagogue for the first time in more than two decades.
Even more important for the community's future, young people are participating in Jewish activities in numbers that have not been seen since before the revolution. More than 100 children attend religious classes at the Great Synagogue, and enrolment in classes at Havana's other synagogues is growing as well. A recently revamped youth organization has set up a dance troupe, a theatre group and a choir.
Jewish leaders say the turning point for the community came in 1991, when membership in the all-powerful Communist Party was opened to people with religious affiliations. Before then, Jews and other "believers" were often reluctant to participate in religious activities out of fear that it would limit their opportunities for higher education and good jobs.
Although anti-Semitism has never been a problem in Cuba, active participation in organized religion of any kind was considered a black mark in the dossiers the government keeps on most of its citizens.
"There was a period here, we call it the time of the witches, when to be a religious person was dangerous - not just for Jews, for anyone," said Abraham Berezniak, a leader of the Adath Israel, an orthodox synagogue in Old Havana. "People were afraid to be seen going into the synagogue."
Others point to the deteriorating economic conditions in Cuba as a factor in the revival of interest in Judaism. "In hard economic times, there is more interest in religious belief," said Aleop Behar, a computer engineer whose four-year-old daughter Diana attends kindergarten at the Great Synagogue. "I am not a religious person, but I wanted my children to learn about the history and culture of their people."
“We have a very difficult life here, but on Fridays and Saturdays I can forget my problems.”
For many worshippers, the synagogue provides a welcome refuge from the grim realities of daily life in Havana. "We have a very difficult life here, but on Fridays and Saturdays I can forget my problems," said Carelia Berger, a 26-year-old dentist. "It's like an oasis in the middle of the desert. . . . These people are my family."
Others are drawn to the synagogue for more pragmatic reasons: They come to collect food, clothing and medicine donated by foreign tourists and Jewish groups abroad. Each year at Passover, the Great Synagogue receives a shipment of matzoh, wine and other holiday provisions donated by Jewish congregations in Canada and Mexico. And one morning a week, medicines ranging from headache pills and vitamins to antibiotics and nitroglycerin tablets are handed out to the elderly.
Despite its recent resurgence, the Jewish community has a long road to travel before it recovers the vitality it enjoyed before the revolution. There has not been a full-time rabbi on the island in nearly 30 years, and the community must depend on periodic visits by rabbis from Mexico, Panama and the United States.
That void may be filled in the not-too-distant future. A young man from Havana, David Said Levy, is now studying at Yeshiva University in New York and hopes to return to Cuba as a certified rabbi.
The Great Synagogue has been waiting for years for materials promised by the government to repair its leaky roof and termite-infested walls. But congregation leaders say they do not expect to receive them any time soon because many public schools and hospitals are also in urgent need of repair, and the government will give them priority.
Despite such delays and deprivations, few Jews seem inclined to abandon their Caribbean roots, even if they could.
"We are Jews, but we are Cubans, too," said Ms. Dworin. "This is still our home."
Top: Exterior of Templo Beth Shalom in Havana, Cuba.
