'Jews in Cuba'

By Sergio Carmona
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

April 1, 200

After Fidel Castro became dictator of Cuba in 1959, the majority of the Jews on the island opposed the communist regime and left for the United States.

Through several trips to the island, Dr. Ruth Behar discovered that there's a small but still strong Jewish community holding on to Jewish traditions and memories.

Along with Cuban photographer Humberto Mayol, Behar was able to document the information she got for the exhibit "The Jews of Cuba," now on display at the University of Miami's Wesley Center.

"My goal for the exhibit is to bring consciousness of the fact that although 90 percent of the Jews left after the revolution, there's still this small community that's doing the best they can and I want people to be aware so that they can know their story," she said.

"The Jews of Cuba" runs through Saturday and features pictures by Mayol and text by Behar. Behar is serving as The Henry King Stanford Chair in the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Professor at UM's College of Arts and Sciences for the 2008 Spring Semester. She is a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan.

Behar, who left Cuba with her family at age five, was surprised to discover how much people have saved so much of their Jewish past.

"Individual families had old passports, Polish passports, and old photographs," she said.

"That is evidence of Jewish past. I was afraid that all of that would've disappeared with the Cuban Revolution."

Behar had already used Mayol's photographs and the same information for her book, "An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba."

Perri Lee Roberts, senior associate dean for UM's College of Arts and Sciences, said that the exhibit is very sentimental and touching.

"No matter what your religious background is and no matter what country you come from, you'll think of the issue, "Where do we come from and what does it mean to be in exile?" she said.

Throughout the 60's, 70's, and 80's, mention of God disappeared and few Jews kept up religious practices. However, in 1991, around the time when Behar started making her trips to Cuba, the government changed from an atheist state to a secular one.

Behar continued to make trips to Cuba after her first visit because she wanted to continue a normal relationship with Cuba and see what remained of Jewish life.

"When I first got there, the synagogues had fallen apart and everything was in ruins, but as years went by, I started to come back and things started to improved," she said.

"More people participated in religious life and they really went through this revitalization so I wanted to witness and observe all of that."

Behar used the pictures taken by Mayol and some of her own family pictures as a slideshow for a lecture on "An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba," on March 25. The spectators were amazed with the pictures that they saw.

"This is very moving to see what's happening in Cuba with the Jewish community,and it's great that someone like Dr. Behar is recording this and helping to preserve history," said Victoria Mitrani, a faculty member at the University of Miami.

Jerry Marcus, a Coral Gables resident, said, that he enjoyed seeing a picture of a man named Jaime Gans Grin holding a postcard sent from a concentration camp with Adolf Hitler stamps.

"It's amazing," Marcus said of the exhibit. "A lot of it is really a journey into the old days."

During the lecture, Behar said that the Jews of Cuba were in favor of the Cuban Revolution until 1960 when they had private businesses taken away from them because they were middle class. She said that Cuban Jews were able to hold on to their traditions because Canada and Panama had sent them matzoh packages for Passover while Cuba was an atheist state. Behar said that American Jews starting traveling to the island on humanitarian missions in 1992. The exhibit is open from noon to 4 p.m. today, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and from noon to 7 p.m. on Thursday. It is free and open to the public. Call 305-284-6882. The Wesley Center is at 1210 Stanford Drive in Coral Gables.

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