Cuba: Castro and the Jews

NPR has a transcript of a September 14 program lending some insight on Fidel Castro's views of Jewish history.

Numerous scholars have written about Castro's likely Jewish heritage. The name is a documented Sephardic surname. His remarks, according to this transcript, are interesting.

In August, the former Cuban leader invited Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg to Havana to discuss an article he wrote. Goldberg invited Julia Sweig, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, to join him. She shares details on the talk with Castro on the NPR program.

In one section she mentions that Castro's talk with Iranian president Ahmed Ahmadinejad.

Ms. SWEIG: ...was Fidel's insistence that Ahmadinejad respect Jewish history, respect the Holocaust, respect the state of Israel, and that that clarity with which Fidel communicated that to Goldberg for Ahmadinejad and Iran to hear was really quite important given the stakes and given the concern in the Middle East. And given, I would say, the standing that Fidel Castro has in the non-aligned movement and for, potentially - I hope at least - those listening in Iran.

CONAN: And it was interesting that he was pointing out to the Iranian president that, yes, Muslims have had it hard being disrespected by the West, but Jews have had it harder.

Ms. SWEIG: Yes, it was very interesting. I mean, you know, he was - there was no pause when Fidel was expressing his view of Jewish history and also his interest in the Inquisition which, of course, Bibi Netanyahu's father is a great scholar of, as Jeff Goldberg's article explains, it was very clear that there was great sort of sympatico for Jewish history, for the state of Israel from Fidel. And he made a point of talking about, as Jeff writes, the kind of environment and the Catholic education he received of anti-Semitism in Cuba when he was a small boy. And he expressed a kind of outrage at the ignorance that that reflected of his own society.

Read the entire transcript at the link above.

San Antonio: Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, Aug. 1-3

Tracing the Tribe cannot attend this year's 20th Conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies in San Antonio, Texas, August 1-3.

Among the presenters at the Hilton Palacio del Rio will be Dr. Stanley Hordes ("Ends of the Earth"), of the University of New Mexico's Iberian Studies department.

For several years, he has been researching in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Jamaica, building on his previous book's focus on the Southwest.

His most recent research trip was to Puerto Rico, where he conducted investigations in Ponce, Juana Diaz, Mayaguez, San German, Hormigueros, Anasco, Aguada, Aguadilla, Moco, San Sebastian, Lares, Arecibo and Ciales. On an earlier trip, he studied microfilms at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, covering 16th-17th century records.

All Sephardic researchers should be interested in the new research, and I'm sorry I won't be there to hear about it.

The event includes speakers from England, Algeria, Mexico and the US, who will speak on Crypto-Judaism in Northern Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Spanish Caribbean, Spain, Portugal and North Africa.

Here's the tentative program (also included are meals, art gallery and more) received today by Tracing the Tribe from Stan Hordes, who adds that changes might still take place:

Sunday, August 1

Welcome
Seth Ward, University of Wyoming, Program Chair
Stanley M. Hordes, University of New Mexico, VP - Conferences
Kathleen J. Alcalá, Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, President

Keynote
Marie-Theresa Hernandez, University of Houston Presidential Fellow: "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Secret Jews in the Mexican Church"

Monday, August 2

PANEL ONE:

David Ben Yosef, Spertus Institute: "Maimonides’ Letter on Apostasy and H. Solveichik’s critique"
Juan Marcos Bejaranno Gutierrez, Spertus Institute: "Samuel Usque’s Consolations: A Review"
Kathleen Alcalá, Northwest Institute of Literary Arts:"The Illegal Alien as Flaneur"

PANEL TWO
Martin J. Salvucci, University of Chicago: "Liberalism and Intolerance: Leo Strauss, Baruch Spinoza, and the Theoretical Foundations of Crypto-Judaism"
Abigail Seldin, Oxford: "Exploring Politics of Emergence in New Mexico: Work in Progress"

PANEL THREE Self and Image in the Converso Journey: Visual artists panel
Mercedes Gail Gutierrez (Nitzah Avigayil), Netanya, Israel and Davis, CA, Facilitator/panelist
Laura Cesana, Lisbon, Portugal, Panelist
Dan Riis Grife, Coupland, TX, Panelist

PANEL FOUR
Stanley M. Hordes, Latin American and Iberian Institute, University of New Mexico: "The Sephardic Legacy in the Spanish Caribbean: A History of the Crypto-Jews of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and pre-British Jamaica"
Abe Lavender, Florida International University: "The Secret Jews and New Christians of Brazil"

Tuesday, August 3

PANEL FIVE
Laura Cesana, Lisbon, Portugal: "An Artist's Journey: An Update of Judaism in Portugal"
Diana S. Zertuche, Del Rio, TX: "Nopalitos:The Crypto Jewish Remnants Along The Texas Borderlands"
M. Miriam Herrera, Malta, NY: "A Crypto-Jew Celebrates Her First Dia de los
Muertos (Day of the Dead): Poetry with Prose"

PANEL SIX: Publishing Fact And Fiction About Crypto Jews; Panel
Abe Lavender, Florida International University, Panelist: "Problems and Rewards of Publishing the Journal of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Crypto Jews"
Art Benveniste, HaLapid and the SCJS Website
Dolores Sloan, Mount St. Mary's College, Panelist: "Publishing Fact and Fiction: Assessing Achievements and framing future discussion"

For more information about the conference, click here.

Sephardim: Museum of Family History exhibits

The virtual Museum of Family History also has material for researchers of Sephardim.

-- Holocaust Memorials in Havana and Santa Clara, Cuba

-- Synagogues of Asia: Burma, China, Hong Kong, India, Lebanon, Singapore, Tajikistan, Turkey [Asian side].

--Synagogues of Turkey: (European side of Istanbul)

-- Synagogues of Spain. The photo at left is the El Transito Synagogue in Toledo.

-- Postcards from Home: Turkey

Museum creator Steve Lasky wishes to include more pre-war family photos. Readers with such photos are invited to contact Steve.

Sephardim, Crypto-Jews: Article abstracts

"The Journal of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Crypto Jews" (JOSPIC-J) offers 10 truly fascinating articles in Volume I (Spring 2009).

Available online, in addition to the abstracts, is the entire first article and an article on three major DNA studies.

To learn more about the journal, click here. Read the entire first article - "The Secret Jews of Spain, Portugal, and Italy and Their Descendants Today: Major Issues in a Growing Field of Academic Research" - here, with an extensive bibliography.

According to author Dr. Abraham D. Lavender's detailed article:

"Crypto-Judaic Studies is a rich field of potential research, with multi-disciplinary interests, especially as it is integrated with other areas of study. For the truly curious and open-minded, the field is unlimited."

Read "Recent Research Articles: From Roth to DNA," which discusses three recent articles about the growing field of Sephardic and Crypto Jewish DNA.

For many people, the consequences of the Inquisition still live today, as we will see these consequences in this and future issues of JOSPIC-J. Sociology, history, religion, and other areas of study join together to analyze and explain these consequences. Crypto Jews lived in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and today their descendants live in a large number of countries, providing a fascinating international flavor to this area of study.

The journal is published by the School of International and Public Affairs, within the College of Arts and Sciences, at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

If Sephardic or Crypto Jewish studies is an interest, you will want to subscribe to this journal.

Here are the abstracts:

-- “The Secret Jews of Spain, Portugal, and Italy and Their Descendants Today: Major Issues in a Growing Field of Academic Research”
Dr. Abraham D. Lavender

The Journal of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Crypto Jews (JOSPIC-J) brings together in one place, for the first time in a refereed academic journal, research on the three countries whose historic Jewish communities, each predating the Inquisition for centuries, suffered directly and greatly from Inquisitions. There is no consensus on whether to use the term marranos, conversos, crypto Jews, secret Jews, hidden Jews, lost Jews, New Christians, or anusim. But, whatever the term, significant research continues in international, sociological, cultural, religious, political, historical, and other areas, and the number of books and articles is increasing. Research on crypto Jews and their descendants should be integrated more with other interdisciplinary research, a major goal of this journal.

-- “The Crypto Jews of Spain and Portugal”
Dr. David M. Gitlitz

Prior to the riots of 1391, Spain's Jewish community was the largest in Europe. By 1491, following expulsions and conversions, Spain had the largest single community of former Jews in the post-biblical history of Judaism. Depending on the definition of Jewishness applied, these conversos were arrayed along a continuous spectrum ranging from fully Jewish to fully Christian. This article analyzes four groups on this spectrum—Christians, Jews, seekers of truth, and skeptical dropouts. Brief attention is also given to Portugal which originally had less violence and less forced conversions than Spain, but which also developed a more tenacious crypto-Judaism which led to the establishment of an Inquisition in 1539.

-- “The Barajas Women, Madrid 1634"
Dr. David M. Gitlitz

For the past quarter century, the author has immersed himself in Inquisition trial testimony in the archives of Spain and Mexico. The historical documents are difficult to read, but are worth extensive research, revealing fascinating and inspiring lives of unfortunate conversos. The following, based on these historical documents but with the addition of fictional narration, describes the lives of one representative family, Beatriz Álvarez and her daughter of the same name, known in 1630s Madrid as Las Barajas. It is an excerpt from a forthcoming book with the working title The Lost Minyan.

-- “The Jews of Sicily and Calabria: The Italian Anusim that Nobody Knows”
Rabbi Barbara Aiello

Rabbi Barbara Aiello is the first woman rabbi and first non-orthodox rabbi in Italy, where she has served a progressive synagogue in Milan. She is currently rabbi of Ner Tamid del Sud, the first active synagogue in Calabria in 500 years. Rabbi Aiello has written extensively about her crypto-Jewish background and her efforts to uncover the hidden Jewish traditions of Calabrian Jews that date back to Inquisition times. Her work in the deep south of Italy and Sicily includes directing the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria (IjCCC), an organization dedicated to the anusim of southern Italy to help them discover and embrace their Jewish roots.

-- “Crypto Judaism in New Mexico and the American Southwest”
Dr. Seth D. Kunin

Crypto Judaism in New Mexico is a highly complex phenomenon, both respecting history and modern ethnography. This paper outlines many of the significant aspects of both of these areas. It presents the historical arguments relating to the movement of conversos and descendents of conversos into New Mexico, and the aspects of the settlement of the colony that may have shaped aspects of crypto-Jewish culture as manifested in New Mexico today. The paper also touches on some of the ethnographic research relating to modern crypto Judaism, examining the forms of identity and the cultural elements out of which those fluid identities are formed. Given the significance of arguments about authenticity in relation to this community, the paper examines Neulander’s arguments in light of both empirical and ethnographic data. It suggests that when tested on that basis Neulander’s work cannot be seen as academically credible. The uniting theme of the paper is the need to eschew simple explanation in the light of a historically and ethnographically complex community.

-- “The Sephardic Legacy in the Spanish Caribbean: Crypto-Jewish Settlement in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica”
Dr. Stanley M. Hordes

The Latin American and Iberian Institute of the University of New Mexico has initiated a research project to document the history of crypto-Jewish settlement on the Spanish Caribbean islands of the Greater Antilles, comprising Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and pre-British Jamaica. Based on archival research in Europe and the Americas, as well as ethnographic analysis, this study will examine the role played by the descendants of Iberian conversos in the economic, religious and cultural life of an area of Spanish America that was situated on the major trans-Atlantic shipping lanes, yet administratively remote from centers of Inquisitorial persecution. The data derived from these investigations will be of great value not only in helping to understand the socio-cultural fabric of a vital part of the Caribbean, but also in bringing to light the activities of the earliest Jewish communities in the Americas.

-- “The Jewish and Crypto-Jewish Participation in the Age of Discovery”
Dr. Barry L. Stiefel

The following article is on the Jewish and crypto-Jewish participation in the age of discovery, from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Though relatively small in number compared to their Catholic and Protestant counterparts, the Jews and Crypto Jews played a pivotal role in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas as financiers, scientists, and explorers. Not only did they contribute to the prosperity of the empires that they lived under (even when the respective monarch did not show the same kindness to those of Jewish extraction), but also to the perpetuation of crypto-Jewish and Sephardic Jewish life and culture wherever they ventured.

-- “Jews, Catholics, and Converts: Reassessing the Resilience of Convivencia in Fifteenth Century Plasencia, Spain”
Dr. Robert L. Martinez

A systematic reappraisal of fifteenth century Jewish and Christian convivencia, or coexistence, is long overdue because within it resides a hidden history of cooperation among Old Christians, conversos, and Jews. Utilizing a historiographical lens to evaluate interfaith relations in several Castilian and Aragonese communities, one finds a broader range of communal outcomes than is traditionally acknowledged. New findings pertaining to the cohesive collaboration and intertwined relations of Jews, conversos, and Old Christians in the Extremaduran city of Plasencia refute the long-held assumption that Jews and Christians were routinely segregated from one another and corrects the misguided belief that the converso Santa María family persecuted former co-religionists. This study reveals the previously unknown strategic partnership of the converso Santa María and Old Christian Carvajal family in Plasencia and it’s role in maintaining medieval norms of interreligious cooperation.

-- “Catholic, Jewish, and Crypto Jewish in the 1600s: The Geographic and Spiritual Peregrinations of Pacheco de Leon in Spain, Italy, and Mexico”
Dr. Matthew Warshawsky

Due to his knowledge of Judaism and his influence among Judaizers in Mexico City, Juan Pacheco de León (Salomón Machorro) was a prize catch among conversos arrested in 1642 for crypto-Jewish heresy. Yet his name is less well known than those of more famous crypto Jews in Latin America, including Luis de Carvajal the Younger, Tomás Treviño de Sobremonte, and Francisco Maldonado de Silva. This essay rescues Juan de León from such relative anonymity by exploring the interrelated questions of why the Inquisition prosecuted him so painstakingly, what his case teaches us about crypto Judaism in colonial Mexico and the ordeal its practitioners suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, and why he did not achieve fame more proportional to the gravity of his trial. In order to answer these questions, it examines how León differed from other Inquisitorial victims due to his biography, knowledge of Judaism, and personality.

-- “Cecil Roth’s Disrupted Love Affair With the Secret Jews of Italy: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants”
Dr. Abraham D. Lavender

Cecil Roth’s 1932 book A History of the Marranos popularized the term “marrano,” and increased knowledge about the secret Jews of Portugal and Spain, and also discussed secret Jews in Europe and the Americas. But, the secret Jews of southern Italy were mostly neglected. Roth corrected this omission in 1946 in The History of the Jews of Italy, discussing the secret Jews in Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples, and Sardinia. Cecil Roth and his wife, Irene, who was also his constant research companion for forty-two years, expressed strong emotional attractions for Italy and had planned to retire there before their plans were disrupted by World War II and the Holocaust.

-- “Recent Research Articles: From Roth to DNA”

Many historical research resources have been used to study crypto Jews. But, especially since the 1990s, DNA research also has been able to add more information to crypto-Judaic studies. DNA research frequently cannot provide definitive answers about a specific individual’s possible secret Jewish ancestry, but it can provide insightful information about history. There are many articles on Sephardic DNA, but this brief report describes three recent reach projects about crypto-Jewish DNA, including the research project from Iberia which documents that about 20% of all Hispanic males (mostly Christian today) whose ancestors came from Spain or Portugal have a Jewish genetic ancestry.

Learn more about the journal and subscriptions. Single issues are $10 (+$4 p&h), while annual subscriptions for individuals are only $10 (+$4 p&h). International subscriptions are $6 for postage and handling.

Virginia: Jews of Cuba, Jan. 13

"The Jews of Cuba: The Road to Paradise and the Land We Called Home" is a program by Cuban Jewish expert Miriam Levinson on Wednesday, January 13.

The program begins at 7.30pm at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, at 8900 Little River Turnpike. Fee: JCC members, $8; others, $10.

Levinson's grandfather set out for the US in 1927 but arrived in Cuba, where the family lived for three decades. More than 15,000 Jews lived there in the 20th century and until the revolution, it was considered a tropical Jewish paradise. Sephardim and Ashkenazim lived side by side.

After the revolution, when Castro came to power, most of the Jews left Cuba - many to Miami.

Born in Cuba, Levinson came to the US with her family in the late 1950s. A Chicago resident, she heads the Jewish Community Center Travel Department and speaks on international Jewish life.

Additionally, the JCCNV is organizing two Jewish missions to Cuba (February 10-18, April 21-28), and Levinson will escort both trips.

Check out the JCCNV site. Tracing the Tribe noted genealogical/historical interest to Jewish historical sites, talks on the Jews of Azerbaijan, Jews of the South and more, besides the active calendar of other services.

For more resources on Jewish life in Cuba, search Tracing the Tribe for previous posts. Don't forget about the work of filmmaker and author Ruth Behar. Adio Kerida follows her on a search for Cuban-American Sephardic memories. Her books are "An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba" and The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart.

Cuba: Today's Jewish community

A contingent of Floridians recently visited Cuba's Jewish community in Havana, Cienfuegos and Santa Clara.

The Miami Herald covered the story here. There's a photo of the Guanabacoa Jewish cemetery.

When Franklin Silbey and other members of Temple Israel in West Palm Beach recently visited Jewish synagogues and cemeteries in Cuba, they noticed two details right away.

''No security, and no graffiti,'' Silbey said. ``Everywhere else in the world you go, guards are outside the synagogues. Automatic weapons, in some cases metal detectors, and you get graffiti in the cemeteries. In Cuba, you don't see any of that.''

That might be explained by tight state security, but the Jewish visitors said they also felt no prejudice on the part of Cubans during their week on the island in June. Silbey said they may have found one of the few countries in the world devoid of anti-Semitism.

''Of course, there are only something like 1,500 or 1,600 Jews out of 11 million people,'' Silbey said. ``A very, very small percentage of the population, but still it was unusual.''

The delegation of 27 brought medicine, clothing, school supplies to the tiny remaining community - the remnants of what was a thriving 20,000 prior to Fidel Castro's rise to power in 1959. Some 90% of the island's Jews left, most to Florida.

The story details the experiences of the group's members. Some commented on a rich collection of Spanish and Hebrew books at a Havana synagogue library.

There are a half-dozen congregations on the island. Half the community lives in Havana where three congregations are open (Orthodox and two Reform, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardic). None have a rabbi or cantor, although US and South American clergy do visit. Sometimes group ceremonies, such as a bnai mitzvah for 15 young people from all over Cuba, are conducted by the visiting clergy.

Elsewhere, a family's apartment serves as a synagogue for two dozen Jews in the south central city of Cienfuegos and, in central Santa Clara, there are another two dozen (some of them from the rural areas) who attend services.

In Santa Clara's Jewish cemetery there is a Holocaust memorial, with stones brought from the Warsaw Ghetto.

One problem is that the Santa Clara community has only two children, and they are concerned about the future.

Read the complete article at the link above, and search Tracing the Tribe for other articles on Cuba.

New York: Cuban Jewish Festival, June 20

Celebrate Cuban Jewish Life with an evening of music, dance, video and art on Saturday, June 20. Doors open at 7pm at the 92nd Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York City.

The evening is in support of the Cuba Jewish Music Library (CJML)Project. The grassroots effort was founded by Ladino singer Sarah Aroeste and composer/percussionist Roberto Rodriguez. The goal is to help build Jewish music libraries across Cuba. For more details, click here. A part of the night's proceeds go towards the CJML.

The evening is also in partnership with Be'chol Lashon (In Every Tongue) and Judios Latinos of New York.

Rodriguez and Tzadik Records which will release their new album - Timba Talmud - the music is Cuban-Jewish fusion sound performed by a Son Monuno and Guaracha which "meet the Jewish tradition in a beautiful and sensitive collection of Latin Klezmer." For more, click here.

Listen to his versions of Cuban/Latin Klezmer with clips from the new album here. Listen to La Hora, Mambo Kitsch, Danzonete Emanuel, The Son of 2nd Avenue, Timba Talmud. His other albums are there as well. Try the Turkish-Bulgarish, Wolfie's Corner, Paseo del Prado and others.

If you can listen to these clips without getting up and dancing, are you sure you have a pulse?

Aroeste and Rodriguez will perform and premiere their original Cuban-Sephardic music project with guests. There will be a salsa presentation and dance party by Franck Muhel, an art ext exhibit by Cuban painter Javier Gonzalez Gallos, documentary screenings and more surprises.

Tickets are $15 advance, $18 at the door; click here for details.

Miami: Havana Jewish HS 1959 reunion

A very special high school reunion was held Saturday in Miami Beach, when the 1959 class of the Centro de Israelita de Cuba held its 50th reunion. This was Havana's first and only Jewish high school.

The Miami Herald carried the story here.

''Our school is our pride . . . our Yiddish school should live eternally,'' sang the first graduating class of Havana's first and only Jewish high school. The year: 1959.

Fifty years later, they were singing the same song again -- only this time in Miami Beach. Many students from the Centro Israelita de Cuba graduating class have known each other since kindergarten and have experienced life milestones together -- about five attend the same temple in Miami Beach and two are sisters-in-law. Their closeness matches the tight-knit bond forged by many Cuban-Jewish immigrants.

''I have friends that I've known for more than 60 years. We are like family in a way,'' said Rosa Zipper, 67. ``We still hug and kiss.''

The venue was the Cuban Hebrew Congregation. Ten class members and some 100 others attended. Following a Shabbat morning service, the class sang its Yiddish alma mater, written by Zipper's father.

In 1960, many of the graduates left for the U.S., and Castro shut down the school in 1961. One grad said "it wasn't the ending of our education, but the beginning of a lifetime of friendships."

Centro Israelita had been a grammar school for nearly three decades before school leaders built a high school on the second floor around 1956. Previously, classes were held in nearby buildings.

The curriculum included Israel, Jewish values, Jewish history, Yiddish, as well as psychology and science.

Mario Chizyk, class valedictorian, even delivered his graduation speech in Yiddish. ''I'm a little apprehensive about seeing people I haven't seen for a long time,'' Chizyk, 67, said.``We've stayed close, but some I haven't seen for a while.'' But he said he wasn't worried about recognizing his former classmates because each name tag included a senior yearbook photo.

The only yearbook ever published was in 1959, and the class photo shows boys in white tuxedos and girls in white gowns.

From 1953-1960, the Havana community built the high school and three synagogues - they expected to be there a long time. Unfortunately, Fidel Castro had other plans, and many left with just a suitcase - most came to Miami.

Before the Cuban revolution, some 15,000 Jews lived there; today there are fewer than 1,000. The last school reunion was a formal occasion held in 1988 in Miami.

Said one attendee, "''We have to celebrate right now. We're all walking. Who knows what will happen in five years?''

Read the complete story at the link above.

Cuba: Castro writes on genealogy!

Fidel Castro is a closet genealogist?

JTA reported on Castro's musings concerning the surname of President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Fidel Castro speculated as to the origins of Rahm Emanuel's surname.

"What a strange surname!" begins the column in the Cuban newspaper Gramma penned by the retired and ailing Cuban dictator, and dedicated to musings about U.S. President Barack Obama's chief of staff.

"It appears Spanish, easy to pronounce, but it’s not. Never in my life have I heard or read about any student or compatriot with that name, among tens of thousands."

Emanuel is a common Christian and Jewish name, first appearing in Isaiah as the name of the messiah; it means "God is with us."

Castro muses whether there's a connection with philosopher Immanuel Kant and also made some errors, writing that Emanuel is the son of a Russian immigrant, when his father Benjamin is an Israeli. He also noted Emanuel's Israeli roots.

It would be interesting for Castro to detail his own genealogy and the widely-held speculation that his own family roots are Sephardic.

Read the complete story at the link above.

Boston: Two dramatic stories, Dec. 7

Two dramatic stories of digging into lost histories and reuniting long separated families will be featured by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston (JGSGB) at its December 7 meeting at Temple Emanuel in Newton.

The stories are Stephen Denker's "documenting business history in Cuba," and Alexander Woodle's "reuniting family divided by 250 years."

Denker reports on seven years of research, worldwide travel and internet chats. By tracing his American family’s manufacturing business and life in Cuba early in the 20th century, he unraveled a genealogical history and reconnects cousins separated for more than 70 years. In summer 2007, Denker spent two weeks in Havana completing his research and visiting the family home and factory.

Woodle reports on re-tying a genealogical thread after 250 years. His quest started with discovering a familiar surname in Austria and Romania in a search of international telephone directories. JewishGen and Familysearch database resources provided evidence of relationship. He then contacted a family in Romania, and utilizing the latest tool of genea-technology, dispatched a DNA kit. Last May, Woodle traveled to Central Europe to visit his distant cousins.

Both presentations exhibit an additional important facet of genealogical research: historical context. Denker describes the circumstances of Jewish immigration to Cuba. Woodle’s review of Jewish history in Central Europe yields clues to the dispersal of his family from 18th century Bohemia to Banat (now partially in Romania) in the southern reaches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Join the group from 1.30-4.30pm, Sunday, December 7, at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward St., Newton. JGSGB members: free; others: $5. For directions and additional details, click here.

Cuba: The Pedro Pan exodus, replanting roots

Nearly 400 Jewish children, among thousands of Catholic youngsters, were sent secretly to Miami during the Catholic-sponsored Pedro Pan (Peter Pan) 1960s program at the time of the Castro Revolution in Cuba. There are also photos and a video with the The Miami Herald story.

The youngsters left in small groups, flying to Miami to live in Jewish foster homes until their parents could join them.

The story also quotes good friend HIAS historian, Valery Bazarov, who was at the recent Chicago conference with his wife and son.

It was April 1961, Havana, Cuba. Lilian Brinberg, 15-year-old daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, had just been told some stunning news.

She and her younger sister, Silvia, would be leaving their parents, their friends and the only home they had ever known to fly to Miami, unaccompanied, and live with strangers in a foster home.

And so, the Brinberg sisters became part of a little-known chapter of Cuba's history: the Jewish kids of Pedro Pan -- the Catholic Church-sponsored effort to spirit unaccompanied Cuban kids to the United States under the noses of the Castro government.

Because it was run by the archdiocese in Florida and most children were cared for by Catholic social services, it has been assumed that the 14,048 who made the journey through Pedro Pan were Catholic.

In fact, 396 Jewish kids joined the exodus. For many - the children of families decimated and divided by the Holocaust and that thought they had found paradise in pre-Castro Havana -- the journey culminated a double diaspora.

Like immigrants elsewhere, problems included language, family separation and a lower status from their familiar homes. However, as young people usually do, they adapted, their families arrived, the community matured and prospered and built the Cuban Hebrew Congregation of Miami, "The Circle." They even had a band called The Bagels, which played Cuban-oldies.

El Patronato, the main Havana synagogue, noticed missing children at the bar-mitzvah club. The kids met every Sunday followed by the ritual of going to a restaurant and a movie. No one knew why more young people were missing each time.

As families gathered and told their children about the planned exodus, they were naturally upset.

Pedro Pan - a name coined by Miami Herald reporter Gene Miller and inspired by the fairy tale about a boy who could fly - was well under way, having started the day after Christmas, 1960.

The secretive airlift was initiated amid fears that Cuba, under Fidel Castro, would strip parental rights away and send children to work and study under the regime's control. Those fears may have been more acute among Cuban Jews, a community estimated at 15,000 by the late 1950s.

Although a significant number had come from the Middle East, many were Holocaust survivors who traveled alone to the island after seeing their families ripped apart by the Nazis.

To the Jews of Cuba, especially those who had fled the Holocaust, the United States was the ultimate destination -- or at least that's what they hoped. But immigration restrictions kept them out, at least in the short term.

Anthropologist Ruth Behar, who researches the Jews of Cuba, says they found more than a refuge on the island, "they found a paradise."

To those who had been through WWII, the Cuban revolution seemed familiar, according to Valery Bazarov. HIAS monitored the situation and would play an important role, helping the Cuban Jews to travel, providing documents and sometimes paying for transportation.

Why has this exodus been largely unrecognized outside of Jewish circles?

Marcos Kerbel, president of the Cuban Hebrew Congregation and a Pedro Pan Cuban himself, attributes the silence to the low profile the Jewish community in Cuba had traditionally maintained for fear of reprisals.

Documents from the archives of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in New York, dusted off as a result of a recent El Nuevo Herald request, tell the story of the Pedro Pan Jews and establish that 396 made the journey.

What's clear is that the experience of the Pedro Pan Jews was a bit different from that of the Catholics who made up the bulk of the group.

While Catholic children without friends or family in the United States were sent to provisional campgrounds, the Jewish children were placed directly with Jewish foster families in South Florida and elsewhere. The resettlement was supervised by Jewish Family and Children's Services, which met them at Miami International Airport.

The children were individually visited monthly by the JFCS; living expenses were reimbursed by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

The article talks about re-establishing the sense of community and how hard it was in the beginning to feel accepted, but they overcame the hardships.

Read the complete article at the link above; view the photos and video.

Cuba: Home to Havana

CNN Radio's New York correspondent Steve Kastenbaum details his trip back to Cuba here, with a story, video and slide show.

In the 1940s-50s, more than 15,000 Jews lived there; today, the community is about 1,500.

(CNN) -- Cuba is more than a thousand miles from my home in New York, but it's a place close to my heart.

I went to Cuba to report on a country that appears to be on the cusp of a new era.

His focus was on US-Cuban relations and reforms under leader Raul Castro, but the most important story turned out to be his family history.

My grandmother, the daughter of Russian immigrants, was born in Havana, and my grandfather came to Cuba when he was just 3 years old. His family left Germany in the 1920s. To me, they were as much Cuban as they were Jewish.

My grandparents left Cuba in the late '40s so that their children would be born in the United States. The last members of my family to leave Cuba did so post-revolution, in the 1960s. I was eager to see what had become of the places they left behind.

In the mid-1990s, Castro lifted religious restrictions and the El Patronato synagogue revived; today it is the Jewish community's center, complete with day camp. He visited old Havana, Habana Viejo, where his great-grandparents settled, visiting the sole kosher butcher and walked by the building that had been home to the synagogue where his grandparents married.

The current home of Adath Israel is a few blocks away. At the front door, Salomon Leyderman introduced himself to me as the oldest Jew in Cuba. He's 86. I took out some old family photos, and Salomon immediately recognized my great-grandfather, Salomon Sher. He shouted out in Spanish, "they were tailors!"

I couldn't believe my ears. This 86-year-old man told me how my great-grandfather was highly regarded in the community, how he belonged to many social organizations and how after the revolution, he made it possible for many Cuban Jews to leave the island and join him in Miami, Florida.

As he looked at a family portrait, Salomon began to cry. He recognized Luis Sher, my grandmother's brother. He said Luis gave him as a gift a suit to wear at his bar mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony marking a boy's transition into manhood. It took place more than 70 years ago, but he recalled the details as if it happened yesterday. Tears were flowing down my cheeks, too.

There is more at the link above, and do see the video and slide shows.

Cuba: Visiting the Jewish community

Tracing the Tribe has posted information about Cuban Jewish family history resources previously, and this Newsday story of the Cuban trip of a Long Island rabbi and his wife provides insight into this community.

The "conversos," or Crypto- Jews ... landed with Christopher Columbus during the "Discovery" or came during the years of the Conquest and colonial domination in order to escape the Inquisition ... -- From "The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba," by Maritza Corrales

Cuba's current Jewish population is 1,500 of its 11 million population. Synagogue groups travel there to provide support in various ways.

Rabbi Barry Dov Schwartz and his wife Sonia didn't expect to see an American soldier's grave in a Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of Havana.

But there it was: a sepia-toned, oval photo set into a rectangular piece of pure white marble, leaning against a gravestone lined with bold Hebrew lettering. Despite more than 50 years' exposure to the subtropical climate, the photo still shows a handsome, dark-eyed young soldier, his uniform cap jaunty on his head.

The gravestone's inscription was also a surprise to the rabbi of Temple B'nai Sholom, a Conservative synagogue in Rockville Centre:

"Isaac, son of Aryeh Leib Bender, who fell in a mitzvah war in Korea on the 5th day of Sivan in the year of 1952, may his soul be bound up in the bond of life."

The Newsday story touches on how these groups help with medicines, school supplies and other essentials, religious items. They traveled to the island country with religious exemptions, one of a number who make the annual trek.

Cuba has six synagogues - Orthodox, Conservative, Sephardic - and three are in Havana.

In 1959, everything changed for the 15,000-strong Jewish community, after some five centuries on the island; 90% left and most went to the US. Practicing Judaism was discouraged, but in 1992, the constitution was changed to permit religious practice, and Castro visited the main synagogue.

Today, synagogue attendance is increasing. In some places, like Cienfuegos, there are no synagogues but groups of Jews meet to maintain their traditions and have a small Hebrew school.

"They said they were very inspired by having us come to see them," Sonia Schwartz said. "They said it helps keep them going. It was like meeting your own family."

Another innovation - like American bnai mitzvah children twinned with Russian children - is American children helping the Cuban community in various ways. Bar mitzvah students collect supplies for the congregations.

While in Cuba, the Schwartzes received an invitation to the bar mitzvah of Alberto Mordecai Alvarez Fuentes.

"I saw this bar mitzvah boy as a symbol of the Cuban Jews," Schwartz said. "Before the '90s, it was unthinkable that a boy would study Judaism and know Hebrew and stand in front of Torahs -- and, now, he is.

"That's the story of the Cuban Jews," he said. "They consider themselves part of the global Jewish community."

Read the complete story here.

Roots Travel: Return to Havana

Return to Havana with this roots travel story in Boston's Jewish Advocate.

Brookline resident Steve Denker recently returned from a licensed, two-week trip to Havana, Cuba, with a suitcase full of photographs, not cigars. Denker, who traveled with his wife, was granted approval to visit Cuba to research his family, which lived in post World War I, pre-Castro, Cuba from 1928 to 1938.

His mother and maternal grandparents arrived in Cuba, opened an underwear factory and lived in Havana through the political unrest of the Machada and Batista regimes, leaving for New York in 1938. Denker had always wanted to visit the places where his family lived, walked and worked. "I was too dumb to ask my mother more questions."

Arranging the trip proved challenging, however. In addition to obtaining their own United States Treasury License because of U.S. travel restrictions, Denker and his wife – who are Orthodox – needed to arrange kosher food for the trip.

“It was exhausting,” said Denker, who began planning the trip months in advance. “We visited Miami, met other Cuban-Americans who had been to Cuba, searched consular records and old Havana phonebooks, sent thousands of e-mails, learned Spanish, and found some time to pack.”

Once they arrived in Havana, the rest was "easy," he says, with local friends to guide them. They brought and cooked their own food, prayed at the Orthodox synagogue and interacted with the Cubans. Denker called it a total immersion experience.

They spent mornings at the Jewish Cemetery in Guanaboca, documenting and photographing the 1,600 gravestones, but the story doesn't say where this resource will be archived for access by other researchers also searching Cuba for family records.

The family's successful business was sold, in part due to growing unrest, and they left in November 1938 for New York. He's the first to return since then.

Read the story here

A reading about Cuban Jews

Achy Obejas, Cuban Jewish author of Days of Awe, Memory Mambo and We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?, will be doing a special bilingual reading that may be of genealogical interest.

In Days of Awe, Obejas, who is also an award-winning journalist, focuses on a family's Jewish roots, Cuban Jewish history and the more contemporary community.

The reading, which Obejas will share with poet Jose Kozer, will be held at 7 p.m., April 26 during an all-Cuban-Jewish event at the Americas Society in New York.

For more on Obejas, click here

Colorado: history of Cuban Jews

Arturo Lopez Levy will present "The History of the Jews in Cuba and the Current Jewish Community" on March 13 for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Colorado in Denver.

Lopez Levy will provide information on genealogical resources at the meeting.

The JGS of Colorado was formed in 1995, and its research library is housed at Congregation Emanuel. For those just starting out on learning about their roots, the group will hold a beginner's workshop on May 20.

Their Web site includes databases, issues of their newsletter, genealogical resources in the state and more.

For more information about the events, click here

Hispanic Judaism revealed

A fascinating article about Hispanic Jewish culture, published in the Chicago Sun-Times, touches on movies, film and education.

Judaism is the faith of nearly a million worshippers across Mexico and the rest of Latin America. And more references are cropping up in American pop culture.
Hispanic Jews' stories are being told in movies such as "My Mexican Shiva," a film in Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew, and in plays such as Steppenwolf Theater's "Sonia Flew," about a Cuban immigrant raising two children with her Jewish husband in Minneapolis.

At DePaul University, a class in Jewish Latin American culture is led by Cuban-born Achy Obejas who has written books on the Cuban-Jewish experience. Her students are tracing Judaic roots in Hispanic culture, beginning with those Spanish Jews (or Conversos) who sailed to the New World with Christopher Columbus. It also covers those who settled in the Caribbean and South America, and Hispanic Jews today.

Of her own experience, Obejas said, "The congregation where I go, there are Guatemalan Jews, Argentinian Jews. They're Latino, but, in the end, they're Jews."

Rabbi Michael Azose of Evanston's Sephardic congregation, where Obejas worships, is quoted as saying there are perhaps 5,000 Hispanic Jews in the Chicago area, "but I believe there is no Hispanic or Latino that doesn't have some Jewish blood in them because [in Spain] so many intermarried with Christians."

Cuban Jewish resources

I came across these Cuban Jewish resources that may be of interest to researchers of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic families.

Among the links is an extensive list of individuals in the Cuban Jewish community, from La Comunidad hebrea de Cuba: La memoria y la historia by Margalit Bejarano (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1996). The book is available in the U.S. from the Sephardic Congregation of Florida - Torat Moshe, in Miami Beach.

Here is a long list of Havana Jewish burials, including year of birth, age at death and date of death. Some names: ABAT, ALHADEF, BEHAR, BEREZNIAK, CARMONA, CASTIEL, CHIPRUT, ESQUENAZI, FELDMAN, HERNANDEZ, JURICK, KIRSZEMBAUM, LEVY, MAYA, MITRANI, OJALVO, PEREZ, PITKOWSKA, RABINOVICH, RODRIGUEZ, ROMANO, SEVY, STEINBERG, TARIN, URSIS, YAEVEL, YAGODNIK, ZAPAYO, ZOLONOH.

Click here for information on the Jewish Community of Cuba: The Golden Years 1906-1958 (Westview Publishing 2006) by Dr. Jay Levinson. The years covered by the book began with 1906, when a small group gathered to establish a synagogue and cemetery. Eventually, some 15,000 Jews called Cuba home. Cuba's Jewish history also includes the tragedy of the St. Louis, whose Holocaust-refugee passengers were not allowed to land in Havana (the ship's unfortunate passengers were then turned away by the U.S. as well and forced to return to Europe).

The country's first rabbi travelled from Florida, where he had an ice cream factory, to Santiago de Cuba and Havana. Kosher meat was slaughtered in Cuba for soldiers in the U.S. Army during WWII, and gangster Meyer Lansky applied for membership in a Havana synagogue.

Another book, The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba (2005) is by Cuban historian Maritza Corrales, who researchs Cuba's Jewish history. Her book includes archival material and interviews with 36 men and women who remained in Cuba after 1959. It also has photographs of the community.