Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: Cuba: The Jewish Week finds Passover practiced in the socialist dictatorship:

Community seders were held this year on the first night of the holiday in [eight] Cuban cities, including Havana, where the capital’s three extant synagogues sponsored their own.

The seders are a sign of Cuban Jewry’s increasing vibrancy. Another sign: Many of those attending the seders, possibly half, according to many estimates, are recent converts to Judaism.

Whatever the actual figure, Cuba probably has the highest percentage of Jews by choice of any community in the world. Some have Jewish roots and are returning to the community.

They are the faces you see at the seders and Chanukah celebrations, at lectures and Hebrew school lessons, and Shabbat and High Holy Days services. And each year you see more of them, more Jews openly wearing Magen Davids, more young people becoming bar and bat mitzvah, more teens taking part in the kesher group that visits the elderly and disabled.

They come to Jewish activities, they say, to spend time with fellow Jews. Cynics say they are attracted by the food served at communal affairs or by the possibility of immigrating to Israel.

Rabbi Dana Kaplan, a Miami-based educator and writer who has made several trips to Cuba, says Judaism fills a spiritual void for many Jews who see their land’s socialism-communism as a failure.

posted by William @ 4/28/2004 09:00:04 AM