A Jewish Renaissance in Castro's Cuba

Judaism, Spring, 2000 by Dana Evan Kaplan

The Attitude of the Castro Government towards the Jews

When Castro overthrew the Batista regime most Jews, like most Cubans, were euphoric. Very few were affected by the revolutionary trials that were held in the months following the Revolution, since almost none had been involved in political life under Batista. While there were American Jewish gangsters, such as Meyer Lansky, who had been involved with Batista in the development of casino gambling, none were arrested or put on trial. When Lansky's Havana Riviera Hotel was officially confiscated on October 24, 1960, no one suggested that the Communists had antisemitic motives. One reason was tat 165 other American enterprises, including the Cuban subsidiaries and franchises of Goodyear, Westinghouse, Kodak, Woolworth's, and Canada Dry, were also seized. [10]

Scholars have stressed that the Jews who left did not do so because they felt they had to flee religious persecution. Rather, they wanted to escape from a socialist or communist economic system that had confiscated their businesses and would not allow them the economic latitude they needed in order to fulfill their economic aspirations.

Even during the revolutionary governments anti-religious campaign, Castro bent over backwards not to persecute Jews. He declared an official three-day period of mourning in late April 1963 when news came of the death of Israeli president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. Algeria's Mohammed Ben Bella supposedly rescinded an invitation to Castro because of this action. Associations with the Jewish community at the outset reflected Batista's: warm, friendly, protectively guaranteeing the right of minorities to practice their religions without interference. Jews and other religious minorities, including worshippers of African deities (santeros), suddenly found themselves, in official rhetoric, treated as "hothouse flowers," exhibited as examples of religious freedom under socialism. All five synagogues continued to function, although most of their members flocked into exile; no property was taken; and Jewish religious and communal buildings as well as cemeteries were extended maintenance by the state, although, like most public b uildings in Cuba, they were allowed to decay. [11]

Kosher butchers were among the only private businesses not nationalized by the government, and Jews were allowed additional meat and poultry to compensate them for the fact that they did not eat pork.

Those who left stressed that antisemitism was not a reason for their departure, and that remains the impression of those who stayed behind. The country has had many problems, and Cuban Jews have suffered along with the rest of the population. But the Jews with whom I spoke stressed that their treatment by the government is no better or worse than that of other Cubans. The authorities went to considerable efforts to avoid any action that could have been construed as antisemitic or as condoning or encouraging antisemitism. The Castro regime felt that it would generate additional hostility were it to be perceived as persecuting a small and vulnerable religious minority group. Yet it is hard to believe that the same government that was so willing to antagonize their very powerful neighbor to the north feared the fallout from the treatment that they might give to such a small group. In the early years many Cubans felt that both Cuba and Israel were small, struggling, Socialist states overwhelmed by much larger an d stronger enemies. Many Cubans had a great deal of humanitarian sympathy for the tremendous suffering that the Jews had endured in the Holocaust. [12]