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ON FEBRUARY 8, 2012, I had the thrill of attending Shabbat services at Havana’s Casa de la Communidad Hebraica de Cuba, Beth Shalom or better known as El Patronato Synagogue. The Synagogue holds about 400 people and the place was packed. I was there as a part of a group of 32 people whose mission was to bring urgently needed supplies to the Jewish community of Cuba.
El Patronato is one of two active Synagogues in Havana, the other being the Centro Hebreo Sefaradí de Cuba, which is also called the Sephardic Center. Both Synagogues (and the other two that I visited in two other cities) are supported by whatever their members could afford, but none could exist without the help of foreign groups like the one that I was with.
Although the Patronato was filled on the Shabbat evening of February 8th many of the attendees were from other groups that were there on the same type of mission that I was on. My particular group brought thousands of dollars worth of cash, drugs, clothing, religious articles and anything else you can think of to the Jewish communities of Cuba. All the items that were brought were collected by each of us individually. My personal doctors were wonderful and gave me literally thousands of prescription drugs. Nearly three-fourths of one of my very large suit cases was filled entirely with the badly needed drugs. With all the items I brought in my other suitcases I wound up paying $80 in overweight charges, but for a cause like this it was well worth the price.
One of the people in my group brought his bar mitzvah tallis with him and gave it to the mother of a ten year old boy so that when the boy becomes a bar mitzvah he will have a tallis. I wish I would have thought of that as I still have my bar mitzvah tallis, and even though I am still the same size (many of you who know me will be shaking your head "Yes!") I am not using my bar mitzvah tallis any more.
There are neither Rabbis nor mohels in Cuba. Services are lay led, however, throughout the year there are visiting Rabbis and mohels from South America who come for periods of time to serve at the Patronato. Most of them come from Argentina, which has the largest Jewish population in South America, and some from Venezuela, where the Jewish population has dwindled in recent years. In Venezuela there are tensions between the government and the Jewish community, and as much as half of the Jews in Venezuela have emigrated. When Chávez took power in 1999 there were approximately 22,000 Jews in Venezuela. Today that number is between 9,500 and 14,000.
Our Shabbat service was conducted by a Rabbi from Buenos Aires and a cantorial soloist who is part of the congregation. The service was beautiful, especially with all of the 400 plus people in attendance singing along. There were not enough Siddurs for everyone and not everyone had the same Siddur since they were donated by congregations from Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico, but most people managed to follow. It was particularly strange for me to see the one side of the page in Hebrew and the other side in Spanish, with Spanish transliteration. For example, the word “BARUCH” is spelled “BARUJ.”
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