Myles B. Kantor
Thursday, April 24, 2003

The following is a letter to a Cuban Jewish friend on the occasion of Passover.

Dear Tony,

I hope you and your family had an enjoyable Passover, although this holiday must be bittersweet in your country. I remember when we spoke last year and you told me about being a Jew in Cuba.

You told me about the anti-Semitic propaganda constantly spewed by Fidel Castro’s regime. Regarding this, you might have heard the March 3 edition of “Radio Rebelde News” (state-controlled like all Cuban media) where a commentator said that Israel “has a very strong hold on the U.S. economy” and “American and Jewish money seek to expand its global reach.”

Nazi chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels died in 1945, but his virulent spirit lives in Cuba.

Likewise, you know Castro often accuses Israel of genocide against Palestinians – at an anti-Israel rally in Havana last June, for example.

You know his mockery of a newspaper, Granma International, accuses Israel of massacres when it fights terrorism and depicts Israeli soldiers as storm troopers. (“Bloody Israeli attack against Palestinian refugees,” read a typical headline on March 4.)

You know Cuban books on Israel have titles like “Zionism: The Fascism of the Star of David.”

You know Castro has trained and armed Arab terrorists since the 1960s. He also saved Saddam Hussein’s life in the late 1980s by sending orthopedic surgeon Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras to remove a lethal tumor in his back. Cambras returned to Iraq last July and referred to “Nazi crimes” by “the Zionist aggressors.”

You told me Cuban Jews can’t criticize this anti-Semitism or support Israel. You told me your daughters watch the nightly news and ask why the regime demonizes Israel.

“Judaism cannot live in totalitarian Cuba,” you said.

If you criticize Castro’s vulgarity, you can be imprisoned for “disrespect.” If you affirm Zionism and denounce totalitarianism, you can be imprisoned for “enemy propaganda.” If you and other Jews gather to discuss the regime’s anti-Semitism, you can be imprisoned for “illicit association.”

You told me of your aspiration to immigrate to Israel with your family. Like Russian Jews under Soviet tyranny, Cuban Jews must ask permission to leave the country and pay high exit fees; and to ask permission begets persecution.

Muzzled, enslaved, and stigmatized: This is the condition of your community.

You spoke of the so-called leader of Cuban Jews, Jose Miller, referring to his “despotism” and complicity with the regime. You told me there is no permanent rabbi in Cuba, a grievous absence no doubt linked to Miller’s despotism. (A retired officer in Castro’s military, Miller has compared Israel to apartheid South Africa and blocked the emigration of Cuban Jews.)

Your words stay in my mind: “I understand that we have no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to travel, no freedom to choose how we will educate our children. And I understand that’s not right.”

Such dehumanization will never be right.

Yet Jewish organizations in America have shown no solidarity for their captive brethren in Cuba. The Anti-Defamation League, which describes itself as “the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism,” hasn't issued so much as a press release on Cuban anti-Semitism. The B'nai B'rith, “the world's best known Jewish human rights organization,” ignores the systematic violation of Cuban Jews' human rights.

The Jewish writer Alfred J. Kolatch observes that Passover “serves to remind us of the importance of continuing the battle for freedom in every generation.” For these organizations, the theft of Cuban Jews’ freedom is a negligible atrocity.

In Yiddish, the silence of the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai B’rith would be called a shandeh (disgrace).

During the Passover seder, participants recite a hymn called “Avadim Hayinu” (“We Were Slaves”) that celebrates Jews’ liberation from Egypt. “Now we are a free people,” they sing.

You and your family will be free, Tony. You will be able to sing these words without anguish.

In the meantime, however, we Jews who are free must defend the rights Cuban Jews (and all Cubans) have been denied for almost half a century. If we don’t, then what have we learned from Passover, the Holocaust, or anything else?

Contact Myles Kantor at kantor@FreeEmigration.com.

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