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Mission to Cuba opens eyes for synagogue
(by Sue Hoffman - February 04, 2009)
Mission to Cuba opens eyes for synagogue
By SUE HOFFMAN
As a special Hanukkah mission, 20 members of the local Jewish community brought medicine and humanitarian supplies to the people of Cuba. In return, the group, led by Rabbi Eric Bram, of Solon, made new friendships and brought home a better understanding of the plight of people on the island.
Rabbi Bram, the spiritual leader of Suburban Temple-Kol Ami in Beachwood, led the five-day mission to the communist nation at a time when new hope has emerged among its 1,200 Jewish residents.
He said he talked to one Cuban who was wearing a Barack Obama button. "He is hoping things will open up or at least go back to the way things were," he said. "Previously, relatives could visit Cuba every year and bring $3,000." U.S. rules have become more restrictive in recent years, allowing relatives to visit once every three years and bring $300, he said. The inauguration of the new U.S. president has "brought new hope to the people of Cuba and their relatives in America," he said.
Cuba faces many problems, Rabbi Bram said. "The people appreciate having free health care and education. At the same time, there is so much poverty and hopelessness. Their celebration of the 50th anniversary of the communist revolution this month is more of an exercise. The problem with an ideological movement is that it is subject to human frailty."
With the passing of leadership from Fidel Castro, the ill leader who has not been seen in public in a couple of years, to his brother Raul, "politically things are uncertain," Rabbi Bram said, "and the people are suffering dramatically. Food is scarce and because of the last hurricane season, farms were hit hard."
There is a thriving black market, he said. "We went into one of the stores, and there was one of each item on display." The grocery store provides monthly rations per person that only last about three weeks, he said. "People have to go to the farmers market or the black market, and that's extremely expensive."
Even professionals don't earn a lot of money, and there are no luxuries, he said. "People don't go out to eat or to the movies. That's largely for tourists, who are there from all over the world. It could be a thriving, beautiful country, but everything's falling apart."
Suburban Temple-Kol Ami family educator Lisa Kollins, of South Russell, said there are "contradictions in everything we learned and everywhere we went. Everyone is provided food, but sometimes they run out, and the quality is poor. Medical care is free, but filling prescriptions is virtually impossible. The medications are not always available in the government pharmacies, so people rely on donated supplies from other countries. Officially there is no private enterprise, but, in reality, there are tiny pockets of individual businesses -- mechanics, artists, restaurants."
Participants collected and brought 1,000 pounds of prescription medicine, medical equipment, school supplies, powdered milk, eyeglasses and toothbrushes, Rabbi Bram said. Patronato Synagogue, which is Conservative and the main synagogue on the island, has a donation-supported pharmacy which serves the Jewish and non-Jewish population. "They were short on asthma inhalers and diabetes testing equipment," he said, items which the visitors helped replenish.
The travelers, who included Rabbi Bram's wife, Deborah, Suburban Temple-Kol Ami's religious school principal, celebrated Hanukkah at each of the island's three synagogues, bringing donations to each one. Besides Patronato, the island has Orthodox and Sephardic synagogues.
One of the bright spots about Cuba, where 12,000 Jewish people had once lived, is that there is very little anti-Semitism there, Rabbi Bram said. The government is welcoming of Israelis, who serve as consultants on agriculture, he said.
Rabbi Bram said the Cuban mission is one of several trips he has taken with his congregants. Former travel has been to Eastern Europe, the concentration camps and Israel. "It's a way to learn and build connections and come to understand some profound things."
He said similar missions to Cuba have come from the Conservative movement and credited Richard Skall, of Suburban Temple-Kol Ami's executive committee for initiating the idea for his congregants.
"As a group, we can gain an understanding and in some cases do the most good by being a group of travelers," Mr. Skall, of Pepper Pike, said of the temple's trips abroad.
"Cuba is one little area of the world that has been forced into isolation. It suffers from the restrictions imposed upon it by an ideology that has not and does not function. Only in a group such as ours from Suburban Temple-Kol Ami can we gain, in a short period of time, the insight into this society and bring the assistance to the people and the Jewish community that we collectively provided."
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