The Jewish Community in CubaBefore the Revolution

Dr. Margalit BejaranoThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

FIU, May 16, 2014

The life cycle of the Community

Emergence

Growth

• Prosperity

• Decline

Religious freedom

Immigration to Cuba and sugar prices

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

180,000

200,000

1902 1905 1913 1916 1919 1920 1921 1922 1924 1927

sugar prices2

No. of immigrants

The impact of the Quota Acts

Number of Jewish immigrants to the U.S.• From 1901 to 1914 1,346,050 (from Eastern

Europe)• In 1920/21 120,000• In 1921/22 53,524• In 1924/25 10,092

Immigrants from Countries of origin of Jews before and after the Quota Acts

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000

10,000

Syria Turkey Poland Russia Romania Hungary Lithuania

1902-1920

1921-1930

Jewish Sectors• Americans (200-300 persons)• Including unorganized Jews

from Curaçao and from Europe• Founded the United Hebrew

Congregation (1906)•• Sephardim (4,000 in 1926)• Including Jews from Syria• Founded Shevet Ahim (1914)

• Ashkenazim (8,000 in 1930)• Founded Centro Israelita

(1924)

Jewish victims under Machado

Nose YalombIsaac HurwitchYacob BursteinBerl WaxmanBernhard Reinhartz

Selected OrganizationsAccording to sectors

Americans• United Hebrew

Congregation SisterhoodSephardim• Unión Israelita Shevet Ahim• Buena Voluntad• Bikur Holim• Teodoro Herzl School

Ashkenazim and Sephardim• Zionist Union

Ashkenazim• Centro Israelita de Cuba • Home for Young Women• Orphans and Old Age Home• School• Adath Israel (synagogue)• Kneset Israel (synagogue)• Anti Tuberculosis

Committee• Women's organization• Kultur Farein (left wing)

1933 Revolution

Anti-semitism among Spaniards• JTA Hitler’s Hand is Seen As Jews Are Berated by Cuba Terrorists

• July 1, 1934• Havana (Jun. 25)• The frequent revolutions, attempts at assassinations, street demonstrations and similar terrors which keep the

political life of Cuba in a state of tumult, give the Jewish colony of the island no rest. In some mysterious fashion the Jews are usually accused of complicity in most of the troublous incidents.

• For a while conditions were improving for the Jews of Cuba. They were finding work and engaging in trade to an extent greater than at any time during the past six or eight years.

• But suddenly this normalization of Jewish life was paralyzed and a series of openly anti-Semitic attacks of a systematically threatening nature have created a state of panic among the Jews.

• The newspaper, Popular, owned by Pepin Rivera (an anti-Semite who also owns the Catholic newspaper Diario de la Marina and Information, an evening paper), recently came out with a sensational article on the organization in Cuba of a secret society “to save the country from the Jewish danger.”

•

.

Nazi Antisemitism in Cuba

The Saint Louis

WW II Jewish refugees in Cuba

The impact of the Holocaust

C

Cuba, Israel and the Jews

The best years