Cubans, recent arrivals don't mix in Miami
LARRY LUXNER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Cuban Jews in Havana like to joke that their Passover seders end with the fervent prayer, "L'shanah haba'ah b'Miami - next year in Miami!"
For the 8,000 or so Jews of Cuban origin now living in South Florida, that prayer came true more than 40 years ago, when many Jews left Cuba after Fidel Castro seized power.
Today, most of these "Jubans," as they are nicknamed, have made it economically. Aside from their native Spanish tongue, the Cubans have little in common with the thousands of Jews who have moved here more recently from Argentina, Uruguay and other Latin American countries embroiled in economic crisis. Indeed, the two communities have remained quite separate.
"There are relations between Cuban Jews and other Latin American Jews in Miami, but it's not that close," says Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.
"Several years ago some people tried to form a group, but it never got off the ground," he says. "Miami is so dispersed, I just don't think there are points of convergence. There's no hostility, but no togetherness either."
Two synagogues cater specifically to the Cuban Jewish community: Temple Moses, a Sephardic congregation in North Bay Village, and the Cuban Hebrew Congregation, an Ashkenazic synagogue in Miami Beach.
In some ways, Cuban Jews in Miami have it a lot easier than the Argentines coming today. For one thing, most of those fleeing Cuba in the early 1960s were wealthy or upper middle-class professionals who spoke some English and owned successful businesses. They also had few immigration problems, since under U.S. law any Cuban who makes it to American soil may stay here legally.
For more recent arrivals, however, getting out of Cuba wasn't easy.
Moises Asis, an information analyst who at one point was the island's only Hebrew teacher, had been trying to leave Cuba for years.
"Finally the Spanish government, via the Israelis, pressured the Cubans to let me leave as a political refugee," he says.
To ensure that the community's history is maintained, local leaders plan to create a living record of contemporary Cuban Jewish life, the Cuban Jewish Community Doc-umentation Project.
"The only way we can ensure the continuity of our traditions tomorrow is by preserving yesterday's memories,'' says Jaime Mandel, vice chairman of the university's board of trustees.
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