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August 22, 2003/Av 24 5763, Vol. 55, No. 52
Cubans make first Birthright trip
LOOLWA KHAZZOOM
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
TEL AVIV - For many travelers, the threat of terrorism is a compelling reason to stay away from Israel.
For Maria Louisa Zayon, it was a compelling reason to visit.
"In Israel now it's a very hard time," says the 21-year-old journalism student from Havana, Cuba. "I think it's very important that people like us come to be together with Israel."
By "people like us," Zayon means the eight Cuban Jewish youths on the Birthright Israel program, the first organized group from Cuba to visit Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
On Aug. 17, the participants finished a 10-day tour on Birthright, which provides free trips for Jewish youths aged 18 to 26 who have never visited Israel on a peer tour.
They were accompanied by William Miller, director of ORT-Cuba and a counselor for the trip, and David Tasher, a board member of the organized Cuban Jewish community.
"We came here to build bridges between Cuba and Israel," Miller said, "to bring Jewish youth closer to Israel, to see a little more about the reality here."
Cuban Jews, he says, know of Israel only through the Torah or through contem-porary books and magazines.
"To see the history behind us, in front of us, to see Judaism before us, to see the Torah in front of us, living, was something incredible," he said.
Delegations from Switz-erland, Bulgaria and Vene-zuela also took part in Birthright for the first time this summer.
In all, some 8,500 youths are expected to visit Israel on birthright this summer - a 70-percent increase over last summer - and 15,000 for the year.
Some 48,000 young Jews from 34 countries have taken part in Birthright since the program began in 1999.
Cuba and Israel have not had diplomatic ties since Cuban President Fidel Castro broke them just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Castro offered training and support to PLO guerillas over the years and was an ally of such anti-Israel figures as Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.
Still, Cuba began allowing its Jews to emigrate in 1994 for a fee, paid by the Jewish state. By 2000, some 500 Cuban Jews had reached Israel under the behind-the-scenes ar-rangement, known as Op-eration Cigar.
For most of those who remained in Cuba, however, a trip to Israel was out of the question - until Birthright came along.
One of the most memorable Birthright experiences for the Cuban group was standing at the Western Wall on Tisha B'Av, "seeing all the different Jewish people all together, seeing everyone and being part of this also," Miller said.
Rosa Delgado, 23, was especially excited about the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, where she was able to learn about the Jewish community of Turkey - where her family has roots - and about Jewish communities in South America.
The Cuban participants "were very excited and emotional" during the trip, said Tal Somech, the security guard who accompanied them. "They said that it was the most beautiful 10 days of their lives."
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