October 15, 1999/5 Cheshvan 5760, Vol. 52, No. 7
Not-so-secret Cuban aliyah gets attentionJewish Telegraphic AgencyThe immigration of hundreds of Cuban Jews to Israel made big headlines this week after the story broke in the British and Canadian press. Code-named "Operation Cigar," the departure was hardly news to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who apparently gave his blessing to the exodus years ago.Since 1995, some 400 people have arrived from Cuba with the assistance of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi-governmental agency responsible for aliyah (immigration to Israel). A trickle came earlier through the efforts of the Canadian government. The mystery surrounding their exodus - confirmed by the Israeli government for the first time this week - seems to stem from Castro's reluctance to publicize special treatment arranged for the Cuban Jewish community, which now totals an estimated 1,300 people. But others see the move as part of Castro's desire to see crippling U.S. economic sanctions lifted. Cuban Jewish leaders also confirmed that the operation had been taking place, but emphasized that it was not a secret. "The fact that something is not known about does not mean it was secret," Raquel Marichal, a Jewish community leader, was quoted as saying. But what has emerged since Israeli military censors opened the subject to the media this week is that in the early 1990s the Jewish Agency entered into an agreement with Castro to keep their activities quiet in return for an obstacle-free operation. A spokesman for the Jewish Agency, Michael Jankelowitz, declined to comment on Cuban aliyah. This week, major newspapers in Europe and Canada revealed that the Canadian government had also been quietly helping the Jews of Cuba for the past 25 years by facilitating their exodus to Israel. Cuba and Canada maintain political relations, while Cuba and Israel do not. Cuba dropped diplomatic relations with Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Most members of the Cuban Jewish community are descended from Polish and Russian Jews who fled czarist pogroms at the turn of the century. When Castro came to power in 1959, most of the then-15,000-strong community managed to flee, with the majority settling in the United States. Hebrew University Cuba specialist Margalit Bejarano told the London Sunday Telegraph that there is far less anti-Semitism in Cuba than in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe. "Castro never denied Jews kosher food or the right to organize cultural activities," Bejarano said, while noting that the practice of religion - Judaism or Christianity - is usually a bar to university work and to some professions in Cuba, which has been officially atheistic since 1962. An Israeli official in Washington said he was "not aware of any concerns" being expressed by the United States that Castro had approved the operation in order to curry favor with the United States, which has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba since 1959. He said Israel closely coordinates its policy vis a vis Cuba with the United States. "The fact that members of the Jewish community have been allowed to emigrate to Israel is a step forward in Cuba's overall religious freedom policy," U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said. He added that there has been no official change in Cuba's immigration policy. The most recent immigrants from Cuba are now in an immigrant absorption center in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. While some expressed satisfaction with being in Israel, others voiced some of the same complaints heard by other immigrant populations over difficult living and work conditions. "Living here is like living in a ghetto, worse than anything else I have ever seen. Sometimes it makes me think I want to go back," Pedro Luis told Israeli television. Others are reluctant to speak out for fear of jeopardizing the chance of others leaving Cuba and for fear of reprisals against family members left behind. Reports estimated that an additional 200 Cuban Jews are expected to be able to emigrate by next June. Contributing to this report were JTA staff writer Julia Goldman and correspondents Naomi Segal in Jerusalem, Douglas Davis in London, Bill Gladstone in Toronto and Michael Shapiro in Washington. |
