Beyond Buena Vista, Venceremos, And the Thought Police (Religious Beliefs of Jews in Cuba‪)‬

IT IS APRIL 2003. On our first night in Havana, my husband and I wander the shabbiest quarter of the Old City in search of the Orthodox synagogue. We find it just as a small group of observant Jews are finishing a communal meal and beginning the Havdalah service that marks the end of Shabbat. Conspicuous in his long black frock among the casually dressed Cubans, a thin, pale, and remarkably young Lubavitcher rabbi from Israel gathers the group to prayer. There are no rabbis on the island so Israel sends one over each year during Passover. Canadian Jews send the gefilte fish, matzoth, and kosher wine. The three synagogues in Havana--one Conservative, one Orthodox, one Sephardic--scramble with shortages and rationing to cobble together a meal for the sixty to eighty people who show up at each temple for the Seder.