Letters from Cuba

 

An emotional midgrade novel written by anthropologist Ruth Behar, Letters from Cuba shares less known stories about how European Jews ended up in the Carribean island to save their lives from the Nazi-occupied Europe. Inspired by her own family story Behar created a reliable story which appeals to young adults interested in history and in different cultures and traditions. 

Esther, 12 years old, embarked on an adventurous journey from her village in Poland, joining her father in Cuba where he was working hard to save money for bringing his family out of Europe. During her journey and upon arrival, she wrote letters in her native Yiddish to her sister Malka, sharing the details of her new life and their efforts to reunite with their loved ones. 

Through Esther´s pure eyes, it is not only a new world opening, but also the word she just left comes up clearer, especially taking into account the everyday persecution and discrimination Jews were the victims thereof. ´Cubans have been so friendly to me that I almost forgot about how some people hate Jews´. There is an antisemitic villain but the Anti-Nazi Society of Agramonte, her non-Jewish friends created to prevent the island from following into Germany´s path is working hard to counter his actions.

Esther, a brave bearer of a name associated in Jewish history with stubborn defense of Jews against the oppressors who want them dead, is a genuine voice who although fully aware of her heritage, she is happy to share her traditions she is proud of with her non-Jewish neighbours while learning on the go about other cultures. 

Besides teaching young readers about a particular tragic episode of Jewish history, Letters from Cuba offers a curious perspective on world which should continue far beyond one´s teenage years.

For me, it was a first complex encounter with the world of Askenazi Jews refugiated in Cuba. It have shape and made sense of a realm I knew only from cold historical accounts. The image of Yiddish speaking stores and schools in Havana or of the Jewish peddlers selling their products all over the country is unique and rarely present in novels.

Although Jewish presence in Cuba started at the end of the 15th century, during the 1930s the number increased also due to the prohibitive immigration policies in the US. Many ships with Jews who escaped the Nazi regime were turned off from the shores of the ´goldene Medina´ and thus Jews spread all over the Latin America and the Carribean. After the 1959 communist revolution, many of them left, mostly for US and Israel, with around 1,500 known Jews still living on the island. I would be happy one day to have the chance to visit those synagogues and walk the streets of Havana looking for Jewish traces.

Rating: 4 stars 

Why the Jewish character must be the bad guy?

I wonder why? Why not the Chinese, the Indian or the Indonesian, just to give some random examples...True is that in every community there are bad guys and good guys and Jews are no exception to that but, besides this reality, the literature creates or emulates certain models and stereotypes which perpetuate certain negative stereotypes, including those with anti-Semitic flavours. 

My recent experience in this respect is the short story part of the Santa Rita Stories, by Andrew J. Rodriquez. It collects various stories based in Santa Rita, a little fishing village in Northeastern part of Cuba. Created as an initition story into life of the little Carlos by the destitute Pedro, it includes various lessons in understanding life and humans. One of them is dedicated to Carlos encounters with the family of Veronica, a girl he worshipped in secret. Everything started with the invitation to attend and accompany her to her fiesta de los quince - celebration of 15-year anniversary, an important moment in the life of a Cuban girl. 

Both Pedro and his parents are warning him that she is Jewish and thus, different traditions apply. But when he received an invitation to meet her father Benny, he has a little nightmare experience. The house is guarted by a huge dog who is ready to bit everyone that is shaking hands with any member of the family. The interior is full of kitsch expensive looking art, besides Jewish symbols. The father, Benny is not only 40 minutes late and impolite, but offers him a dirty deal: to pay him to keep his daughter away from the previous boyfriend till the famous party, which is planned as a way to invite famous local people and climb up the social ladder. He is open with his intentions: 'The pride and joy of elevating our status far beyond the common folk is all I care for'. 

Brave Carlos will not succumb the temptation and will reject the invitation to the party, while keeping a secret relationship with Veronica till her departure to Havana to her aunt for law studies. 

Again, you don't have to tag ethnicity for creating bad guy characters.

Shabbat reading

It was a good Shabbos for reading, following a couple of days in a row when I did nothing else but reading and writing from time to time. I still have a lot of reviews from the last year to finish and tons - not a stylistic poetry, but the raw reality of my reading life lately - of reviews to be done, but be'H will be done sooner than expected.

The first choice was an interesting book of comparative literature regarding the relation between Poles and Jews through the eyes of the authors from the end of the 19th, century: Poles and Jews, a Failed Brotherhood, part of the series of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series. 

I continued with Gil Yaron's trips where I found some interesting ideas for interviews, but did not like the angle so, I will rate this book with only two modest stars. I wasn't extremely impressed by the next book either, a collection of academic essays with a stereotypical title: Judentum zwischen Tradition und Moderne (Judaism, between Tradition and Modernity). Some interesting ideas about synagogal architecture and various details about the Jewish life in Germany through academic eyes. 

The best choice was almost at the end of Shabbos, when I started to read Tropical diaspora: The Jewish experience in Cuba. A book not only rich in illustration, but who's offering a lot of inspiration for one of my projects in process about Jewish communities around the world, especially in places where we, in the Western galut, do not have any idea that it may be any trace of Jewish life. I've read already 1/4 of it and will continue the lecture once I log off from blogger.

Shavua tov!