The Jewish Community of Cuba: Between Continuity and Extinction

The rise and subsequent decline of the Cuban Jewish community in the twentieth century embodies a unique chapter in the study of diaspora Jewry. Beginning with a group of U.S. Jews in a Spanish-speaking society, home to Ladino-speaking immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, a haven for Jews fleeing the Holocaust, witness to a mass exodus in the wake of the Castro Revolution, the Cuban Jewish community today continues to maintain a limited Jewish communal life under difficult conditions. Because Cuba lacks any tradition of religious antisemitism, there is no reported local antisemitic feeling, even though Cuba has taken a prominent anti-Zionist stand.