James L. Berenthal remembers his yeshiva graduation in Havana with great fondness. He reminiscences about the celebration opening Havana’s El Patronato synagogue in 1953 when President Batista came to the opening ceremony. His parents had helped finance the construction.
He remembers how the shochet—the ritual slaughterer—waited in the market for the shrieking chickens about to become Shabbos dinners. “Getting reliable kosher products then was not a problem. We were a community of almost 20,000, with three synagogues and a wonderful yeshiva, Tachkimoni— ’Make Me Wise’—kosher markets and restaurants—a vibrant community.”
Berenthal was born and raised in Havana. There, he was called Jaime. He came to America to attend university and law school, met and married his American wife, established his law practice, and raised his children. His ties to the Jewish community in Havana, however, remain strong and active. For almost 13 years, he has been working to establish a va’ad hakashrut—kosher certification bureau—and is actively seeking the cooperation of the Havana Jewish community.
The increasingly “normal” relationship between the United States and the island nation has led to a massive increase in tourism. Airlines are actively bidding for landing rights, American sports teams are engaging their Cuban counterparts. President Obama is scheduled to attend a game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuba National team during his official visit in March.
Presidential trips involve a lot of planning; travel to Cuba for observant Jews does, too. How does a kosher traveler manage in Cuba, where kosher food is virtually unavailable?
“When I go, I take nuts and dried foods. I eat a lot of fruit. There are no meats, no kosher cheeses or milk. You have to bring absolutely everything,” says Berenthal, an Orthodox Jew. He has created two companies with both commercial and community interests. “Havana Gila,” a travel company working with American-Jewish tourists, arranges hotels, provisions and touring, and Mazal Travel, which serves European and Israeli clientele.
Since 2010, he has been working to help with the renaissance of Jewish life in Havana. “It is my dream,” he told the Link, “to help rebuild the Jewish community in Cuba as it existed; to re-establish its communal organizations, many created in the 1920s and ‘30s, and facilitate the creation of a Jewish school and an Orthodox synagogue.”
The most basic resource to attract people to Cuba is creation of facilities to provide kosher food for the remnant of the Jewish community—some 600-700 people—and the many anticipated visitors. Seven years ago, Berenthal, a practicing attorney in New York, drafted formal documents to establish a vaad hakashrut do la Republica de Cuba. He says the va’ad, in addition to certifying kosher food, would provide employment for any members of the Jewish community.
“We have to create a supervising organization to provide gainful employment and to return to the tradition of our community,” says the advocate. He believes creation of the va’ad hakashrut will be the “kick starter” for communal rebirth.
In 2012, together with his brother, Saul, the first American to operate a business in Cuba (a tractor assembly plant), Berenthal presented the plan to the Cuban Jewish community. The proposal included creation of the va’ad to provide certification for processing of kosher foods for local consumption and anticipated kosher tourists. “There were over 7,000 Jewish tourists in 2015,” says Berenthal “Many were Israelis who require kosher food and could not obtain it.”
Rabbi Eli Abadi, senior rabbi of the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in New York, enjoys the respect of both the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities. He has volunteered to serve as rabbinic head of the proposed va’ad. In 2013, Rabbi Abadie and the Berenthal brothers were summoned to the offices of Carida Dooegpo Bello, head of religious affairs for the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist party to present the plan. However, since the synagogues in Havana—there are three—have not yet given their support to the va’ad project, the application was not granted. “Rabbi Abadie and I continue to work with the community organization to gain its approval.” The president of the Orthodox synagogue, he notes, is also a member of the Cuban Communist Party, a uniquely accepted situation in Cuba.
The Cuban Jewish Community is seeking international financial assistance. Berenthal says the Joint Distribution Committee—JDC—which assists the community, “looked favorably on the establishment of the va’ad and the jobs it would create.” Currently, the Cuban government provides a shochet to provide kosher meat for members of the community, but no other kosher products are available,” Berenthal told The Link. He says “the shochet “has no approval from any recognized organization in the Jewish world.”
Berenthal hopes to leave a legacy in his family’s honor: the creation of a kosher restaurant to be named for his mother: Casa Rosa La Polack. Before the revolution, Jews were known in Cuba as Polacks. Many came to Cuba with a 24-hour visa, issued by the Polish authorities in Danzeig, mostly during the 1920s. His mother, Rosa, arrived in Cuba by ship in 1939, one week prior to the doomed voyage of the S.S. St. Louis.
“We had a beautiful community—like a shtetel. No Jew went hungry. There were landsmanshaft—extensions of the European ‘hometown’ support groups. The creation of the va’ad hakashrut is integral to the restoration of a vital community,” says the lawyer, noting that part of the impetus is to create needed employment for community members.
There are several projects under way in Havana in which the lawyer is involved. He is trying to create a kosher hotel in the city—a place “with kosher food and a kosher ambiance; a place where Jews from throughout the world could be at home.” However, because it is still illegal for Americans to own property in Cuba, “that plan remains ‘on hold.’”
Berenthal is concerned not only about the present and future, but also about maintaining tradition. He has attempted to secure and restore the cemetery in which his grandparents are buried. “It is urgent that it be protected. Santeria priests have been known to open graves to steal Jewish bones to use in voodoo rituals.”
By Maxine Dovere
