“One moment, you could be standing in front of one of the most beautiful buildings,” Stephanie Wain was saying, “but if you walked only one block away, the sights of broken-down cars and disrepair fill the streets.”
Wain (pictured third from left), chairman of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Griffin Hospital, was talking about a recent trip she took to Cuba along with her Cuban Jewish father-in-law in his native country. She recounted her trip Monday night at the latest gathering of a novel partnership between the Jewish and Latino communities in New Haven.
Wain visited the Jewish Community Center’s West Rock Room where two Conversational Spanish classes gathered to learn about the Jewish community in Cuba, part of a Latino-Jewish dialogue between Casa Otoñal and the Jewish Coalition for Literacy. (Click here and here to read previous Independent articles about the project.)
Married to Cuban-born Jew Ruben Kier, Wain wished to learn more about her husband’s heritage and what it has become. Though Kier did not travel with them, as he feared the possibility of being unable to leave, Wain, her father-in-law Ralph Kier and her daughter joined the group Jewish Solidarity in a humanitarian effort to Cuba. Bringing medicine and everyday items that Americans can buy at local pharmacies to the present-day Jewish community, which numbers a mere few thousand, Wain and her fellow travelers experienced the decrepit conditions in which much of the population lives.
The travelers visited synagogues in all kinds of conditions, including the one in which the elder Kier had his bar mitzvah celebration. Few had not been renovated in years, while others were newly refurbished, but still lacked the congregation to fill its seats. Once numbering 15,000, the Cuban Jewish population has dwindled, at one point amounting not even to 1,000 members.
“The Cuban Jewish community is in need,” said Wain. Through efforts like those of Jewish Solidarity, the Jews of America and the rest of the world can help support and sustain the Jewish population that is left in Cuba before it completely dies out, she said.
In hopes of strengthening the Jewish-Hispanic relationship, the Jewish Coalition for Literacy (JCL) has developed a program in which the Adult Spanish students visit the nearby Hispanic campus Casa Otoñal senior and community comoplex.
Under the supervision of the JCL Chairman Alan Cooper (in the top photo, far right) and Coordinator Brenda Brenner, Tomas Miranda and Jill Savitt (second from left and far left in the top photo) led a group of about 20 students in learning Spanish language and culture. The students, ranging from age 30 and up, have committed to attending a laid-back, but focused class every Monday night in which they study and practice the language with their teacher and each other. In order to add to each class’s enthusiastic atmosphere, some have even been assigned Spanish names, referring to each other as Rosalinda or Ricardo.
The students aren’t the only ones who benefit from the interactive nature of the course. “I walk out of here so charged,” Miranda said.
A Puerto Rican native, Miranda moved to the U.S. mainland when he was 11 years old. He is a retired professor and now serves as associate director of Casa.
Feeling especially enthusiastic about the evening’s event, Miranda said he believes that his family, like Wain’s, might have been members of the Spanish Jewish population forced to rid themselves of their religion during the Spanish Inquisition. “A lot of the Hispanic community has Jewish roots,” said Miranda. “We’re children of conversos.”
Though Miranda’s partner Savitt is not Hispanic herself, she studied in Spain and has traveled to Mexico and Puerto Rico where she was able to improve her Spanish-speaking skills. In addition to her teaching opportunity at the JCC, Savitt is a public high school Spanish teacher.
Now in its second semester, the class was originally meant for the JCL tutors who visit local schools to help young students with their reading and comprehension skills. Noticing that some students practice English as a second language, Cooper and Brenner decided to offer a class in which the tutors could become familiar with these students’ first language in order to better communicate with them.
The class has proven to be appealing to other community members as well. In addition to the JCL tutors, local doctors, lawyers and therapists have signed up for the class, as they believe learning the language is important in their careers and their everyday lives.
Miranda and Savitt intermittently contributed to Wain’s discussion, offering their knowledge of the Spanish culture as well.
Contact: Sharon Hakakian