Sephardic Jews in Cuba - From all their Habitations

(30.) Margalit Bejarano, "Deproletarization of Cuban Jews," in Judaica Latineamericana, edited by M. Bejarano, R P. Raicher, S. Schenkolewski, and L. Senkman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), pp. 57-67.

(31.) The survey among Cuban Sephardim residing in Miami shows that before 1933, 64% were peddlers and 20% were merchants in retail or wholesale. Commerce remained the most important occupation among the Sepharadim; on the eve of Castro's revolution there were still 33% peddlers and 34% retail and wholesale merchants (see Table 7).

Table: 7

Occupational Mobility of Sephardic Jew in Cuba

Occupation             Up to 1933  1934-45  1945-59

Worker                      4         6        6
Clerk                       2         2        2
Teacher, Rabbi              3         5        4
Peddler                    60        42       36
Wholesale merchant          7        11       14
Retail merchant            12        21       23
Industrialist               3         4        5
Professional, student       1         8       14
Other                       1         3        4
Total                      93       102      108

Source: Survey conducted by author among Cuban Sephardim in Miami.
Questions on economic mobility were referred also to husbands, fathers,
and father-in-law of the respondents.

The occupational structure and the economic development of Sephardic Jews in Latin America have not yet been properly studied. It seems, however, that the Turkish Jews were less ambitious than other Jewish groups. The Cuban-Sephardic review, Universal, complained in 1937 that many Sephardim gather at the club during working hours, in order to play dominoes. A similar complaint was echoed in 1942, in the Sephardic newspaper in Buenos Aires, that claimed that the Jews from Turkey were economically the weakest immigrant group in Argentina (Universal, 7 April 1937, p. 10; La Luz, 15 May 1942).

(32.) Union Israelita Chevet Ahim, Estatutos Generales, La Habana 1918.

(33.) Margalit Bejarano, "Los sefardies, pioneros de la inmigracion judia a Cuba," Rumbos 14 (Octubre de 1985): 107-122. Interview Rabbi Nissim Gambach, Miami 1984, ICJ.

(34.) Union Sionista de Cuba, Memoria Anual 1931-32, Central Zionist Archives (CZA), Z4-3244; Olinsky to Jerusalem, 17 December 1933, 1 October 1933, CZA KKL5-6810.

(35.) El Estudiante Hebreo, 1 May 1929, 30 March 1930; Interview with David and Reina Perez, Miami 1984, ICJ.

(36.) Interviews with Jose Credi, Miami 1984, and Salomon Garazi, Miami 1987, ICJ.

(37.) Minutes Bicur Holim, 30 November 1931, Archives of Patronato.

(38.) Interview with Cali Maya.

(39.) Interviews with Raquel Egozi de Behar, Miami 1984, ICJ, Isidoro Behar, Miami 1991, ICJ, Group from Manzanillo, Miami 1993, ICJ.

MARGALIT BEJARANO teaches in the Spanish and Latin American Studies Department of the Hebrew University and holds a research appointment in its Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Her historical studies range from analyses of the Jews of Argentina to Cuba. She organized and presided over the Latin American Studies Division of the recent World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

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