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Sephardic Jews in Cuba - From all their Habitations
Margalit BejaranoTHE ARRIVAL OF SEPHARDIC JEWS IN CUBA ON THE EVE OF World War I was part of a larger emigration from the Middle East to the American continent. This migratory movement, caused by the decline and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, was most evident among Christians of different denominations. It included, however, large groups of Jews from Syria, Turkey, and the Balkan countries, whose declining communities in the Old World were balanced by the growth of new centers in the United States and in Latin America.
In Latin America, immigrants from the Ottoman Empire were classified as turcos, not only by official statistics of the various countries, but also by the majority societies, which seldom distinguished between Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Turks. In the case of Cuba, the largest group of immigrants from the Middle East came from Lebanon; in 1943 it was estimated that the Arab colony was composed of 22,500 Lebanese, 3,000 Syrians and 4,500 Palestinians. (1) The Sephardic Jews who settled in Cuba came mostly from Turkey, and were the largest group among the Turkish immigrants.
Jewish immigration to Cuba was centered in the period between the country's independence (1902) and the economic crisis of 1930, and was distinctly divided into two waves: The first took place during the expansion of the sugar industry, which reached its peak in 1920. It included a small group of Jewish businessmen from the United States, and a larger group of Sephardic Jews; a report published in 1918 estimated that 90% of the 1,000 Jews residing in Cuba came from the Ottoman Empire, and the rest from the United States. (2)
The second wave of immigration, which started in 1921, was motivated by the American Quota Acts that imposed severe restrictions on immigration from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean countries. The Sephardic migratory movement was integrated into a much larger one of Jews from Poland and Russia, whose original intention was to immigrate to the United States. Many of them decided to remain in the tropical island, and became the founders of the Ashkenazi community--the largest Jewish group--popularly known as polacos.
The Sephardic Jews differed from their Ashkenazi brethren in their language, customs, and habits. Their settlement in Cuba, especially in Old Havana, where many of them lived in streets called Jesus Maria, Picota, and Inquisidor, reminded them of the persecutions of their ancestors by the Inquisition and of their expulsion from Spain in 1492, but was also an encounter with a familiar language and with a society whose cultural heritage bore many similarities to their own. Sephardic Jews were thus a unique ethnic group both among the immigrants from the Ottoman Empire as among their fellow Jews.
The economic adjustment of Jews from Eastern Europe in Cuba received the support of Jewish welfare organizations in the United States, whose recorded activities serve as an important source for the study of the early history of Cuban Jews. The life of Ashkenazi Jews was also reflected in the Jewish press that developed in Cuba in the late 1920s in the Yiddish language, but early studies on Cuban Jewish history tended to ignore the role of Sephardic Jews. (3)
The Situation in Turkey as a Background for Emigration Under the Ottoman Empire the Jews were considered inferior subjects, though tolerated and protected by the Moslem rulers. Like other religious minorities, they were organized under the millet system, in which every ethnic group was governed as an autonomous entity, with its own religious, welfare, judicial, and educational institutions, and with lay and ecclesiastical leadership. (4) According to Stanford Shaw, this system "allowed peoples to maintain their own religions, traditions, cultures, customs and languages... [but] they were segregated from one another. they remained strangers." (5)
Local Jewish organization was based on the kehila, or Kahal, with its synagogue, school, cemetery, hospital, and other institutions. The Kahal was responsible for the collection of taxes, and it represented the jewish population visa-vis the authorities; its religious, as well as its lay leaders were recognized and protected by the Ottoman government. Large cities, like Istanbul, Izmir, and Edirne, were divided into several Kahalim, according to the residential quarters.
National separatist movements in the Balkan Peninsula, as well as the interference of the European powers in Ottoman affairs, motivated the movement of reform, known as the Tanzimat (1839-1856), which granted the millets reigious freedom and equality in taxes and public services. Avigdor Levy has noted that the Ottoman authorities believed that by granting them rights, the minority groups might be persuaded to remain under their rule: "The non-Muslim minorities of the empire had to be assured that their future within the Ottoman polity was preferable to what it might be in the small national successor states." (6)
The reforms limited the authority of the religious conservative leaderships and strengthened the government control on internal matters of the millets. They intensified conflicts between Moslems and Christians as well as between Christians and Jews. Though the Ottoman reformers tried to develop a conception of Ottoman pluralism, modernization among the Jews was oriented towards the West. The Alliance Israelite Universelle introduced French values and foreign languages. Jewish children did not learn to speak Turkish, but their education in the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools facilitated their social mobility, and in the long run also their emigration abroad. (7)
The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of urban development and commercial expansion. A liberal immigration policy in the 1860s brought to Anatolia a large Moslem population which settled in uncultivated areas and developed agricultural products for export, causing the rapid growth of the port cities. The economic transitions brought advantages to the religious minorities who engaged in commerce, but they intensified the competition and tensions between the ethnic groups.(8)
The Armenians and Greeks preceded the Jews in taking advantage of the Ottoman reforms and modernizing their educational system. They improved their economic situation under the protection of European consuls, displacing the Jews from international commerce and financial business. As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century, the Jews engaged mainly in internal trade--as peddlers, shopkeepers, or petty merchants-or worked as artisans and workers. The general situation of the Jewish population deteriorated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a growing number of beggars and poor peddlers. Poverty, however, was not the only reason for emigration, which was caused also by political upheaval in the Ottoman Empire.
While the Jews were considered faithful subjects and enjoyed the protection of the Moslem rulers, they were attacked and persecuted by the Christian minorities. The newly established independence of the Balkan countries in the 1870s and 1880s resulted in a wave of flights by Jews from antisemitic attacks in the newly founded republics, in search of refuge under Ottoman protection; thousands of Jews from Bulgaria settled in Edirne, in Turkey, at the end of the nineteenth century.(9)
The opposition of the "Young Turks" to the autocratic rule of Abdul Hamid II, was part of an effort to save the disintegrating empire. It was a modem revolutionary movement, seeking to maintain civil rights, but demanding allegiance to the Turkish state, hoping to assimilate the minorities. Military service was decreed as compulsory to all the Ottoman subjects (1909), becoming one of the main incentives for emigration of young men. During the Balkan Wars (1912-13) Ottoman Thrace and Macedonia were conquered by Greece and Bulgaria. Jewish residents, attacked by the Christian conquerors, sought refuge in Istanbul: "When the Balkan War came we were living near the frontier with Bulgaria. My father. . . left everything and we left for Constantinople, fleeing so that we would not be killed."(10)
World War I increased the sufferings of all the population. Most of the Jews were not trapped in the areas of battle, but they suffered from shortages in food and heating fuel, from the anarchy caused by the mass desertions of the army, and from the many deaths of Jewish soldiers: "I was born in Silivri, Turkey. In my native town there were many jewish families, but during the War of 1914 almost everybody left Silivri. There were no bombings there, but the situation was very difficult. Those who remained were mostly women, because all the husbands went to the war and many died. . . we passed the war economically very badly." (11) While the Greeks and Armenians supported the Allied Powers, the jews remained faithful to the Turks, sharing the consequences of defeat. During the war between Turkey and Greece (1918-1922) the Jewish population of Izmir fell victim to killing and sacking. Thousands sought refuge in Istanbul, or decided to emigrate overseas. (12)
The Treaty of Lausanne (1922) recognized the independence of the Turkish Republic, and guaranteed the rights of the religious minorities. The Jews, however, realized that within the framework of the new secular and national republic, they were expected to give up their cultural autonomy and the special status of the Jewish millet, and become Turkish citizens. The secular and nationalist orientation of the government weakened the authority of the religious institutions; religious schools were placed under the control of the central government and the study of Hebrew was prohibited.
The nationalism of the republic did not cause the assimilation of religious minorities in modem Turkey. Riva Kastoryano argues that the passage from a pluralistic empire to a national state resulted in a Jewish segregation. (13) A large number of Jews, however, preferred to leave Turkey. Statistical data reflect the decrease in the number of Jews because of emigration overseas: The Jewish population of Istanbul (which was also the main destination of immigration from other parts of Turkey) decreased from 53,606 in 1914 to 47,035 in 1927; that of Edirne (on the Bulgarian frontier) diminished from 13,889 in 1914 to 5,697 in l917. (14)
Demographic Characteristics of the Immigrants
The first wave of immigration of Turkish Jews to Latin America started in the 1890s and reached its peak in the period between 1908 and 1914. Like their non-Jewish counterparts from the Ottoman Empire, the early Sephardic immigrants were mostly single men in search of better economic conditions, or those trying to evade compulsory service in the army. Compared with other countries in Latin America, Cuba was late in establishing an open door policy; immigration from the Middle East started only when the island obtained its independence (1902).
The study of Zeev Deutsch, based on the documents of HIAS, reveals that the policy of the organization was to direct Sephardic immigrants, who encountered difficulties in their adaptation to the United States, towards their settlement in Latin America. In 1919 HIAS assisted 200 Jews from Turkey to immigrate to Cuba. (15) According to oral histories, several Jews from Turkey who had emigrated previously to the United States preferred to settle in Cuba, influenced by economic opportunities, and by the linguistic affinity of Judeo-Spanish (or ladino) to the Castilian-Spanish of Cuba: "My father and my brothers arrived in New York, but they remained there only a short time. They went to Cuba because many people were going to Cuba... they went because of the language, since they didn't know English. In Cuba they felt better speaking in Spanish, and it was much easier to work, because they worked from house to house." (16)
The nuclei of settlement founded by the Sephardic Jews throughout Cuba prior to World War I became an important factor in determining the destination of the emigrants from their communities of origin, especially following the Greek occupation of Thrace, Macedonia and Anatolia (1919-1922). The invasion was accompanied by the slaughter of thousands of Moslems and Jews, and by the sacking and plunder of their property, which caused poverty and hunger. (17) Instead of individual young men looking for their fortune, the second wave of immigration became a mass flight, as described in the annual report of Chevet Ahim, the Sephardic Community of Havana: "The year 1924 was the year of the Jewish Sephardic immigrants. Due to their number it was necessary to take the most urgent measures in order not to leave in want our brothers who knocked on the door of our society. These immigrants were no longer young adventurers in search of riches, they were families with small children fleeing the misery that was caused by the change of regime in the Balkan states, who sought refuge in the free American countries, and among them in Cuba." (18)
According to Cuban Jewish sources, most of the immigrants from Turkey were Jews. (19) While Jews from Asia Minor, in particular from Izmir and its surroundings, preferred to emigrate to Argentina, most of the Turkish Jews who settled in Cuba came from the European part of Turkey (including the European districts of Istanbul). Official Cuban statistics for the years 1908 to 1914 distinguish between immigrants from Turkey in Europe and from Turkey in Asia. The number of Sephardic Jews who emigrated to Cuba directly from Turkey during the first wave of immigration that preceded World War I, was around 900 persons. (20)
Several interviewees emphasized that 1920 was the year in which brides, wives, and children of former male immigrants came to Cuba, to reunite with the men after the long separation of the war years: "My father emigrated to Cuba in the year 1914. During World War I there was no communication between Cuba and Turkey. In the year 1920 my mother received a telegram from my father, asking how we were, what had happened to us, and if were ready to go to Cuba--he was going to send us a cheque." (21)
Sephardic pioneer settlers created chains of emigration from their home towns to specific areas in the countries of immigration. Informants state the earlier settlement of a relative as the reason for choosing the destination of their emigration. While the arrival of the first immigrants may have been incidental, the news about their success, together with the desperate situation at home, had a growing impact on their whole community. (22)
Patterns of Economic Adjustment
The great majority of Sephardic Jews integrated into the country's economy as peddlers, following the paths of Syrian and Lebanese Christians. The advantage of Sephardic Jews over other groups of immigrants from the Ottoman Empire was the similarity between their mother-tongue and the Spanish language, that facilitated communication with their customers. Unlike their Eastern European brethren, their immigration started in a period of economic prosperity. With time, however, these advantages lost their importance, and the Asbkenazim overtook the Sephardim in their economic progress.
Immigration to Cuba started with the foundation of the Cuban Republic, at a period in which the industry of sugar started to expand throughout the island, and the social and economic openness towards European immigration was at its height. Out of the 854, 278 immigrants who entered Cuba between 1902 and 1920-68% came from Spain, 19% from Haiti and Jamaica, and only 1% from Syria and Turkey. (23) The development of the new sugar centers, in the Eastern provinces of the island, was accelerated under the impact of large American firms that bought vast tracts of land and established new sugar cent rates.
The new centers in Camaguey and Oriente created new opportunities for itinerant merchants, and many of the Sephardic immigrants tended to disperse throughout these provinces. Those who succeeded in establishing themselves in trade supplied merchandise on credit to the newcomers; the same chains that directed the emigrants from their hometowns to their new settlements, shaped their occupational patterns. (24) They peddled in the cent rates and in the small towns that surrounded them, offering clothes, shoes, lingerie and other merchandise to the native population: "One day after my arrival [at Santiago de Cuba] my brother took me to work as a peddler-as he was. We sold blankets, sheets, bedspreads; in addition we carried women's underwear... it was a very hard work, but since it was hard, we gained a lot." (25)
The Jewish mass migration to Cuba, however, coincided with the economic crisis of 1921, caused by the collapse of the sugar prices in the world market: "My father and my uncle had a shop of clothing, and they started to do very well, it was the period of the 'Dance of the Millions' and they were moving upwards. When we arrived they were millionaires. But they had the misfortune that in 1921 was the moratorium, and they lost everything." (26)
Ashkenazi Jews, who arrived in Cuba during the same period, were discovered by the local Jews to be sleeping in the Parque Central and suffering from hunger. With the assistance of the small American Jewish community, and later Jewish welfare organizations in the United States, they received merchandise on credit or purchased sewing machines, that facilitated their economic integration, starting as peddlers, tailors, or shoemakers. Harry Viteles was sent to Cuba in 1925 by the Emergency Refugee Committee in New York, and his report on the situation of the Jews in Havana served as a basis for the assistance supplied by American Jewry to the Eastern European Jews. Viteles did not deal with the Sephardic community, since his impression was that they didn't need American help. He calculated that the Sephardic population was composed of 2,000 newly arrived immigrants and 700 veteran residents. (27) Viteles was probably unfamiliar with the large Sephardic population in the campo; Sephardic sources estimated that 1 ,500 resided in Havana, and 2,500 were scattered throughout the island. (20)
The geographic distribution of Sephardic Jews differed from that of their Ashkenazi brethren, who tended to concentrate in Havana since their immigration. Several Sephardim went through three different stations: they started as itinerant peddlers in small pueblos in the countryside; later they established themselves in the major cities of each province; from there they later moved to Havana. (29)
Sephardic immigration diminished during the second half of the 1920s, and came to a standstill during the depression. At the same time Cuba witnessed the emergence of a nationalist movement, in reaction to the sugar-based economy and to the political and economic submission to the United States. The national Cuban movement was economic and revolutionary; its principal goal was to achieve economic independence and to secure the rights of Cuban workers. The xenophobia that developed during the depression was aimed primarily at the immigrants from Spain and from the West Indies, who competed with the native workers in the labor market.
The revolutionary government of 1933 discriminated against the aliens who were salaried workers. The Law of Nationalization of Labor stipulated that each firm had to employ at least 50% of native Cubans, but at the same time it did not limit the rights of aliens who owned their own business. Several Jews of Eastern Europe, who were employed as workers in small factories of shoes and clothing, were forced to become independent. (30) The Sephardic Jews were less affected by this law, since most of them were self-employed in commerce and industry. (31)
Communal Organization
When the first immigrants from Turkey settled in Havana, they found a small group of American Jewish businessmen and employees of American firms, whose Jewish activities consisted in conducting services on High Holidays, and managing the Jewish cemetery that they had acquired in 1907. The American Jews, who spoke English and Yiddish, looked down at the poor peddlers from the Middle East, whose Jewish rites and customs differed from their own.
The communal organization of the American Jews granted burial grounds to the Sephardic Jews, who became numerically the dominant Jewish group in Cuba. In November 1914 they founded their own communal organization--Union Israelita Chevet Ahim--with the objective of supplying all the religious and social services of the Sephardic population.
The Union Israelita Chevet Ahim was modeled after the Kahal of the communities in the Ottoman Empire. It was structured as a centralized and comprehensive body, with the synagogue as the basis of communal life. The statutes of the Union Israelita Chevet Ahim, which were approved by the provincial authorities, stipulated that the members of the communal organization would not become public charges. (32) In the absence of a Turkish diplomatic representation, the Sephardic Jewish community became the representative to the Cuban authorities of the Jewish immigrants from Turkey, part of whom remained without their passports after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
The Sephardim who settled in Havana resided in La Habana Vieja, the old quarter near the port, which later also became the center of the East European Jews. Their communal organization saw itself as the organization of all the Sephardic Jews residing in Cuba, including those who settled in the towns of the interior. Its basic structure, as a central and comprehensive communal organization, was maintained throughout its existence. The concentration of small nuclei of Sephardim in the main towns of the provinces motivated the foundation of separate organizations which maintained close links with the mother community in Havana, and accepted its religious supremacy.
Religious leadership played an important role in the consolidation of the Sephardic community. Among the immigrants who reached Cuba in the early 1920s were a number of rabbis and Hebrew teachers, headed by Rabbi Guershon Maya, descendant of an old rabbinical family in Silivri, (33) who acted as the spiritual leader of the Sephardic community for over 25 years. In 1924 Rabbi Maya founded the first Jewish day school in Cuba, which later also served the children of the immigrants from Eastern Europe, who emigrated to Cuba in the early 1920s, hoping to reach the shores of the United States. Collaboration between Sephardim and Ashkenazim was limited, due to differences of language and culture. Ashkenazi Jews joined the Sephardic organizations in the towns of the interior, being too small in number to create their own organization. The Union Israelita de Cuba, the Zionist organization that was founded by Eastern European Jews, functioned for a few years under the auspices of the Chevet Ahim. With time, however, S ephardic activists were pushed aside by the Yiddish-speaking Jews and developed their own Sephardic frameworks. (34)
In 1928 a group of Jewish university and high school students, most of whom belonged to the Sephardic community, founded the Circulo de Estudiantes Hebreos. Their objective was to bring the Jews closer to mainstream Cuban culture and to encourage Jewish youth to acquire a general education. The Students' Circle published the monthly El Estudiante Hebreo, in which many of the younger generation Sephardim published their views. (35) The publication was suspended in 1930 under Machado's dictatorship, when the government closed the university of Havana.
The Sephardic community of Havana succeeded in consolidating its communal organization right from the beginning since it was ethnically an homogenous group. The Sephardic Jews who settled in Cuba came mainly from two specific areas in Turkey in the regions of Istanbul and Edirne. Early immigration consisted also of Jews from Izmir (in the Asian part of Turkey), Aleppo (Syria) and the Balkan countries, but by 1930 most of them had left Cuba, and those who remained integrated into the Turkish community. (36) Roberto Namer, one of the early Syrian Jews who settled in Holguin, was nominated as Cuba's consul to Palestine in 1935.
In 1931 representatives of Chevet Ahim turned to the Spanish Consul in order to obtain Spanish passports, arguing that "the Sephardim were united with the Spaniards for ethnical reasons, and spiritually they feel like them." (37) The Spanish consul, who represented a colony that numbered 16% of the Cuban population, did not respond to the requests of the Turkish Jews to accept them as Spanish citizens.
Oral histories of immigrants from Turkey who settled in the towns of the interior reflect a strong tendency for the preservation of the traditional social patterns brought over from Turkey, emphasizing family ties and religion, and exercising pressure on the younger generation, especially the girls, to maintain a social barrier with the Cuban society: "Family life was exactly the same as in Turkey; there was no difference whatsoever. The religious life was the same, the social life was the same, family life was the same... we didn't have friends who were not Jewish. At that time (in the 1920s) it was impossible to have. The Fathers were guarding the whole family, all the daughters, where they were going, at what time they were coming." (38)
This tendency of social segregation was also transmitted to the second generation, as a means of defense against assimilation. (39)
The economic crises of the 1920s coincided with the American Quota Acts, that converted Cuba into an alternative migration destination and thus to a meeting point of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. The Sephardim resembled other Middle Eastern immigrants in their dispersion throughout the island and their work in itinerant commerce. The unique character of the Sephardic community of Cuba derived, however, from its homogenous composition and from the presence of recognized spiritual leaders. Based on chains of immigration that connected them with Silivri and Kilklareli, they were able to structure their communal organization along the model of these two Turkish communities. The Sephardic community of Cuba thus became an example of a disappearing Jewish center in the Ottoman Empire that re-emerged in the New World.
FROM ALL THEIR HABITATIONS takes its title from Ezekiel 37:23 and features reports of Jewish religious, intellectual, and communal life in various parts of the world.
NOTES
(1.) I wish to thank Ignacio Klich for encouraging me to prepare an English version of studies published in Spanish, French, and Hebrew. These include: "The Sepharadim, Pioneers of Jewish Immigration to Cuba" (Hebrew), in Society and Community, edited by Abraham Haim (Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, 1991), pp. 113-132; "L'integration des Sefardim en Amerique Latine: le cas des communauts de Buenos Aires et de la Havane," in Memoires juives d'Espagne etdu Portugal, edited by Esther Benbassa (Paris: PUBLISUD, 1996); "De Turquia a Latinoamerica. Inmigracion de judios safaradies a Argentina y Cuba," Sefardica 11 (Septiembre de 1996): 113-125.
"The Arab-speaking communities in Latin America," U.S. National Archives (NA) Intelligence Report, 1 January 1943, no. 1186; Teofilo Haded, Cuba y Libano, Havana 1957, p.9.
(2.) George Weinberger, "The Jews in Cuba," The American Hebrew and Jewish Messenger 102.14 (1918): 1.
(3.) The main archival sources covering the period of immigration are the files of HIAS-HICEM and the collection of Leizer Ran in the YIVO Archives in New York, and the Archives of the American JewishJoint Distribution (JDC) in New York. See also: Boris Sapir, The Jewish Community of Cuba (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary Press, 1948); Harry Viteles, "Report on the Status of Jewish Immigration in Cuba," February 1925 (mimeographed).
This study makes an extensive use of oral history, with additional materials from a survey conducted among members of the Sephardic Cuban Congregation of Miami, who had left Cuba following the Castro revolution. Questionnaires were received from 60 persons, and they include information also about the parents of the respondents and their fathers-in-law. Field work was conducted in 1986, with the help of Mrs. Eugenia Credi; I wish to thank Dr. Pnina Morag Tallmon and Mr. Zvi Richter Z"L for their help in the preparation and procession of the survey.
(4.) Avigdor Levy, The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press Inc., 1992), pp. 42-44; Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), p. 4.
(5.) Stanford J. Shaw, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (New York: New York University Press, 1991), pp. 43-44.
(6.) Levy, pp. 102-103; Yaacov Barnai, "Hayehudim baimperia haotomanit." (The Jews in the Ottoman Empire), in Toldot Hayehudim Beartzot Haislam, edited by Shmuel Ettinger (Jerusalem: Mercaz Zalman Shazar, 1986), Vol. 2, pp. 186-188; Walter Weiker, Ottomans, Turks and the Jewish Polity: A History of the Jews of Turkey (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992), pp. 151-152.
(7.) Riva Kastoryano, "From Millet to Community: The Jews of Istanbul," in Ottoman and Turkish Jewry, Community and Leadership, edited by Aharon Rodrigue (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Turkish Studies 12, 1992), pp. 253-277; Shaw, p. 165, Levy, pp. 118-19.
(8.) Kemal H. Karpat, "The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1960-1914," International Journal of Middle East Studies 17 (1985): 177-178; Barnai, pp. 213-214.
(9.) According to Stanford Shaw, the Jewish population of Edirne grew from 12,000 in 1873 to 28,000 in 1912, but was reduced again to 13,000 as a result of the Balkan Wars and World War I. Shaw, pp. 175-76, 187; Barnai, p. 200.
(10.) Interview withJack Barrocas, Carmiel (Israel), 1983. Interviews are deposited in the Oral History Division of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University (ICJ).
(11.) Interview with Cali Maya, Miami 1984, ICJ.
(12.) Haim Cohen, Hayehudim Beartzot Hamizyach hatichon Beyameinu (TheJews in the Middle East) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1973), pp. 76-78; Shaw, pp. 237-240.
(13.) Kastoryano, p. 256.
(14.) Walter F. Weiker, Ottomans, Turks and the Jewish Polity: A History of thejews of Turkey (Lanhans, MD: University Press of America, 1992), pp. 264-265.
(15.) Zeev Deutsch, "The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) 1909-1921," M.A. Thesis, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1997, pp. 19-20.
(16.) Interview, Cali Maya.
(17.) Shaw, pp. 238-240, 298; Haim Cohen, p. 77.
(18.) Asociacion Union Chevet Ahim, Memoria Anual 1924, Havana, Leizer Ran Collection, Yivo Archives New York. Data on the number of Turks who entered Cuba are based on the official statistics of the Department of Immigration, which were not classified according to religion. Table 1 reflects the sharp increase in the number of immigrants from the Middle East following the American Quota Acts of 1921 and 1924. Immigrants classified as Turks, especially prior to 1920, were partly from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
Table 1: Immigration from the Middle East to Cuba Years Turks Syrians Palestinians 1902-1906 635 1,185 1907-1911 1,148 1,659 1912-1916 1,000 1,022 1917-1921 856 1,012 1922-1926 2,655 4,519 1,869 1927-1931 338 908 570 Total 6,632 10,305 2,439 Source: Republica de Cuba, Secretaria de Hacienda, Seccion de estadisticas, Inmigracion y movimiento de pasajeros, 1918-1930; Cenus of the Republic of Cuba, 1919 (Havana 1922), p. 183.
(19.) Leizer Ran, "Yedies on Zifern vegn 450 Yor Yidishe Einvanderung en Cuba (1492-1948)" (Information and Figures on 450 Years of Jewish Immigration to Cuba), Hemshech Oif Kubaner, Zamlbuck zum 25 yorken yovl fun Yidishn Zenter in Cuba, LaHabana 1952, p. 71. Jewish informants from Turkey claim that they don't remember non-Jewish immigrants from Turkey. The author was unable to locate any organization, other than Jewish, founded by immigrants from Turkey.
Table 2: Immigration from Turkey to Cuba Year In Europe (a) In Asia (a) Total Turkey (b) 1908 192 190 1909 131 277 1910 38 210 1911 90 223 1912 203 128 320 1913 244 439 336 1914 - 34 205 Total 898 601 1,761
Source: a. Census of the Republic of Cuba, 1919 (Havana 1922), P. 183
(b.) "Cuban Immigration 1904-1923, Classified by Nationality," National Archives (NA) 837.55-64.
Cuban statistics, however, cannot be taken as a sufficient basis for the study of Jewish immigration. A considerable number of the immigrants classified as Turks, or as immigrants from Turkey in Asia, were probably born in Lebanon or in Syria. For the low number of Turks among the Arab immigrants see: Euridice Charon, "El asentamiento de emigrantes arabes en Monte (La Habana, Cuba), 1890-1930," AWRAQXIII (1992): 52.
A comparison between official statistics and information obtained retrospectively from Jewish informants shows that several females were not registered by the Department of Immigration as immigrants from Turkey. Table 3 shows that, according to official data, almost 90% of the immigrants from Turkey in the 1920s were males, and 85% declared that they were laborers. The lowest figure for female immigrants was recorded in the year 1920: 570 male immigrants and only two females. The survey among Cuban Sephardic Jews residing in Miami shows, however, that out of the 35 persons who entered Cuba in 1920-13 were males and 22 females.
Table 3
Sex and Occupation of Immigrants from Turkey to Cuba
Year Male Female Students Merchants Laborers No
& Artisans Occupation
1918 10 3 7 3
1920 570 2 1 9 559 3
1921 104 55 4 45 40
1923 683 120 1 1 90 607
1924 1,136 12 1 10 1,133 4
1925 323 81 43 281 80
1927 28 29 3 1 11 18
1928 36 37 6 16 16
89.5% 10.5% 0.5% 0.2% 7.4% 85%
Year
1918
1920
1921
1923 104
1924
1925
1927 24
1928
6.9%
Source: Republica de Cuba, Secretaria de Haciendra, Seccion de
estadisticas, Inmigracion y movimiento de pasajeros, 1918-1930.
(21.) Interview with Alegra Fins, Miami 1987, ICJ.
A more reliable source on the difference between males and females among the Jewish immigrants from Turkey are the lists of the Jewish cemeteries in Havana, according to which the proportion between men and women among the adults born in Turkey was around 60% to 40% see Table 4). Between 1912 and 1942 Sephardic Jews were buried in the Jewish cemetery owned by the United Hebrew Congregation (founded by American Jews); in 1942 the Sephardic Community Uinon Israelita Chevet Ahim bought its own cemetery. Both cemeteries are located in Guanabacoa.
The lists of the cemetery of the United Hebrew Congregation are kept in the Archives of Adath Israel, Havana, and those of Chevet Ahim in the Casade ia Comunidad Hebrea (Patronato). I wish to thank Abraham Berezniak, Maritza Corrales, Gabriel Weinstein, and Alberto Ashkenazi for their assistance in obtaining the lists.
Table 4 Burial of Turkish Jews in Cuba According to Sex Years Male Female 1912-20 15 4 1921-30 45 31 1931-40 63 45 1941-45 45 34 Total 168 114
The lists of burials in the Jewish cementaries of Havana are also useful in determining the countries of origin of the immigrants. Almost 90% of the Sephardic Jews born outside Cuba were born in Turkey (See Table 5). The number of Jews from Syria who had immigrated to Cuba was probably higher than the 3.5% that appear in the burial lists. Between 1925 and 1935 Jews from Syria had their own religious organization, but most of them reemigrated, preferring to join their communities of origin in Mexico or in New York. (Interviews: Jose Credi, Salomon Garazi. Information about the organization of Syrian Jews-Maguen David-is recorded in the Minutes book of Bikur Holim, Archives of the Patronato, Havana.)
Table 5 Country of Origin of Sephardic Jews Buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Havana Turkey 252 (89.4%) Syria 10 (3.5%) Greece 6 Italy 3 St. Thomas 2 Bulgaria, Palestine, France 6 (2 each) Algiria, Tunisia, Persia 3 (1 each) Total 282
(22.) Interviewees remember Silivria (Silivri)--a small town in the outskirts of Istanbul, with a Jewish population of 1,200 persons prior to emigration Bulletin de l'Alliance israelite Universelle 29 (1904), p. 165-as the most important source of Sephardic immigration to Cuba, followed by Kirklisse (Kirklareli)-a small town close to Edirne, with 1,000 Jews. The survey among Sepharadim in Miami shows that 121 persons (28 interviewees, 46 fathers and 47 mothers) were born outside Cuba, 95% of them in Turkey. The largest group came from the region of Istanbul: 38 were born in Silivri, 37 in Istanbul, and 5 in Chorlu. The other group came from Thrace: 16 from Kirklareli and 17 from Edirne. Though Havana was the main center for immigrants from Istanbul and Silvri, several natives of Siivri settled in Camaguey, while those born in Edirne and Kirklareli lived in the province of Oriente.
(23.) C. R. Cameron, "Trends of Migratory Movement to Cuba," 29 September 1934, NA, 837.55/142.
(24.) Interviews with Jack Barrocas, Carmiel 1983, Group from Santiago de Cuba, Miami 1984, ICJ, Cali and Elias Maya, Miami 1984, ICJ.
(25.) Interview with Julio Crispin, Miami 1984, ICJ.
(26.) Interview with Alegra Fins.
(27.) Harry Viteles, Report on the Status of the Jewish Immigration in Cuba, February 1925 (mimeographed).
(28.) Moises Mitrani, "De La Habana," israel (Buenos Aires) agosto de 1926.
(29.) This process is partly reflected in the survey among Cuban Sepharadim in Miami: the number of residents in Camaguey and Santiago increased between 1934 and 1945, but declined following World War II (Table 6):
Table 6 Geographical Mobility of Sephardic Jews Town Up to 1933 1934-45 1945-59 Havana 14 29 40 Pinar del Rio 4 3 3 Matanzas 3 3 2 Camaguey 10 17 5 Santiago de Cuba 4 12 6 Oriente (exc.Santiago) 6 4 2 Other 7 2 1
(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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