Pre-Castro Cuba had a relatively small but thriving Jewish community, mostly inhabiting Havana, before Castro came to power. They were admired and respected by the larger population, for their success in business and the learned professions--much as in the U. S. and Canada. Unfortunately for them, these attributes made them "class enemies" of the proletariat (ironically represented by the Castro brothers, the sons of a wealthy large landowner from Oriente Province); almost all fled Cuba for the U. S. in the early years of the Revolution, where, like middle-class Cuban-Americans in general, they have again succeeded socially and economically; I myself met several young Jewish Cuban-Americans at the University of Florida in the early 1970s.
A small and impoverished remnant, mostly elderly, remain in Cuba. They hardly present any sort of threat to the dictatorship, but, because of their status as "class enemies" and the mass emigration of their co-religionists to the _Yanqui_ entity to the north--putting them in the "worm" category with which opponents of the Castro regime are tarred, they are viewed with suspicion by the government. Can't have 'em communicating by internet with their worm families in Yanquiland!
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Pre-Castro Cuba had a relatively small but thriving Jewish community, mostly inhabiting Havana, before Castro came to power. They were admired and respected by the larger population, for their success in business and the learned professions--much as in the U. S. and Canada. Unfortunately for them, these attributes made them "class enemies" of the proletariat (ironically represented by the Castro brothers, the sons of a wealthy large landowner from Oriente Province); almost all fled Cuba for the U. S. in the early years of the Revolution, where, like middle-class Cuban-Americans in general, they have again succeeded socially and economically; I myself met several young Jewish Cuban-Americans at the University of Florida in the early 1970s.
A small and impoverished remnant, mostly elderly, remain in Cuba. They hardly present any sort of threat to the dictatorship, but, because of their status as "class enemies" and the mass emigration of their co-religionists to the _Yanqui_ entity to the north--putting them in the "worm" category with which opponents of the Castro regime are tarred, they are viewed with suspicion by the government. Can't have 'em communicating by internet with their worm families in Yanquiland!
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