October 11, 1999

Secret transit of Jews has gone on 25 years

Estanislao Oziewicz, The Globe and Mail. October 11, 1999

Canada has served as the behind-the-scenes expediter in a hitherto secret deal between Cuba and Israel that has allowed hundreds of Cuban Jews to emigrate to Israel over the past 25 years, Canadian officials revealed last night.

"I think it is an example of how Canada's constructive engagement with Cuba is working to our advantage quietly and successfully," an official in Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy's office said.

Cuba has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel, having cut relations after Israel's 1973 victory in the Yom Kippur War. Cuban President Fidel Castro has been accused of supplying arms to Palestinian terrorist groups.

News of the emigration of Cuban Jews to Israel broke in Europe over the weekend.

The astonishing thing is that the arrangement, facilitated by Canada, has been going on for a quarter century without word of it leaking out.

Since 1974, the official in Mr. Axworthy's office said, Canada has had a special office in the Canadian embassy in Havana serving as facilitator for Cuban Jews wanting to leave for Israel.

"What happens is that we're used as basically an intermediary between the two countries. An application would go to our officer in Havana, who would send it on to the Israel embassy here [in Ottawa] and forward it on to Tel Aviv.

"And if it was approved, the chain would operate in reverse."

The official said those approved would leave Cuba using a Cuban exit visa and passport, but they would be issued Canadian travel documents entitling them to enter Israel.

"The long and short of it is that it is nothing new," the official said. "It operates with full transparency, so the Israelis know, the Cubans know, obviously we know. And everyone is happy with it."

The official said he believes about 400 Cuban Jews have emigrated using this process over the past 10 to 15 years.

He said the arrangement has been kept secret "for simple diplomatic reasons," adding: "Given the relationship between the countries involved, keeping it quiet was the best idea."

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa said the embassy had no comment.

According to some reports, Cuba and Israel are interested in re-establishing ties but Israel is cautious because of fear of upsetting Washington, which maintains a nearly 40-year economic embargo on the Caribbean island nation.

Sergio Karas, a Spanish-speaking, Toronto-based immigration lawyer, said in an interview yesterday that Cuba's Jewish population is only about 1,000 strong, though it numbered as many as 15,000 in pre-Castro days.

"Some reports put it as low as 800, some reports put it as much as 1,500. But the community has gone through some very difficult times because there is not enough to support synagogues and community life," he said. "In Cuba, religious life is very much discouraged, to say the least."

There is no rabbi or Jewish school. There are just three synagogues in Havana and one kosher butcher.

However, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, Mr. Castro has had to find new economic and political relationships. In this effort, he has eased up on strictures concerning religious worship and even attended a cultural evening last year at one of Havana's remaining synagogues.

Many Cuban Jews are descendants of Polish and Russian Jews who fled pogroms at the turn of the century.

That Cuba, Israel and Canada have come to together to allow Jews to leave for Israel is powerfully ironic.

In the spring of 1939, the St. Louis, a German ship carrying about 1,130 Jewish refugees, was turned away by Havana authorities who did not recognize the refugees' visas. Only 23 passengers were allowed to land in Havana.

Subsequently, Canada's Mackenzie King government also turned the ship away, forcing it to return to Europe. Most of the Jewish refugees were admitted to the Netherlands, Belgium and France. But war broke out, Germany occupied those countries and the Jews of the St. Louis were rounded up and sent to gas chambers.

Many Jews left Cuba after the 1959 revolution, when Mr. Castro turned toward communism and their businesses were nationalized or expropriated.

"Everybody left for Miami," Mr. Karas said.

Copyright © 1999 Globe Information Services

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