UM HILLEL: Student Perspectives from Cuba

On our first afternoon, we had lunch at a restaurant on the 33rd floor of one of Havana's few high-rises, unlike Brickell's (in Miami) countless sleek skyscrapers. Leaving Miami’s international flavor at the airport, we were greeted with Cubans' electric national pride, and we saw it manifest itself as flags, murals and billboards everywhere we went. This, combined with the idiosyncrasies of Cuban life that simply aren't a factor in the U.S. made me realize that while Miami has Cuban influences, Cuba is a place that deserves to be experienced in its own right.

Jessi Vishny
Jessi is a sophomore pre-med student at UM majoring in media management. She is from Chicago.

After weeks of planning and patiently waiting for the day to come, we hopped off the plane early Saturday afternoon and began our Cuban adventure! At the airport bathroom in Havana, we were confronted with 3-foot stall doors, toilets with no seats and a limited amount of toilet paper. After loading onto the bus, we met our lovely tour guide Margarita and our first stop was an elegant Cuban restaurant on the 33rd floor of one of Cuba's most famous buildings. We had fun looking out over Havana and getting to know each other. After lunch we went to see the (Beth Shalom) synagogue and enjoyed a Havdalah dance performance put on by the people of the Jewish community of Havana at their community center. They got us to shake our booties and dance to the Macarena. We then spent the night roaming Havana and enjoying the nightlife. The clubs were so different from those in Miami but we had a blast dancing like there is no tomorrow #YOCO

March 12th

Courtney Druckman
Courtney is from Coral Springs, Florida and is a sophomore at UM studying accounting and business law.

On Day 2 in Cuba the tour took us to two Jewish cemeteries in Havana. It was incredible to see the Jewish community that William’s (William Miller, former vice president of the Patronato Casa de la Comunidad Hebrea de Cuba, or the Patronato, the Cuban-Jewish Community) grandfather formed long ago here in Cuba. His grandfather was actually buried in one of the cemeteries, so we stopped at his gravesite, and William explained his story. The Millers' story made me realize that Judaism and being Jewish is all up to the people. It takes people to come together to form a strong Jewish community. When everyone was fleeing from Cuba during the 1959 revolution, William’s grandfather decided to stay because forming and growing a strong Jewish community in Cuba was important to him. This aspect has become very important for me in my life. This year I am the Campus Engagement intern for UM Hillel and it is my job to bring Jewish students together on campus to form a sense of belonging and community and to have that special bond. So it was absolutely beautiful and touching for me to learn about William and his grandfather doing the same thing, but in Cuba!

Jake Teplitzky
Jake is a freshman at UM majoring in human and social development and is from Woodbridge, Connecticut.

The day we visited the cemeteries was a day of emotions. We traveled to two Jewish cemeteries, a Sephardic cemetery and an Ashkenazi cemetery. The Sephardic cemetery, the first we visited, was right next to train tracks. As I was walking around the cemetery grounds, I went to an area with flat stones. I saw that the caretaker needed help fixing a tombstone. I helped. He then told me that the tombstone was of a child who had come to Cuba from Europe and died on the island after having been in a concentration camp. This brought up a lot of feelings for me, considering that I had gone on the March of the Living (an annual educational program that brings students from across the world to Poland to remember and explore the remnants of the Holocaust) less than a year ago. Later that day we went to the Purim festival at the synagogue where everyone was having a great time. I felt all types of emotions, but at the end of the day what I felt the most was how proud I am to be a Jew.

March 13th

Rachel Price
Rachel is from Westhampton Beach, New York and is a senior, pre-vet student at UM studying microbiology and immunology and working at a parasitology lab at the Miller School of Medicine.

On our third day, we ate breakfast at the hotel, as usual, and got on the bus for the two-hour trip to the Viñales municipality, in the Pinar del Rio province. On the ride to this municipality we passed miles and miles of farmland, cows, horses and horse-drawn carriages and, as we got closer to our destination, mountains and hills. We arrived at the finca Montestino, a tobacco farm near Viñales in Pinar del Rio, around mid-morning and learned all about how the famous Cuban cigars are made. The son of the head of the Montesino farm showed us the fields of over 200,000 plants of tobacco and explained the process of growing the plants, picking the leaves, how the farmowners are paid by the government (which always buys a portion of the product) based on the quality of leaves, drying out the leaves and finally, how to roll the cigars.

Inside the drying house, where the leaves are dried for weeks, three workers—two men and a woman—de-string dried leaves that were on bamboo rods and tied together. Two workers then bundle the leaves into groups and pile them onto makeshift shelves made of bamboo sticks. As we walk through this drying house, it is abundantly clear how hard these farmworkers work, and in 100-degree heat. We were then brought into the farmowner’s house, where the owner’s second son taught us how to roll a cigar with four leaves and use a fifth leaf as the cover leaf, which is all glued together with maple leaf sap. He taught us about the process of pressing the cigars for a certain amount of time and keeping the cigars at a specific temperature and humidity to make the perfect cigar. After the tobacco farm, we had lunch in a casa particular, a private homestay, on a farm with a view of the Viñales rounded mountains before visiting and shopping in the center of town. Then we went to a cave with an indigenous man with a shell for a horn and a rodent and a hawk as pets. Heading home, we got a chance to go to a lookout point next to El Hotel de Los Jasmines, a hotel on a small hillside, and we saw this outstanding view of the countryside and Valley of Viñales. It was a great photo op and a beautiful view.

March 14th