Congregaciones - CIENFUEGOS

| Situation | Board | Brief history |

Situation

Address: Calle 39 No. 5001 entre 50 y 52.
Telephone: 53 4326646

Board

President: Rebecca Langus
Vicepresident: Jacobo González Morhaim

Brief history

The Jewish Community of Cienfuegos is formed by 9 families and 24 people.
Now, we have an active community life. We have systematic meetings and we gather from 18 to 20 people to celebrate Shabat.

In addition, we celebrate all the traditional festivities of our Jewish people: Rosh Hashaná, Hanuka, Purim and Pesaj, among others. We also have a Hebrew School functioning on Saturday afternoons there, we strengthen and enrich our knowledge about Judaism. We play games, debate, narrate and do some other activities.

Children and youngsters dance and perform in plays related to the festivities we celebrate. They do it with love and enthusiasm.

Continuity: a challenge.

In less than 350 km from the capital city on the southern coast of our island, we find “The Pearl of the South” as it was called by the inmortal Benny Moré in one of his songs. The city would charm us if we only saw its hedge or walked its boulevard which would guide us to the Martí Park, a place showing different European architectural epochs and styles.

But, we not only mean with these lines to show you the goodness of the city, as you might have visited it, but to share a little bit of what we have lived with, the small, but vibrant Hebrew Community of Cienfuegos.

At 50014 and 39 Cristina Street we find the house of the always welcoming Mrs Rebeca Langus, who has presided this Community for several years. The Community has almost 20 members, children, youngsters and adolescents mainly who together with theirs parents and grandparents are enthusiastic and meet whenever there is an important festivity of the Jewish calendar. Sharing this enthusiasm and joyful spirit the Community participates in a program to support and develop the most remote communities. This is sponsored by the “JDC”. During this year, I have had the immense pleasure of joining these celebrations as a coordinator of the program. It was pleasant to plunge my hands with the children in the flour to make the latkes for Hánuca or disguise myself with the adults and children and perform in a play about Ester we had created. Even more I enjoyed myself in Pesaj where we participated of the blessings with solemnity, after dinner, we danced and sang. Then, we made an original Tuvishbat seder full of fruits and juices to bless. It was made together and it was the first experience of this type for the Community.

All these activities have taken place at Rebecca´s house who gave us her home as the meeting place. So far it has been the most important to share the desires of this little Community to grow and develop a Jewish life which was once hindered by the loss of traditions we had to face, due to the disappearance of its members. Now this Community is getting stronger and it nurtures from youngsters, it revives and it looks forward to having their dreams come true with their effort and our support.

Deborah Soriano