American contractor Alan Gross, who has spent three years in a Cuban military prison, was visited this week by two leaders of Cuba’s Jewish community on Monday, December 17, the day after the eight-day festival ended.
“We spent a little more than an hour with him,” Jewish Community Foundation president Adela Dworin told the Spanish news agency EFE. “We lit the eight candles as tradition indicates, and we brought him latkes (potato pancakes), the main dish of the festival and other sweets.” http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/1866749_alan-gross-celebrates-hanukkah-with-cuba-s-jewish-community.html
This blogger visited Havana’s Beth Shalom synagogue last month, transported by a cab driver who offered, without being asked, a suspicious amount of information about Fidel Castro’s health. At the temple a caretaker happily showed his visitors the building, saying there was no anti-Semitism in Cuba and pointing out the photograph of film director Steven Spielberg’s visit in 2002:
And here is a link to a NY Times story on Cuba’s Jewish community:
Notes on the Americas 