Synopsis
Havana Nagila is the first comprehensive documentary film to tell the story of the Jews in Cuba. It traces the history and presence of the Jewish community in Cuba from their earliest appearance on the island in colonial times, through the 1959 Revolution and the decades beyond.
It explores a range of Jewish responses to the Cuban Revolution, and what life has been like for the 5 percent of the original community that remained after the Castro regime came to power. Filmed on location, the filmmakers were able to document first hand the impact of the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba in 1991 and of the ongoing U.S. trade embargo, the phenomenon of the community’s resurgence and the international issues that affect its future.
Rich in archival material and Cuban ambience, the film reveals some Jewish history little known to those outside Cuba. Above all, it shines a light on Cuban politics and culture through the lens of the Jewish experience in both pre- and post-Revolutionary times. It notes some of the contributions of Jews to Cuba as a nation, and explores the persistence of Jewish values in the Cuban context.
Ultimately, Havana Nagila allows Cuban Jews to make their own case for the strengthening of historic and cultural ties between all Cubans and Americans.
For Jews and others whose families share the experience of immigration, it will be clear that the people portrayed in this film are Cubans as much by chance as by choice, and that, ‘there but for fortune,' any of us might have found ourselves in their shoes today.
Style and Format
Principle shooting took place in and around Havana in 1993. The narration is in English and the interviews in Spanish, with English subtitles. The interviews and archival material are accompanied by a vibrant soundtrack that includes both traditional Jewish and Cuban music – and even some songs that bridge both, such as a rare recording of “Hava Nagila” by the famous Cuban singer Celia Cruz. Three San Francisco Bay Area Jewish musicians are represented in the mix: Rebecca Mauleon-Santana, Kaila Flexer and the late Judy Frankel.
About the Film
They might have been called “the Jews that time forgot” – cousins who left Poland, or Russia, Turkey or Yemen in the early or mid-20th century, landed in Cuba, and for any number of reasons, remained.
They have been dubbed “Castro’s Jews” by articles in the American press, for not having left Cuba right after the Revolution, when they still could. Such journalists had little understanding of why they might have stayed.
They have now lived for six decades in a socialist state within the Latin American world. Given the prior involvements of many European Jews with left-wing social movements, one Cuban historian described Cuban Jews as “the world’s last bastion of Jewish socialism,” although some in contemporary Cuba’s politically diverse Jewish community would dispute that characterization.
They say that, historically, they have been better treated in Cuba than anywhere else in Latin America, and perhaps the world.
And yet, they have also known hunger. In the early 1990s, following the withdrawal of Soviet aid, food supplies diminished drastically. Those in the Jewish community went hungry “like all Cubans,” they said, accentuating their identification with Cuban society, for better or for worse.
In 1993, we went to Havana over the week of Passover to ‘discover’ this Jewish community that had fallen behind the veil of the U.S.-Cuban standoff. Who were these people? Why were they still in Cuba? How were they surviving, individually and collectively? What transformations had these families undergone in their move from 20th century Europe, with its legacy of antisemitism, to the relative tolerance of a diverse Caribbean island? What Jewish values were sustained, and how did they play out against the backdrop of Cuba’s development as a socialist society? What were the community’s views on Jewish identity, Israel, and U.S.-Cuban relations? And what could their experience tell us about Cuba as a nation?
These were the questions we put to over a dozen key figures and identified members of the community, both in arranged interviews and while attending the community’s multiple activities throughout Passover week. Surprise participants included a contingent of orthodox Mexican Jews who arrived bearing humanitarian aid, and who agreed to override religious prohibitions against photographing a religious service for the greater good of bringing news of the Cuban Jewish community to the rest of the world.
Who We Are
Writer and director Laura Paull approached Havana Nagila with her instincts as a journalist and broad experience in Latin America. A graduate of the master's program in Latin American Studies at Stanford University, she has reported for the San Francisco Examiner, the Stanford News Service, the Huffington Post, J. the Jewish News of Northern California, and many other news outlets.
Producer Evan Garelle was a therapist with a longstanding interest in Cuba dating back to his early days as a mambonik in New York City. He did the heavy lifting as both camera and soundperson on the production.
San Francisco filmmaker Vicente Franco, who previously co-produced and directed "Cuba Va: The Challenge of a New Generation" (with Gail Dolgin), served as editor and post-production supervisor on Havana Nagila.
English narration is by former NPR reporter and co-founder of the Latin American News Service, Isabel Alegria.
The titles sequence features a painting graciously offered to this project by the Jewish Cuban artist Corso de Palenzuela.
Now Available Online
"Havana Nagila: The Jews in Cuba" premiered at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in 1995, followed by screenings at film festivals from Vancouver to New York to Brussels and Havana. It was shown at the 1995 conference of the Latin American Studies Association, where it won a LASA Award of Merit for "Video that best promotes the understanding of Latin culture," and at Columbia University to benefit the Center for Cuban Studies (CCS) in New York.
CCS director Sandra Levinson called it "an exhilarating and touching documentary."
The film was broadcast multiple times on PBS stations KQED (San Francisco,) WCET (Los Angeles) and WNET (New York), among others.
Twenty five years later, much has changed in Cuba, and much has stayed the same. Current events demonstrate that pressure is building for societal change,
Havana Nagila provides a vivid record of the lived experience of an evolving Jewish community whose path intersected with that of this tumultuous Caribbean nation. Released in July 2021 in digital format, the film provides relevant context for the events of today.
Find it at vimeo.com/ondemand/havananagila.
Suitable for courses in Jewish, Latin America and Caribbean studies; for those seeking insights into the experiences of immigration and diaspora; and for past, present and future travelers to Cuba.
The Making of Havana Nagila: Part I.
On a Sunday morning in 1992, browsing through the San Francisco Chronicle with my then-husband, a small article caught our attention. An American sportswriter covering the Panamerican Games held that year in Havana, had decided to find out whether there were any Jewish synagogues left in that city. (It is a thing that many Jews, religious or not, often do when traveling – far-flung people that we are.) But Jews, I wondered – in Cuba? And yes, there were.
As I would find out, when the film concept hatched that day was a finished film in 1995, this was a common response among American audiences: incredulity that a Jewish community persisted on the island some three decades after the Cuban Revolution. As a journalist and recent graduate of the masters in Latin American Studies program at Stanford, I knew that I had found the subject for my first independent film – one that I believed had never been done before.
To verify, I visited the Stanford libraries. Cross-referencing "Jews" and "Cuba," a search of the entire library system, including the Hoover Institute, produced no films and only two articles, one written in 1945. Their contents, however, fascinated me. Why had no one covered this story? That question would be embedded in our documentary about the forgotten Cuban Jews.
We believed in our concept; likewise our ability to do it. We were both Jewish, Spanish-speakers, and longtime lovers of Cuban music. I was a journalist, had lived in Latin America, studied it, and understood the impact and influence of Cuba in the geopolitics of our hemisphere.
The research challenges, however, were formidable. In 1992, Cuba was a location we could not call, and to which U.S. mail was not delivered. Few Cubans outside of government officials and academics had access to the internet. Thanks also to the U.S. embargo, it was illegal for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba without a special visa.
The only way we were going to be able to make the film was with a lot of chutzpah.
Once we put the word out about our film-in-progress, a self-selecting group of Cubaphiles and people who had previously visited Cuba came forward. Organizations like the Center for Cuban Studies in New York, directed then by Sandra Levinson, connected us to Jewish agencies in Canada that had relationships with Cuba. Perusing their newsletters and bulletins, I gradually compiled a list of prominent Cuban Jews to look up in Havana. I wrote a letter to one of them, a key figure at the Patronato Synagogue there, and mailed it to my best friend in Canada, requesting that she forward it on to Cuba.
But how to approach the monolith of the Cuban government for a visa? When I landed a freelance assignment to cover an international environmental conference at the United Nations in New York, I thought I saw a way.
I was sitting in the press gallery overlooking the General Assembly, taking notes. Peering over the balcony, I easily identified the Cuban delegation, since Assembly delegates are seated in alphabetical order. I penned a note to them, in Spanish. "I am an independent American journalist, here to cover the conference," I wrote. "I would like to interview one of your delgates about the Cuban position on the global environmental issues under discussion here. And I have another project that I want to discuss with you. Also, I really dig your music. In solidarity, Laura Paull."
I got up from my seat, went downstairs, and handed the letter to the guard at the Assembly door, then scrambled back up to my seat in time to see the guard march down the aisle and hand the folded piece of paper to the Cubans. I watched as the delegate read the note, then lifted his face and turned it up to the gallery with an expression of wonder to see who might have written this unexpected and certainly unconventional communiqué. Our eyes met. He gestured with his head towards the lobby. I nodded, and rose from my seat.
Over coffee in the delegates lounge, I did pose my questions on Cuban environmental positions, and then we moved on to the "other project." I told him who I was and that I was truly independent, not working for any American media, and not funded by anyone at all. I described my interest in meeting Cuban Jews and filming their responses to questions I had about their history in Cuba and their relationship to Cuban society. From the scant research I had already done, I was pretty sure that the Cuban government was proud of their record in terms of their treatment of Jewish cirizens.
"When you get back to California, send me your proposal. I'll Telex it to Havana. And we'll see what they say," he told me.
In a matter of weeks the answer came back: "Yes."
"All that we ask," my delegate-contact specified, "is that you tell the truth as you see it. That's all."
(To be continued. Look for "The Making of Havana Nagila, Part II)
Production Stills
Arriving in Jose Martí airport in April of 1993. (pictured: Producer Evan Garelle)
Evan Garelle on camera and Laura Paull directing. Havana Nagila was shot in only 15 days, the length of time given on our visa.
Prayer books and tallit at the Patronato synagogue in Havana.
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Havana Nagila: the Jews in Cuba
