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Raul Castro Celebrates Hanukkah with Cuban Jewish Community
CUBA, December 6th, 2010.- Cuban President Raul Castro joined the Hebrew community on the island on Sunday to celebrate the traditional ceremony of Hanukkah at Havana’s Shalom synagogue where he was invited to light the first of five candles at the beginning of the celebration.
After saying he is in good health, Raul — who was wearing a suit and a yarmulke— added that he is also happy because nationwide discussions on the Draft Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution are on the right track.
The Cuban leader mentioned that also on December 5, 54 years ago, a group of 82 revolutionaries who had arrived in Cuba from Mexico aboard the Granma Yacht to fight the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, had their first and fateful encounter with the armed forces of the tyranny.
“We were dispersed; it was a painful setback but we managed to reunite and carry out the Revolution we wanted, and here we are,” he pointed out.
Raul’s brief speech came after receiving a copy of the Torah from the hands of the President of the Hebrew Community of Cuba, Adela Dworin. The Torah is the first of three parts of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), the founding religious document of Judaism. It is divided into five books, whose names in English are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
At the beginning of the ceremony, Dworin thanked Raul for his presence and said that, last century, Cuba welcomed thousands of Jewish people who were trying to avoid Nazi repression and persecution.
Also present in the ceremony were Havana Historian Eusebio Leal and Caridad Diego Bello, head of the Office of Religious Affairs at the Central Committee of Cuba’s Communist Party (PCC), among other Government and Party officials and guests from the Cuban Council of Churches.
Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, commemorates the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 164 B.C. According to tradition, a candelabra was lit with only enough oil for one day, but it miraculously burned for eight days. (Cubaminrex - ACN)