When Cuba releases nearly 3,000 prisoners on humanitarian grounds this month, one Jewish American whose only crime was introducing Cuban Jews to the Internet will stay behind bars. Alan Gross, a US subcontractor who has languished in a Cuban jail for the last two years and is in ill health, will remain a guest on the island for the next 13 years, unless someone intervenes.
US State Dept. officials insist that Gross, 62, traveled to Cuba on a US Agency for International Development contract to help the countrys 1,500 Jews communicate with each other via the Internet. While major Jewish Cuban groups deny any knowledge of Gross or the program, we wouldnt be surprised if their denial reflects rational fear.
Gross wife Judy received the news of her husbands seemingly intractable fate during Chanukah. For her, there will be no miracles unless the global Jewish community and people of conscience everywhere raise their voices.
This individual and collective tragedy feeds the snake of institutionalized anti-Semitism. What would a Jew use a laptop for if not to wreak havoc on the powers that be? In balmy Cuba, the spirit of Nazi Germany and of the Gulag blow in sinister and all too familiar winds.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
