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Chapter 21: The Ketubah That Became a Passport
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[ 153 ] 21 the ketubah that became a passport “We’re trying to create paradise here in our home,” Sara Yaech says as she invites Humberto and me into her freshly painted house on the outskirts of Havana. We are barely inside and Sara is already offering us fresh mango juice. “From our garden,” she announces proudly, leading the way to the patio behind the house, where her husband, Pedro Mauriz García, is busily sweeping up the debris of leaves from the mango tree. Sara points out how he has built an outdoor fountain, planted flowers in pots, and hung a loveseat-swing between two poles. Their small garden is an enchanted space, far from the noise and grime and intense crowding of Havana’s streets. “We love to spend our time out here,” Sara exclaims. “But let’s go inside— I have some things to show you.” On the dining table Sara has arranged neat piles of photographs and documents . “You want to see my parents’ ketubah?” Sara asks. The ketubah is a Jewish marriage contract traditionally written in Aramaic. Sara holds up a ketubah with elaborate calligraphy, a delicate border design, and an image of the Ten Commandments. “It’s very beautiful,” I say. “It’s good you’ve saved it.” “And we almost lost it!” Sara exclaims. “I rescued it from the flames.” She shudders and asks, “Do you want to know the story? I’ll tell you.” Behar_3P-02.qxd:Behar design 7/30/07 2:22 PM Page 153 Sara begins, “Well, after my father died, my mother suffered a nervous breakdown. I used to go and look in on her. One day I got there and she was burning all the old photographs and papers. ‘Mamá, what are you doing?’ I said. And she replied, ‘My life is over. Everything is over.’ She had lost her mind. The day my father died she lost her mind.” Sara had recovered the ketubah, thinking of it as a document of sentimental value, a document that enshrined the love of her parents for each other. She saved it, along with the old photographs and other keepsakes that she salvaged from her mother’s bonfire of memories, imagining that she’d show these things to her children when she grew old. A curious thing about the ketubah was that it sanctified a marriage between a Jew and a convert. Sara’s father, a Sephardic Jew from Istanbul, arrived in Cuba in 1920, and chose to settle in the town of Manzanillo. As Sara says, “I don’t know what it was about Manzanillo, but the turcos—theTurks— all went to live there.” Her father met her mother in Manzanillo. Chuckling, Sara remarks, “My mother used to say she got married late in life because she was picky. She was blond and had blue eyes. She looked around so much that she ended up marrying a moro—a Moor. That’s what they called the Turks. They called them Moors. They were dark and had curly hair.” Her mother always spoke of having “renounced” her Catholic faith. She was the one who maintained Jewish traditions in their home. She made sure her three sons were circumcised. She even opposed Sara’s plan to marry Pedro because he wasn’t Jewish. Pedro’s family was from the Canary Islands and Galicia . He was offended that Sara’s mother didn’t want him to marry Sara. Speaking in the racist ideology of the time, he quipped, “What’s the problem?There isn’t anyone black in my family.” Sara and Pedro had met while participating in the literacy campaign at the start of the Revolution. Along with hundreds of other idealistic young people from Havana, they went to the countryside to teach illiterate adults how to read and write.They married in 1965—by that time the difference in their religious backgrounds, though still an issue for Sara’s mother, was otherwise An Island Called Home [ 154 ] Behar_3P-02.qxd:Behar design 7/30/07 2:22 PM Page 154 [34.204.177.148] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:48 GMT) inconsequential because the Jewish community had withered and a newly atheist society had been established. I ask Pedro if he has since converted to Judaism. “Not yet,” he replies. And then he adds, “But I have to. Because when we die, she’s not going to be in the Jewish cemetery and I will be somewhere else.” Sara nods...