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"I'm Not a Spy, I'm a
Rabbi"
by William F. Jasper
Rabbi Brian Kent went to Cuba with the hope that he could minister to Cuban
Jews. He was instead subjected to a harrowing ordeal at the hands of
Castro's agents.
As Hurricane Michelle’s fierce winds and rain pounded his darkened Havana
apartment, Rabbi Brian Kent wondered what to expect next. He was not nearly
so frightened of the hurricane, the worst to hit Cuba in 50 years, as he was
of Fidel Castro’s police state.
Since his arrival in Cuba on October 11th, he had spent almost all of his
time under house arrest. It was now November 4th and he was desperately
hoping that he would be allowed to leave on the 8th, as his "hosts" had
assured him he would. But by now he knew that nothing was what it seemed on
the surface in Castro’s "paradise," and that he could put no trust in the
promises he’d been given about his imminent departure. The young Orthodox
rabbi was finally released, but not before undergoing a harrowing ordeal
that he says was "life-changing."
"I decided to go to Cuba, very simply, because the Jews there don’t have a
rabbi and I wanted to help them," Rabbi Kent explained to The New American.
His mother and stepfather had recently visited the island on a humanitarian
mission and explained to him the predicament of the Havana Jewish community.
"My mother was born in Cuba and grew up there; she escaped to the U.S. with
her family after Castro and the Communists took over," he said. "The Castro
regime ruthlessly suppressed Judaism, just as it did the Catholic Church and
other religions, but in the past few years it has tried to moderate its
image as part of its campaign to lure tourists and end the U.S. embargo. So,
Jews have been allowed to worship openly again, or so I thought.
Unfortunately, Castro’s religious ‘liberalization’ is a total sham."
Rabbi Kent, 38, grew up in New York and graduated in 2000 from the Kollel
Ayshel Abraham Rabbinical Seminary in Monsey, New York. Several months ago
he moved to Boca Raton, Florida, where his mother and stepfather live.
"I had my eyes opened very quickly concerning what it’s like to live in a
totalitarian society where your every move is watched and every word
recorded," says Rabbi Kent. "I was staying at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, but
it was too expensive, so I asked a friend if there was anything cheaper
available. Before this friend could arrange anything for me, I was
approached by a man who said he was the landlord of the apartment complex
across the street from the hotel and he had a room available. Amazingly, the
price he was asking was exactly the amount I had mentioned to my friend as
the price range I was looking for. I had been warned that all hotel rooms
and public buildings were wired with microphones and cameras, and this
confirmed it."
Rabbi Kent moved into the apartment, which was to become his jail for the
next three weeks. On his fourth day in Cuba, he was arrested on the street
by the National Revolutionary police. He was taken back to his room, where
his belongings were searched and he was accused of espionage. "I told them
‘I’m not a spy, I’m a rabbi. I’m only praying and studying with other
Jews,’" Kent recounted. But that didn’t satisfy the Castroite gestapo. "They
said I only had a tourist visa and that I must have a ‘missionary visa’ in
order to minister to the people. But no rabbi has ever been given a
missionary visa, as far as we’ve been able to tell." That effectively ended
his mission to Cuba’s Jews. "They said I couldn’t talk to more than three
people at any one time. I thought that I still might be able to do some
good, but then I found that every Jew I had talked to had been visited by
the secret police. I didn’t want to get them in trouble or endanger them, so
there was little I could do."
The rabbi also found out that he was not free to leave Cuba, or to travel
about without an "escort." His "landlord" turned out to be one Miguel
Delgado, who, Kent learned, was a high-level agent in Castro’s police
apparatus. "Delgado had formerly served in the Soviet submarine forces in
Baku and in Riga, Latvia," says Rabbi Kent. "It was obvious that he was no
ordinary citizen, even though he dressed as a civilian and pretended to be
merely the apartment landlord. Soldiers and police accorded him special
respect, saluted him, and sometimes I heard them address him as ‘jefe’
[chief]."
Jefe Delgado the landlord quickly became Jefe Delgado the jailer. "He took
all of my cash — about a thousand dollars — and locked it up. He said it was
‘to protect me,’" Kent recalls. "I was very frightened. I was wondering if
prison and torture were next on the agenda." However, it soon became evident
that Castro’s agents had another approach in mind. "I quickly realized that
they were going to use the carrot instead of the stick. And the carrot was
going to be girls, girls, girls. They were going to try to seduce me with
beautiful women."
Rabbi Kent, who is single, says Miguel Delgado kept trying to fix him up
with a Cuban wife to bring back to the U.S. Any "wife" he would have matched
Kent with would actually be a "control agent," of course, meant to assure
that the rabbi would be useful to the regime. "It was incredible how they
staged all these ‘spontaneous’ encounters," Rabbi Kent told The New
American. "Miguel ‘escorted’ me out to get an espresso. After we sat down at
the cafe, a beautiful Cuban woman, Ana Ramirez Leal, just happened to come
by and Miguel invited her to join us. What a surprise: She knew the Torah
like a rabbi! It was obvious they had been preparing for me for months —
ever since I had applied for the visa."
He had known something of Castro’s deception practices before experiencing
them himself. "I knew, for instance, that Dr. Jose Miller, the titular head
of the Cuban Jewish community, was a complete fraud," says Kent. "He’s a
medical doctor, an aide to Castro, and the Communist Party’s main overseer
of the Jewish people in Cuba. Dr. Miller’s assistant, Adela Dworin, also
helps the Communists control the Jews in Cuba. My family has known both
Miller and Dworin for 50 years, since before Castro’s time. Castro sends Dr.
Miller to the U.S. to be hosted by liberal Jewish groups to propagandize for
the regime. When Jewish tourists come to Cuba, Miller is brought out to show
off the Patronato, the main synagogue, but the services there are nothing
more than a Communist puppet show. The Jews I met there are terrified to
speak; they’re in dread of Dr. Miller and his spies. American and European
Jews see the deplorable conditions under which the Jewish people in Cuba
live and give money to Miller to help them. It never gets to the Cuban
Jews."
Rabbi Kent finds it astonishing that so many American Jews have been tricked
by Castro’s propaganda. In July, Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Iran’s
Ayatollah Khomeini, toured Cuba at Castro’s side, while the
government-orchestrated crowds chanted for America’s destruction. And, Kent
points out, Castro supports every Middle Eastern terrorist group currently
aiming deadly attacks against both Israel and the U.S.
Rabbi Kent was especially unnerved by the vicious hatred of the U.S.
expressed by Delgado and his family members when he visited their home.
Delgado’s nephew, Alfred Castillo, was particularly frightening. "He had a
screen saver on his computer monitor which showed footage of the
terrorist-hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center — over and
over again," said Kent. "He is virulently anti-American. He is also a
microbiologist and bragged that he is working on anthrax in Cuba’s
laboratories."
"Sexpionage"
During his house arrest, Rabbi Kent had seven different "jailers," four of
whom were beautiful young women. He repeatedly, but politely, rebuffed their
sexual overtures, citing his religious convictions; he did not want to cause
Delgado to switch to more brutal techniques. "I told him, ‘I know that you
have microphones and cameras in this room.’ He just smiled and said, ‘It’s
only for your protection.’"
Two nights before he was to finally leave Cuba, Rabbi Kent came down with
severe asthma-type symptoms. "I’ve had slight asthma problems before, but
nothing like this, nothing that an inhalant wouldn’t solve. But I couldn’t
breathe. I thought I was going to die." He knew he had been given something
to bring on this attack. He told Delgado to take him to the U.S. Interest
Section, the American equivalent of an embassy in Cuba. Instead he was taken
to the Camillo Cienfuegos Clinica, where Castro’s doctors "took care of"
him. "I was terrified," says Rabbi Kent. "I didn’t know what they were going
to do to me. They gave me three hypodermic injections that they said would
help me breathe. It did help me breathe, but also rendered me helpless; I
could barely move and was in a drug-induced stupor."
Kent says he was taken back to his room and put in bed. Then one of his
female jailers disrobed and got in bed with him. When she got out of bed,
she posed for the cameras, laughed and mocked him, saying "Na-na-na, we got
you." Rabbi Kent had just become the latest in a long line of victims of
Cuban "sexpionage." Castro’s secret police learned this trade well from
their Soviet masters, the KGB, and have been practicing it for 40 years
against tourists, journalists, diplomats, government officials, academics,
business executives, and others.
Rabbi Kent says he thinks the Cubans view their sexpionage "victory" with
him as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they want him to come back,
thinking maybe he’ll weaken and succumb to the pleasures they can offer him.
On the other hand, if he doesn’t, they may try to blackmail and discredit
him with the photographs and lurid stories. "Just today, a couple of hours
before you called," he told The New American, "I received an e-mail from
Alfred [Castillo] informing me that he had prepared a ‘reference’ letter for
me so that I could return to Cuba." But the rabbi says he does not intend to
go back as long as the Communists remain in power.
"As I see it," says Rabbi Kent, "the most important thing I can do now is
warn the American people about what is really happening in Cuba. Castro and
his apologists here are trying to sell us on the supposed benefits of warmer
U.S.-Cuban ties, but it is a deadly trap. Cuba is a completely corrupt,
oppressive, totalitarian police state which views both America and Americans
as deadly enemies. I’ve learned that first-hand and I hope that by speaking
out I might prevent other Americans from falling victim to the same traps."
Where Are the ADL and B’nai Brith?
One might expect powerful Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation
League and B’nai Brith to rush to Rabbi Kent’s defense and demand
accountability and apologies from Havana. Incredibly, just the opposite is
true: They’re taking Castro’s side! "I knew that B’nai Brith, Jewish
Solidarity, and other liberal-left groups were pro-Castro, but their
response really surprised me," says Rabbi Kent. "When I came back and
started speaking out about this, they wanted to shut me up. I got an e-mail
from Dina Spiegle Vann, who heads B’nai Brith’s Latin American affairs desk
in Washington, D.C., saying she was going to investigate me — not Castro’s
abuse of me!" Kent says he went on their Internet website and found out why.
"Go to http://jewishcuba.org/bnaibrith/fotos .html and you will see that the
top B’nai Brith leaders are in bed with Fidel Castro and his Communist
henchmen who are oppressing Jews in Cuba. There’s a photo there of Dr.
Miller on stage with Fidel and a photo of Adela Dworin with Stanley Cohen,
international chairman of B’nai Brith’s Cuban Jewish Relief Project. Eddie
Levy’s Jewish Solidarity is another one. These groups portray Castro’s Cuba
positively and make it appear that it is the nasty ‘Cold War’ policies of
the U.S. that are responsible for the sad plight of Cuban Jews. They prey
upon the sympathy of American Jews and raise huge amounts of money, but it
doesn’t go to helping the Jews who are suffering under Castro."
Rabbi Rigoberto Viñas, a Cuban Jew, shares Rabbi Kent’s disgust with B’nai
Brith, the ADL, and similar Jewish groups that cover for Castro and other
totalitarian regimes. Rabbi Viñas, who teaches at the Hebrew Institute of
Riverdale, New York, and serves as the rabbi of El Centro de Estudios Judios
in the Bronx, says that "someone should ask B’nai Brith who appointed Dr.
Miller ‘president’ and spokesman of the Cuban Jewish community. Back during
the Elian Gonzalez affair, Dr. Miller even claimed to be speaking for ‘world
Jewry’ in claiming that Elian should be sent back to Castro’s Cuba because
it is ‘a gentler society’ than the U.S. And this was after Castro had
received Libya’s ‘Human Rights’ award from terrorist leader Muammar Qadaffi.
It’s obvious who Miller really speaks for. Why doesn’t B’nai Brith see that?
We had a vibrant, wonderful, prosperous Jewish community in Cuba before
Castro took over. His Communist government outlawed and persecuted Judaism,
as he did Christianity. My family and thousands of other Jews were forced to
flee; most lost all their property and possessions. Now Castro pretends to
allow religious freedom, but it is a huge charade. He even bugged Pope John
Paul II’s rooms, when he visited Cuba! How can B’nai Brith pretend that
Castro’s ‘reforms’ are real?"
We called the B’nai Brith in Washington, D.C., to find out. Stanley Cohen,
international chairman of B’nai Brith’s Cuban Jewish Relief Project,
returned our call. "I can tell you that there’s no truth to what he [Rabbi
Kent] is saying," Mr. Cohen said, right out of the starting gate. "I know
all of the people involved; I’ve known Adela Dworin for seven years and
she’s stayed at my home in Pittsburgh," he noted. "Dr. Miller is highly
respected in the Cuban Jewish community and was elected by them," Cohen
said, noting that he has been to Cuba 17 times and would be going there
again in just a few days. He admitted he did not know Rabbi Kent, yet he was
willing to accept as holy writ the story provided by his Castro-approved
friends and the Castro regime. "He [Kent] wasn’t there as a rabbi," Cohen
asserted. "He ran out of money, moved across the street from the hotel he
had been at and was found with a prostitute. His whole story about being
held under house arrest is absurd. He was not detained by the government.
His motive, I believe, is he wants attention."
"I’m not pro-Castro or pro-Communist," Mr. Cohen asserted repeatedly, but
his every statement seemed to belie those disclaimers. Does he believe there
is genuine religious freedom in Cuba and that people can worship freely?
"I’ve seen nothing to indicate otherwise," he said. Does he believe that
Castro’s secret police monitor telephone calls and listen on microphones in
hotels and other public facilities? "Generally no. Maybe not any more than
here." How does he respond to Rabbi Viñas’ statements concerning persecution
in Cuba? "Well, you know how those Cubans are in South Florida."
Rabbi Kent was not surprised by Mr. Cohen’s remarks. "His every statement
substantiates precisely the points I made; the B’nai Brith leadership is
completely in bed with Castro and is misleading many American Jews," said
Rabbi Kent. "Imagine Mr. Cohen making a racist statement like that about a
whole group — ‘those Cubans’ in Florida. Of course, he would be screaming if
someone made a similarly derogatory statement about ‘those Jews’ in New York
or Beverly Hills. He is parroting the Havana smear against Cuban-American
patriots. We will not have real freedom for Jews or anyone else in Cuba as
long as false leaders like him continue to provide cover for Castro’s
tyranny and influence our foreign policy vis-à-vis Cuba."
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