Page 42
Jewish Press, Omaha, NE
April 15, 2005
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A Juban? Yes, a Cuban Jew by DAVID LEIBOWITZ community. “I have been going back and When one thinks of Cuba, what usually forth since 1955,” he joked. comes to mind is either great cigars or Over the years the kosher slaughter Fidel Castro. It would probably not be the business, like many businesses, began to Cuban Jewish community. But Cuba has consolidate. Big companies bought up had a long history with the Jewish people, the smaller ones and eventually there and it became an important place for Jews were no kosher slaughterhouses left in beginning in the 1930s. Omaha Rabbi Sioux City. Maximo worked a number of Maximo Schechet knows this firsthand, as other jobs, including selling insurance he was born there in 1936. over the phone for six years, while stayMaximo’s paring very involved in the ents immigrated Jewish community. to Cuba from Eventually, with the Ukraine at that encouragement of some time. They left of the Omaha rabbis, Europe for the Maximo resumed his same reason studies to become many Jews left-ordained as a rabbi himthe rise of self. Nazism through“The community has out the contibeen beautiful to me. I nent. In his parhave nothing but the ticular case, highest regard for this Maximo’s father community,” he said. He was a rabbi and has now been a rabbi for a shochet more than 10 years, and (kosher slaughthough he calls himself a terer) and the “retired person,” he is the practice of rabbi/chaplain for the kosher slaughter Rose Blumpkin Jewish was forbidden in Home. He is happy to Ukraine. This give back to the commuwas obviously a Maximo as a little boy in Cuba. nity that has helped him way to discriminate against the Jewish in so many ways. community. So, with no way to make a Clearly, the Omaha Jewish community living and anti-Semitism on the rise, they has had a positive impact on his life, but decided it was a good time to leave. what about the impact overall of foreignThey wanted to come to the United born Jews on Omaha? States, but due to the quotas imposed on “I think it is an asset that Omaha has Jewish immigration, they went to the not realized yet. You have a high class of next best place--Cuba. At that time, trav- people that emigrated here from other el between Cuba and the United States countries. They are educated people. I was permissible, and they used the same think that enriches the life of a commumoney. Also, Maximo’s mother had an nity,” he surmised. aunt in Cuba, so it was the next best “When the people from, say, South place to go. America come here, they are very much The remainder of his family stayed encased in Judaism,” he said. “In the behind in Europe, and with few excep- South American countries, there is freetions, became victims of the Holocaust. dom for the Jew, but not like the freeMaximo estimates the number of Jews in dom in this country. It hasn’t gotten to Cuba at that time to be more than 10,000 the point of comfort where we forget in Havana alone. He describes the com- where we came from.” Maximo feels the munity as “transient. They were today passion and dedication to Judaism here…tomorrow to America,” he said. shown by the immigrant community While in Cuba, Maximo’s father makes the entire Jewish community became quite an influential man in the stronger. “It revives the Jewish life.” community. He worked as a mohel; and Maximo’s own life was made stronger was instrumental in helping poorer Jews when he in Cuba get needed everyday supplies met his like food or baby formula. He was c u r r e n t respected in both the Ashkenazi and w i f e , Sephardic Jewish communities. Jeanne (his There are still Jews today in Cuba who first wife lead happy lives and are not discriminat- p a s s e d ed against. “To my understanding, Castro away) and is not an anti-semite,” according to settled in Maximo. Either way, America was the O m a h a . ultimate destination for most Jewish He has immigrants. two grown This was especially true for Maximo sons from Rabbi Maximo Shechet now himself, because shortly after his Bar his first serves as rabbi/clergy for resiMitzvah, his parents sent him to a yeshi- marriage, dents of the Rose Blumkin va in New York. His younger brother, S t a n l e y Jewish Home. Jacob, joined him a few years later. His Michael and Mark Joel. parents stayed in Cuba until 1955, when Maximo did have one very important they moved to Cincinnati, OH. His father message he wished conveyed to the was offered the position of shochet for younger generation of Jews in Omaha. that community. After yeshiva, Maximo “What I want to convey to the Omaha joined his parents in Ohio and he began Jewish people is not to forget your studying to be a shochet as well. Jewish roots. The beauty of the Judaic One day, the community’s head rabbi roots is found no place else,” he said. informed Maximo of the need for a “You must practice it as well. If you shochet in Sioux City, IA. He got the job, destroy your Jewish roots, what will you and off to Iowa he went. “Sioux City used replace them with? Not once in all my to be the biggest kosher slaughter area in years working [outside of the Jewish comthe world,” he said. At one time in the munity] did I come to work on the early 1960s there were more than 12 full- Sabbath. Not once did I take off my yartime shochtim in the area, and they mulke there…and guess what? The nonslaughtered over 1500 cattle per day. Jew will respect the Jew when he is reliMaximo met his first wife, Bea, in Sioux gious, when he is observant,” he insisted. City. Bea had relatives in Omaha, and that “But when you become like everyone was Maximo’s introduction to the Omaha else, that respect is lost.”