My Zayda (grandfather), Alvin Cherwony was the greatest Jewish influence in my life. The oldest of three brothers and the patriarch of the Cherwony family, he always put family first and could tell you about everyone on our family tree. One of our family members that he would mention was his cousin Sol, who fled the former Soviet Union — what is now Ukraine — around 1917 and ultimately ended up in Cuba.
Growing up, my Zayda always talked about wanting to travel to Cuba, to see where his cousin immigrated and to meet extended family. While my Zayda never got the chance to go, his desire to visit Cuba inspired me to participate in this mission. Even as the NextGen chair, going to Cuba wasn’t just for me, it was for my Zayda.
After months of planning for the trip with NextGen Mission Chairs Sam Cooper and Alexa Epstein, the day finally came. I gathered with 10 young leaders, two staff members and more than 500 pounds of humanitarian aid that we collected for the country’s Jewish community, and we made our way to Cuba.
On the plane, I thought to myself that while it was unlikely I was going to meet any long-lost cousins, it would be meaningful to see my family’s name somewhere.
But the reality surpassed my expectations. On the third day of the trip, we visited the Centro Hebreo Sefaradi or Sephardic Center, which is supported by the international Jewish community for Cuba’s 60% Sephardic Jewish population. It was there that I met a man named Samuel “Shmuli” Zagovalov. While we were wearing our Jewish Federation nametags the entire time at the center, it wasn’t until I got up to take a sip of water that Shmuli saw “Cherwony.” He stopped in the middle of his sentence and started pointing at me, saying “Cherwony, Cherwony.” He went on to explain that his brother-in-law is a “Chervony.”
When immigrating to America, my great-grandfather Max changed the spelling of our last name from a “v” to a “w,” so we were quickly able to put the pieces together and realize that we were related. Sure, Shmuli wasn’t a blood relative, but his brother-in-law is! It was kismet, and I got more than I could have ever imagined. Throughout the experience, I could feel my Zayda’s presence there with us.
That feeling of connection went beyond my personal story. In a post-Oct. 7 world, where Jews feel isolated and alone, I and the other participants had the opportunity to bond with a Jewish community in another country. Not only that, but a country that feels frozen in time since the Cuban Revolution — a tumultuous period when 94% of the country’s 15,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.
While Cuba’s Jewish population may have dwindled — now with just under 1,000 members left — it is a vibrant and proud community, and similar to our group, longed to connect with fellow Jews. When spending Shabbat in Havana, the community expressed, in a time filled with so much hate, how much our presence meant to them.
We also felt this kinship when distributing our relief supplies at the pharmacy at El Patronato Synagogue, which is supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a Jewish Federation partner and grantee. It was there that we saw firsthand how our philanthropy supports work being done to care for Jewish communities around the world — in this case, providing vital medical and clothing supplies as well as craft materials to create Judaica items.
After returning to Philadelphia and settling back into my day-to-day life, I continue to be grateful for the opportunity that the Jewish Federation provided for me to connect with my family roots and with a Jewish people that need our help. While the work is far from over, I am more determined than ever to support the Jewish Federation to further its mission to create a vibrant Jewish future in Greater Philadelphia, Israel, Cuba and elsewhere around the world.
No matter the geographic distance, I know that we are intrinsically linked to our fellow Jews and are responsible for one another — as it says in the Talmud, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh.”
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Tara Cherwony lives in Center City and serves as the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s NextGen chair and is on the Women of Vision Grants committee.
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