Kethubah [Marriage Contract]

Although groups of Jews fleeing from Brazil during the Portuguese reconquest settled in Cuba during the 17th century, the major formation of a Jewish community began after Cuba achieved independence from Spain in 1898. When the Cuban Constitution of 1940 established the principle of freedom of religion, the legal basis for a Jewish community and the publication of religious literature was thus attained. Many European refugees settled in Cuba in the 1930's and 1940's, mostly in Havana, however the Revolution of 1959, led by Fidel Castro, destroyed the economic stability of the majority of the Cuban Jews, most of whom eventually emigrated to the United States