ENSAMBLE

Spanish-language Jewish newspaper begins

By ERNIE GARCIA
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: December 26, 2003)

YONKERS — Editor  Miriam Ventura expected phone calls about Tora Tropical, a new Spanish-language Jewish newspaper that launched last week.

She didn't think she would have to give basic history lessons.

"People were calling and asking how Dominicans or Cubans could be Jews," said, Ventura a Dominican immigrant, referring to the Jews' expulsion from Spain in 1492, their subsequent covert lives in Hispanic countries and her homeland's willingness to accept Jewish refugees in the 1930s. "People ignore 500 years of history and how Jews arrived in Hispaniola."

Launched to coincide with with start of Hanukkah, Tora Tropical: Judaismo con sabor latino, is a free, 16-page tabloid that will publish four times a year and whose debut issue addresses Jews' presence in the Dominican Republic, among many other topics. The paper's English name is Torah Tropical: Judaism With a Latin Flavor.

Rigoberto Emmanuel ViNas, the rabbi at the Lincoln Park Jewish Center and the founder of the Centro de Estudios Judios Torat Emet, started the publication because he saw a need for a Spanish-language Jewish publication. ViNas founded the center in 2000, and it operates out of the Lincoln Park Jewish Center.

"We have Latino Jews who have created little pockets within the Jewish community, and I want to connect these communities by (writing) about what is going on in the United States and Latin America," said ViNas, 35, the paper's director.

Tora Tropical is laid out like any other community newspaper; it articles focus on current events, developments in Latin America, history and culture. The premiere issue's highlights include a feature story on Hanukkah, a two-page spread on the excavation of a medieval synagogue in Lorca, Spain, and a letter from Mosul, Iraq, written by Rabbi Carlos Huerta, a Bronx-born Army chaplain.

Four of the newspaper's pages contain English translations of the Spanish articles, which are written by contributors, ViNas and  Ventura, 46, who is also editor in chief of La Mano News, a secular community newspaper targeting Dominicans in Washington Heights and the Bronx.

Tora Tropical debuts as more Hispanic Jews are immigrating to the United States, said ViNas, who grew up in Miami and is of Cuban Sephardic background. He said many of these new immigrants are coming from Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela.

"There is a tremendous influx because of the economic and political circumstances in those countries," said ViNas, an Orthodox rabbi who came to the Lincoln Park Jewish Center in April to help rebuild the shrinking congregation.

Since his arrival, ViNas said, the synagogue has 15 new members. Three families are looking for homes in the neighborhood, he said, so they don't have to drive on the Sabbath. ViNas and his family moved to the Lincoln Park neighborhood this week.

Tora Tropical will initially be distributed in synagogues and Jewish centers with Hispanic members in the New York metropolitan region, such as the Lincoln Park Jewish Center, and in South Florida. It will eventually expand to include synagogues in other cities with significant numbers of Hispanic Jews like Los Angeles and Chicago.

ViNas publishes Tora Tropical with a $168,000 grant from the UJA Federation of New York, a Jewish fund-raising organization for health, education and social services. The four-year grant was made in September through the federation's Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal in support of the Centro de Estudios Judios Torat Emet, a Spanish-language Jewish studies center founded by ViNas.

It is unknown how many Hispanic Jews live in the tri-state area. The UJA Federation of New York has conducted a population study of the region's Jews, but its research did not inquire about Hispanic background.

Although ViNas is an Orthodox rabbi, Tora Tropical will reflect various branches of Judaism.

"There is an openness in Latin America Orthodox society to less observant Jews that you don't see in the United States," ViNas said. "My synagogue in Miami was Orthodox, but a lot of people drove, and there wasn't tension with those who walked."