Tel Aviv - Three years after they started arriving here, Israel yesterday lifted censorship restrictions and allowed the media to report on the immigration of Jews from Cuba, writes David Horovitz.
About 400 Jews have secretively travelled to Israel since 1996, using Canadian documents, in an arrangement tacitly approved by the Cuban leader, Dr Fidel Castro. Between 800 and 1,300 Jews are still said to be living there, the last representatives of a community that numbered 15,000 only 40 years ago, but has dwindled with emigration to the US, Mexico and Israel.
Israeli officials insisted on barring publication of news of the Jews' arrival, apparently fearing that permission for others to leave might be barred if word leaked out.