By COLlive reporter
Gerardo Penalver Portal, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said the Chabad-Lubavitch movement would be allowed visitation to prisons in the republic.
Portal made the commitment in a conversation with Lubavitcher activist Shneor Zalmen Halperin in New York City last week.
Cuba does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, but the ambassador said that he was willing to negotiate with Chabad, Halperin told COLlive.com.
The number of Jewish people currently imprisoned in Cuba was not disclosed. The expected access will allow representatives affiliated with Chabad to serve inmates’ spiritual and religious needs.
Halperin invited the ambassador to visit Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway, but that would not be possible due to the U.S. ban on Cuban officials leaving the U.N. zone.
It should be noted that Cuba a few years ago voted against the moment of silence in honor of the six million Jews, saying that instead of keeping a minute of silence for six million Jews, there should be a minute of silence for the Palestinian people that Israel murdered, in his opinion.
The fact that they are now ready to allow Chabad emissaries to visit the Cuban prison is a major transformation and change in the Cuban view of the Jewish people.
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