B.W. COOK -- The Crowd

Hazel Dyer, director of tours and travel for the Jewish Community

Center of Orange County, recently escorted a contingent of Newport-Mesa

citizens to Cuba. The center is headquartered in Costa Mesa.

As the summer season beckons adventure for the local crowd, Dyer

shared the experience of a very special trip that introduced members of

our local society to a very different one.

“Perhaps the greatest realization was that all of the people born

after the 1959 revolution in Cuba know no other way of life than

communism under Castro,” shared Dyer, an energetic grandmother who

originally came to the United States from South Africa more than a decade

ago.

Dyer, who recently became a citizen of the United States, said she

found that freedom, opportunity and a society based on a rule of law

permitting individual growth are values that come into very real

perspective when visiting Cuba.

“We found a nation with a population of very beautiful people, happy

people, people who fill their daily lives with music, art, culture of

every form,” she said.

Dyer said she and her fellow travelers were impressed with Cuban

culture.

“There is flowing music and dance full of rhythm on every corner,” she

said. “A unique sensuality is in the air. Artists and caricaturists fill

the streets.”

The culture, however, does not obscure the poverty.

“Two Cuban pediatricians we met at Children’s Hospital, Havana, told

us that they each earn $50 per month. They were charming men, very

dignified and totally dedicated to their profession, trying to improve

the lives of Cuban children,” Dyer said. “Because of the American

embargo, they have very little medicine and no antibiotics. It is very

sad to witness these ill children lying in their cots under such

conditions.”’

Doris Chasin of Newport Beach was one of Dyer’s tourists.

Chasin shared, “I urge all of my friends to visit Cuba now, while the

tourism trade is still unpolished. The experience was illuminating in

many ways. For me, the opportunity to admire the indomitable human spirit

in such limiting conditions reinforces a belief in the basic goodness of

mankind. Further, we view as our birthright elements of life, daily

necessities, that these people do without.”

Others on the journey included Inga Behr, Milt Chasin, Marion Feldman,

Susan Glass, Mike Hakim, Martin and Florence Klein, Maxine Levine, Muriel

Rosen, David Shabtai, Vera Rosenberg, Latife Warshawsky, Seymour Wigler

and Claudia Cohen, who had a very special reason for visiting Cuba.

“In 1941, my parents and I arrived in Havana, Cuba, refugees from

Nazi-occupied Europe. We stayed in Cuba for about a year before leaving

for the United States,” Cohen said.

“We take everything for granted here in the United States,” added Mike

Hakim, who also went on the trip. “Compassion for one another is so

natural in Cuba, in a land of fear and suppression.”

Dyer is busy planning new adventures around the globe thatcombine

culture and education with tourism. Her trips are open to anyone in the

community interested in participating. For more information, contact Dyer

at (714) 755-0340.

* THE CROWD appears Thursdays and Saturdays.