Alan Gross and Cuba

There is a party tonight at a temple in Rockville, Maryland to welcome Alan Gross back from Cuba, where he was imprisoned for more than five years. I was supposed to go with my sister, who lives in the Washington area, and spend time with her. Unfortunately, I've been suffering all week from a cold. I felt a little better yesterday, not really well enough to drive four hours over the mountains from my home in Morgantown, West Virginia, in potential ice and snow alone at sixty-five years old. I'm trying to kill off the "shtarker" (big shot) in me, who thinks he is unstoppable. I am very stoppable. I wish Alan had thought that maybe he was "stoppable" before agreeing to go on his adventure to Cuba. It wouldn't be like Alan to be cautious.

Alan and I go back to fifth grade, when his parents moved to Baltimore from New York, buying what was at the time considered a luxurious house in the next neighborhood over from us. We turned up in the same class that year, and became friends. We also attended the same Hebrew school. We remained friends, even though we were not always in the same classes in junior high. In ninth grade, he and I and several other pals joined Chesapeake AZA. Alan's parents were great to me. I had sleepovers and dinners at their home, and spent one day each summer for several years on Alan's dad's boat in Chesapeake Bay.

The line that divided neighborhoods zoned for Woodlawn High, where I went, and Milford Mill, where Alan went, both on the west side of Baltimore County, ran between his street and mine. Alan ultimately became a wheel in AZA. I believe he was District president and became a life member. We drifted apart our last year of high school. He spent more time with AZA people, and had friends at Northwood High in Silver Spring.

I only remember seeing Alan once after my first year of college. A group of old pals planned a trip to Atlantic City. Alan said he would meet us there. He showed up with a beautiful girl with long black hair, named Judy. In my memory she talked about being a feminist and working for Planned Parenthood.

Alan contacted me, like so many old friends did, on Facebook in 2009. We caught up briefly with messages. I told him I was in Los Angeles and had recently married my boyfriend, a student rabbi. He told me about his two grown daughters and said "Judy Morgenstein Gross and I have lived in the DC area since 1970." I said "I met Judy. Congratulations on having the same wife for so many years." He answered "Judy is a very patient person."

That was the same Alan I knew back when. He was funny and personable. In my memory, we always had a good time together, even if he drove 100 miles per hour on then-deserted US 29 in his father's cranberry-colored Oldsmobile to Silver Spring, scaring me to death.

I sent him a message about a Chesapeake AZA group on Facebook in June 2009. He answered a few days later, apologizing for the delay. "I was out of the country," he said. I didn't hear from him again.

Alan's sister Bonnie contacted me on Facebook a few months later. It turns out the cantor at the synagogue where she worked in Dallas, Texas was a friend of mine from Los Angeles. Bonnie asked me if I knew what had happened to Alan. I didn't know anything, so she sent me a link to a news article.

I investigated the whole issue from all sides. The United States' policy towards Cuba was the root of the problem. Not to say that Castros are nice people. But I believe the United States is, in many respects, not a competent superpower. My Grandpa Wendell had two brothers in Cuba. The regime ultimately confiscated the textile factories they owned, and the uncles left. My grandparents were in Cuba January 1, 1959, when Castro took over. Grandpa would be 120 and Grandma 119, if they were alive today. The Castros are still in power. It seems the Cubans wanted some kind of recognition and an exchange of prisoners. They didn't want to hold on to Alan. I think Judy Gross was correct to sue the United States government for not making an effort to deal with Cuba. We made a swap with the Taliban; we freely trade with China, Russia and Vietnam.

I was angry that Alan was a pawn, hostage to Democratic Senator Menendez from New Jersey and Republican Congressperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Florida, who represent Cuban-Americans. Alan couldn't come home because New Jersey and Florida are swing states, and I thought it was despicable that Alan couldn't be freed because of that. I wrote to our representatives in West Virginia and to President Obama. I was not hopeful from their responses.

With the election over, President Obama was free to take action. He also figured out what I knew in 1980, when I lived in Miami: the most hard-core anti-Castro Cubans will never vote Democratic. So Alan was freed, and now we are opening up to Cuba.

I remember years ago, the pictures of Chinese workers bicycling to work in Beijing in their Mao outfits. Now Beijing is almost unlivable with pollution, and everyone wants a suburban house and a new Buick. I hope Cuba doesn't lose its soul to the worst of American values.

Meanwhile, I'm happy for Alan and Judy and their entire family. I'm sorry Alan's sweet mother Evelyn didn't live to see him come home. I wish I could be with Alan and our other friends from the old days who will be at his event tonight. If my sister sends pictures, I will post them.