By JANET FRANKSTON

                     Cox News Service

                     SANTA CLARA, Cuba - Only 1,500 Jews live in Cuba, but that didn't deter the leader
                     of a tiny Jewish community from pursuing a construction of a Holocaust monument.

                     Spend a few minutes with David Tacher, who leads the Santa Clara community of 27
                     Jews, and his determination comes through rhetoric of simple questions, delivered in
                     slow and deliberate Spanish.

                     "What can we do for Judaism?" asked Tacher, 53, while meeting with a group of
                     American Jews on a sunny day in December. "We don't have money to send to Jews
                     in Israel. How can we help?"

                     He has helped by giving Jews in Cuba a way to remember the Holocaust with a
                     marble monument, unveiled last summer. Train tracks reminiscent of the Auschwitz
                     death camps run up the middle, and cobblestones from a street in the Warsaw ghetto
                     (a gift from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington) are embedded in the
                     marble. The monument site is in a corner of the city's Jewish cemetery.

                     An unlikely place for a Jewish memorial, Santa Clara is better known as the location
                     of the last battle of the revolution in 1958, led by Che Guevara, that marked the end of
                     the Batista dictatorship. Now, it's also a symbol of the resurgence in Jewish life
                     around Cuba.

                     "This is another way to show all the visitors who come by to remember who we are,"
                     said Tacher, an accountant. "We are all Jews."

                     Before religious restrictions were eased after the collapse of the Soviet Union and
                     Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba in 1998, people may have known about their Jewish
                     roots, but not much else. The Jews of Cuba are learning to be Jewish again. The
                     Patranato, a community center, synagogue and central hub of Jewish life in Havana,
                     held eight bar mitzvahs in 2003. Children are learning Hebrew prayers in Sunday
                     school, and community members lead Shabbat services using books printed in
                     Mexico.

                     While Cuba has five synagogues -- three in Havana, one in Camaguey and one in
                     Santiago de Cuba on the eastern part of the island -- there is no permanent rabbi. Yet
                     the community continues to grow with help from Jews around the world who come
                     on missions and bring money, medicine, clothing and items such as Shabbat
                     candlesticks and prayer books.

                     Miriam Saul, 54, led her fifth group of American Jews in December, sponsored by the
                     Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta . She left Cuba in 1961, and along with
                     her brother, sister and parents moved to Atlanta. Saul made her first trip back to Cuba
                     three years ago and has returned nine times to help.

                     "I have got to do something and stay connected and help the community," said Saul, a
                     former kindergarten teacher who coordinates an arts program at Hebrew Academy in
                     Sandy Springs, Ga.

                     Like many Jewish families, Saul's moved to Cuba from Europe between World Wars I
                     and II; others came from Turkey, including Atlantan Rebeca Selber, 66, who returned
                     to Cuba in December for the first time since she left at 17. American Jews established
                     the first community in the early 1900s. At its peak before the revolution, 15,000 Jews
                     lived in Cuba.

                     Loli Gross, who also resettled in Atlanta along with her brother and parents, returned
                     to Cuba in December for the first time since she left in 1961 at age 7. She stopped at
                     her father's former clothing store on a corner of Bolivar Street in Havana.

                     The sign for "Modas Rositas," named for her aunt, still stands. But instead of a store,
                     families live in the space, their clothes hanging from the ceilings. They welcomed her
                     for a quick look around, referring to her as a "Polaco," a term used to describe Jews.

                     "It didn't look anything like this," said Gross, 49. "There was a storefront."

                     While some things have changed, others have not, including help the community gives
                     to its members. Every Tuesday afternoon, the pharmacy within the Patronato
                     distributes medicines to Jews or anyone else who comes. The Atlanta group
                     delivered supplies and drugs, and tour group members Rosa Behar, a
                     gastroenterologist, and Tamara Ruso, a pharmacist, unpacked the items and
                     distributed medicine to Cubans lined up outside.

                     The Jewish renaissance is happening in other parts of Cuba as well. In Cienfuegos,
                     east of Havana, about eight families make up the community. Rebecca Langus, 40, is
                     the leader. She remembered her grandmother wearing a star of David and eating
                     Passover food, but didn't know much else about the religion. Now, she conducts
                     Shabbat dinners at her house.

                     In the past few years, Jews of Cienfuegos, Santa Clara and other communities have
                     gathered for holidays and weekend camps to learn more about Jewish culture.

                     The movement continues to grow. "There is so much we can do to share with
                     others," Tacher said. "Be better people. That is the help we are giving."

                     Janet Frankston writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.