“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”- Hebrews 13:3
The Center for a Free Cuba wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah!
Christians are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and the promise of freedom and peace he embodies.
The first night of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, fell on December 14th this year, and in 2025 should have special meaning for Cubans.
This Jewish holiday celebrates the Maccabean Revolt of 165 BC against the attempt by the Greeks to impose pagan practices on the Jewish people.
At a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia on December 14th, two gunmen murdered fifteen people, including a 10-year-old girl Matilda Britvan, a couple approaching their 35th wedding anniversary, and Alex Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor, who protected his wife. It was an antisemitic act of terror that sought to eclipse the Festival of Lights.
In defiance of this terrorism, of this darkness, Hanukkah was celebrated in Australia, and around the World, demonstrating resilience, perseverance, the triumph of light over darkness, and the freedom to practice one's faith.
Cubans, of all faiths, have been denied their religious freedoms for decades by the communist dictatorship on the island. Christmas was prohibited from 1969 to 1997, priests, brothers, and a Cuban bishop were forcibly deported at gunpoint. Others were sent to forced labor camps.
Jewish children have been forbidden by Cuban educational officials from wearing a kippah in school. Anti-Semitic tropes continue to be spread by the Cuban dictatorship.
In 2025, this failed regime continued to repeatedly plunge all of Cuba into darkness with a collapsed electrical grid due to years of lack of maintenance, and neglect. Today, there are over 1,150 political prisonerson the island.
Nevertheless, we must not despair, both Christmas and Hanukkah offer the promise that darkness cannot resist light, and tyrants and terrorists will eventually be brought down, but we must do our part in resisting evil.
Please join us in this campaign for a Christmas when all political prisoners have been freed. Share this image and hashtag: #ForAChristmasWithoutPoliticalPrisoners
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