Days of Awe by Achy Obejas: Chapter 14 – Summary

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The narrator's father Enrique is born in 1920 to his parents Sima and Luis. They are peasants and live simply in the woods. His father is secretly Jewish but unlike his mother feels no real connection to Hebrew and Judaism. They pretend to be Catholic but simultaneously partook in Jewish traditions and this didn't draw attention because everyone around them had weird traditions. They avoided being baptized.

They were not very religious and practiced it as a sort of default and the narrator feels they were more "secret assimilationists", wanting the easier life that being a Catholic in Cuba allowed. On the other hand, Sima's father Ytzak felt he was super Cuban and wished he could be openly Jewish and in Havana he was.

Yitzak grew up in Santiago, a city. It had an international mix and though everyone pretended to be Catholic as in the countryside he saw people practicing other beliefs openly. As Jews had never been officially allowed in the Spanish Colonies they had to hide their faith, to the extent that they sometimes forgot their identity. Living in Santiago was particularly difficult because it had been a tribunal of the Inquisition and Catholic zeal from that time remained. A traveling salesman came into town who openly admitted he was Jewish, and Yitzak was surprised to note that even though he was called The Moor people bought from him. Inspired, Yitzak left his wife who refused to live openly and daughter for Havana where it he knew he could worship openly. The Moor, a Lebanese Jew, helped him get a job. He went to Synagogue for
Simchat Torah and was happy.


To ensure that Enrique wasn't baptized, Yitzak took him away to be circumcised as soon as he was born. Angry, Luis threw the family bibles and threw them into the river. Yitzak gave him the Hebrew name Eliahu/Elias. And he never cried.

Achy Obejas

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