By GAVIN RABINOWITZ
Associated Press

JERUSALEM -- Ten Cuban Jews found themselves standing in awe at Judaism's holiest site on Thursday, after a year of tough negotiations
to bring the first group of Cuban Jews to Israel since Fidel Castro came to power.

Israel and Cuba have had no diplomatic ties since Cuba severed relations following the 1973 Mideast war. The Cuban government was
reluctant to give the Jews permission to make the trip, fearing they would not return.

Taking in the site where the biblical Jewish Temples stood, by coincidence on the day when Jews mourn their destruction, William Miller, 27,
a Jewish community leader from Havana, said: ``I feel like I am walking in the Bible. ... You read about all these places and now we are
here.''

The 10-day visit was organized by an Israeli government-backed program called ``birthright.'' It is the first such group to visit, though some
Cuban Jews have come to Israel on their own.

Organizers said it took more than a year to persuade Cuba to allow the group to participate in the project that each year brings about 15,000
young Jewish adults from around the world to Israel.

Originally, just eight young Jews were due to come, but Cuban authorities insisted that two of the leaders of the Jewish community
accompany them to ensure that all returned, said Harriet Gimpel of ``birthright.''

David Tacher, 52, from Santa Clara, who was appointed to accompany the group, said if all return home, it would ensure that future visits
would be allowed.

``We just had to explain to the government why it was important for us as Jews to come to Israel,'' said Miller. ``They understood our
reasons,'' Miller said, adding that relations between the Jewish community and the Castro government were ``very good.''

Miller said the trip would play an important part in reviving Cuba's Jewish community, which has dwindled from 15,000 before Castro's 1959
revolution to about 1,200 today.

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