When the Schechter School of Long Island heard on Wednesday about the release of Alan Gross, a Jewish businessman who has been detained in Cuba for the past five years, they said it was their first Chanukah gift of the year.
The school held a celebration at its Jericho campus Thursday morning in celebration of Gross’ release from Cuba, after exchanging letters with him last year while he was detained in Cuba.
“I couldn’t imagine a miracle would happen like what happened yesterday,” Cindy Dolgan, Schechter’s head of school, said to a gymnasium full of students.
Cantor Marcey Wagner, principal of the Schechter K-5 lower school in Jericho, read a letter received Wednesday evening from Gross’ lawyer, Richard Shore in Washington D.C.
“Your students should be very proud of themselves and they have every reason to share in the joy of Alan’s release,” Shore said in the letter. “I hope that you know it has meant a lot.”
Gross was released on “humanitarian grounds” on Wednesday around the same time President Obama announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba and the opening of an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than 50 years, according to published reports.
Obama Administration officials, according to the New York Times, maintained that Gross was not part of a prisoner swap in which three imprisoned Cuban spies were exchanged for a Cuban who had worked as an agent for American intelligence for years and had been in prison for nearly 20 years – a distinction disputed by critics of Obama’s restoration of ties with Cuba.
Gross later received a call from Obama, according to published reports.
“He’s back where he belongs, in America with his family, home for Hanukkah,” Obama reportedly said later.
Gross was released to the United States in exchange for three Cuban’s who were imprisoned in the U.S.
Last year, fifth grade students at the Jericho campus sent letters to Gross, who had been detained since 2009 for bringing cell phones, wireless technologies, personal computers and other computer network devices into the country for Jews in Cuba as part of his work with the U.S. Agency for International Development. On Jan. 17, Wagner received a letter from Gross responding.
“I was deeply moved by the warmth and encouragement of their messages,” Gross wrote. Please share with them how much I appreciate their prayers and good wishes. Assure them that these are truly felt and that they are a meaningful source of hope for my family and me.”
Gross, who lived in New Hyde Park for the first 10 years of his life, went on the thank the students for “a real mitzvah” – a Hebrew word for good deed.
“I very much look forward to regaining my freedom and hope when that day arrives, or shortly thereafter, that I will be able to join with Schechter School to celebrate that occasion,” Gross wrote in the letter last year. He went on to say that he would like to once again visit his home in New Hyde Park.
Wagner said that 34 fifth grade students at the school wrote personal letters of hope and encouragement to Gross after she found out a lawyer from her Huntington temple was traveling to Cuba to learn about the country’ law system.
The lawyer told her congregation she would be stopping in Havana temple, she said, so she asked him if she’d be willing to take letters to Gross – knowing it was against the law. The lawyer agreed to help, and taped the letters to her itinerary to hide them, she said.
“She handed the letters off to a security guard,” Wagner said. “It was up to him whether he threw them in the trash or delivered them.”
The students sang a song at Thursday’s celebration composed by Schechter students to honor Gross.
Sixth grade student Ben Hakim who now attends the school’s Williston Park campus, which houses students in grades six through 12, was responsible for composing the piano piece alongside Jacob Gottesman, Noah Kantor and Rachel Shlefstein.
The song, called “PeacefulSound” is posted on Schechter LI’s Youtube channel.
The lyrics say, in part, “Freedom means to be free/To be whatever you want to be/Not to be in captivity/Far away from your family.”
“The children are really aware and active to right the wrongs of injustice and to get the word out,” Ben’s mother Janet Hakim said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re five, you can make a difference.”
The song was also originally dedicated to Capt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan several years ago and released in May of 2014.
Before the students embraced the cause of Alan Gross, Wagner said the students had been praying for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was released about three years ago after being captured by Hamas, a terrorist organization operating within Israel.
“All of these people are free now,” Dolgan told students. “Prayer combined with action can truly make a difference.”
Dolgan and Wagner said they both look forward to when Gross can visit the Schechter school but said that he is currently recovering his health.
“Our mission is to teach children from a very young age not to stand by injustice,” Dolgan said.
