An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba

Chapter 6: Los Prinstein

6 los prinstein The Prinstein family, or los Prinstein, lives just four blocks from the Patronato, and it’s a good thing because they spend so much of their time there. Any day of the week you can see David Prinstein’s 1956 Chevy parked in front of the synagogue. Marlen leads Shabbat services on Saturday, teaches Hebrew to the children in the Sunday school, and is one of the leaders of the Israeli folk dance group. In addition, she teaches in the provincial cities of Campechuela and Manzanillo , preparing children who are of bar mitzvah age and adults who wish to convert to Judaism. David leads Kabbalat Shabbat services every Friday and runs errands for the synagogue with his Chevy. They are both remunerated for their work through the Joint Distribution Committee. Their children dedicate all their free time to the synagogue. Victor and young David (children from David Prinstein’s first marriage) have becomeTorah readers since their bar mitzvahs. David, as well as Jessica, are both active in the dance group. Jessica prides herself on having been chosen several times to be Queen Esther for the synagogue’s Purim festivals. She adores [ 82 ] Behar_3P-02.qxd:Behar design 7/30/07 2:19 PM Page 82 [ 83 ] Havana wearing the donated tiara, costume, and elbowlength gloves, even when it isn’t Purim. But the member of the family who has attracted the most attention is five-year-old Moisés, who’s become a poster boy for the Jewish revival in Cuba. By the age of three he had memorized the Jewish blessings for the wine and the bread. He recites these prayers without fail each week before the congregation sits down to the weekly chicken lunch at the Patronato following Saturday services. His dedication has won him the attention of American visitors, including Steven Spielberg. On his visit to the Patronato, Spielberg knelt and shook hands with Moisés, who failed to see what all the fuss was about. As Marlen brews espresso coffee for us during a visit to the family’s apartment, she says, “Sometimes I have to bring dinner to the Patronato and get the kids to wash up there. We practically live in the Patronato!” The late afternoon sun pours through the open window, the sea visible in the distance. With sugary coffee in hand, I take a seat with los Prinstein in the living room. I think they must be a happy family, because they have no problem squeezing next to one another on the brown leather couches and armchairs that fill all the available space. I notice there aren’t any traditional wooden rocking chairs. Leaning against one of the walls is an entertainment center that includes a large television , a VCR, and a DVD player, things not commonly found in Cuban households . Marlen, who was trained as a lawyer and is a convert to Judaism, has an exuberant personality, and it is she who eagerly begins to tell the story. “My family is extremely atheist,” she says. “My parents are military people . Imagine, both of them worked for the Ministry of the Interior.They completely frowned upon religion. They’re very Fidelista, they believe in the monotheism of Fidel.” Behar_3P-02.qxd:Behar design 7/30/07 2:19 PM Page 83 She glances at David, who nods and smiles. “Go on,” he says. Marlen continues, “When David and I married, I went to his house and got to know his Polish grandfather, one of the few polacos left in Cuba, and that was how I started learning about the Jews. His grandfather had books in Hebrew and it shocked me to see these books in another language. The first Jewish ritual I witnessed was the shiva for David’s grandfather. He died at the age of ninety in 1991.” David adds the next strand to the story. “I was a military man myself, a member of the armed forces. I had to keep quiet about my Jewish identity, even though it says on my record that I’m of Jewish origin. The one thing I always did was spend Passover with my grandfather. I was born in 1963 and was circumcised on the eighth day after birth, but I didn’t have a bar mitzvah. By then my father had distanced himself from Judaism. He’s part of the lost generation .” The “lost generation” refers to the...