I was Jewish to everyone but the Jews.
That’s what it felt like to grow up the son of a Cuban mother and Jewish father. I looked exactly like my dad, with his curly hair and deep-set eyes, and I had his last name, Steinberg
, stitched on the back of my baseball jerseys. But my Jewish friends and their parents ceaselessly reminded me that I was not
really like him. Judaism comes from your mother, they said, so I couldn’t be Jewish. Isaac’s dad would have me over for dinner and have a laugh over my being “the fake Jew.” His wife would jokingly correct him, saying I was really more of a “half-Jew.” A lot of Jewish people seemed to agree: There weren’t any Cuban Jews.