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» Jewish Detroit The IN launches a series of photo
essays by photographer named "Karpov the Wrecked Train:'
See page 10.

» And The Winner Is ... Do It For Detroit Fund awards
its first set of micro-grants for social justice projects.
See page 30.

» Highly Irreverent Beth Shalom revives its children's
Purim spiel for this year's holiday. See page 40.

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

metro

The cast celebration at the end of the play

>> cover story

E

A Boy Of
Summer

1

Justin Prinstein has traveled
the world to play baseball.

Harry Kirsbaum

Contributing Writer

I

t was never more evident that Justin Prinstein
had baseball in his blood than when he
smacked a pitched tennis ball through a
Southfield neighbor's second-floor window
when he was 7 years old.
"My parents weren't mad at me," said the lanky,
affable, 28-year-old. "They
--11 ■ were impressed."
The son of a college
baseball shortstop and
grandson of a professional
softball player, "baseball
was in my DNA," he said.
Since 2007, Prinstein
has traveled throughout
Europe, Israel and Australia
playing, coaching and
promoting a sport he
Justin Prinstein
considers universal. And he
managed to graduate from
law school as well.
He missed his graduation ceremony from the
University of Detroit Law School in May 2011
because he was half a world away, pitching
the second game of a double-header for the
Janossomorja (Hungary) Rascals in the Eastern
European Inter-League playoffs against the Erd Aeros.

A return to hometown Flint shocks
entertainer Sandra Bernhard.

Sandra Bernhard leans against
the tree she used to meet her
friends at after shul.

Harry Kirsbaum I Contributing Writer

I

couldn't get Sandra Bernhard to pose in front of her
house on Concord Street in Flint because she said it
was "too creepy," and she was right. I wasn't about to
stand in front of my old house around the corner, either.
In fact, everything about our old neighborhood and
everything about the trip up to the old neighborhood
could be described as "creepy:'
Sandy — comedian, singer, performer, actor and one
of my best friends from kindergarten through fifth grade

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

Covering and
Connecting
Jewish Detroit
Eve y Week

— was bringing her show to the Ark in Ann Arbor on a
February weekend, but she came in a day early on Jan. 31
so she could visit Flint. She'd been having dreams about
the neighborhood, but wasn't sure what was real or not,
and who better to take her back home than me?
My wife, Mary Ann, and I picked her up at the airport
that morning, then took her to her Ann Arbor hotel to
drop off her four bags filled with clothing, essentials and
"merch" and then made our way up to Flint.
On the same crappy, horrible day of the huge pileup on
1-75 in Detroit, we were stuck in traffic because of another
huge pileup in Fenton that closed off the southbound
lane. As emergency vehicles sped north up the wrong
side of US-23, we inched through occasional snow squalls
that reduced visibility to zero. The whiteout conditions
seemed to transport us to a different world. And Flint, on
the best of days, can be considered a different world.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8