As always an interesting perspective on a part of America I am not so familiar with.

Reminds me a little of when I spend a few months in Western Samoa in the South Pacific. The people there are very nice, though belligerant when drunk. Christian missionaries spent a great deal of time competing over the Samoans, so that now there are more Christian chruches in each village than any other kind of building. When they ask you "what religion are you?" in Samoa they are really asking "what Christian church do you belong to?"

So, as a Jew, I was outside their experience.

I once met a Samoan in the capital, Apia, and we sat down and started beating the heat with some large bottles of the native "Vailima" beer. We drank the kind that the natives drink--better, bigger AND cheaper than what the tourists drank. Neither of us had much to do that day, so we drank for quite some time and had some really great discussions. Samoans enjoy talking, drinking and making friends, to whom they are very generous.

At some point in our long drinking/discussing session, he asked me "what religion are you?" Alarm bells went off in my head, but I am honest...so I said I was "Jewish."

It was almost as if I had said I was a cannibal. A look of utter astonishment...and anger...came to his face. He asked, amazed, "YOU'RE JEWISH???" When I repeated that I was, very calmly, I watched his face go through a whole range of emotions very rapidly: confusion, anger, then remembering that he has just had a long, friendly afternoon with me...back to confusion.

Finally, he pulled himself together and said, "Maybe I don't know what that means."

Interestingly, San Diego, California, is the other place where I had encountered people who really had no idea what it meant to be a Jew.