Today at work we had a guest lecturer from the United States. During the course of the lecture, he heard my American accent in one of my comments and later, while distributing handouts, asked, "So where are you from in the States?"
"I'm from Utah."
"Woah. I didn't know there were any Jews in Utah."
I just laughed. As did most the audience. The woman next to me put her arm around me and said, "Well some of the Utahns become Jews later."
Yes, they probably do. I am not one of them. The woman who organized the lecture knows I am not Jewish. She spent a year living in Utah and knows that she can never fail to crack me up by using Mormon terminology in her Hebrew accent. "Our best friends from Provo are 'Jack Mormons' (a derogatory term for Mormons who don't practice). We didn't know many Molly Mormons (Mormons who are known - a little cynically- for how very righteous they are.)" It kills me every time to hear these words in a country where I think about 30 people probably know what they mean.
When people make the immediate association that because I am inIsrael, I must be Jewish and jump right in with the "I didn't know there were any Jews in Utah" I usually let them run with it and sometimes even play along because I happen to know there ARE Jews in Utah. Salt Lake City has a lovely Reform/Conservative synagogue- yes that's right- two in one, because there aren't THAT many Jews in Utah. The community there was lovely when me and my Israeli boyfriend were living in Salt Lake. They gave him a volunteer position at the Day School. I attended my first Bar Mitzvah, the son of one of the most amazing single mothers I have ever met. I baked Hamentashen (holiday cookies) with the kids during one of the spring holidays. So, if someone asks about the Jews in Utah, I'm more than happy to fill them in.
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