Mainland stigma of being a Jew fades in diverse isles

Retired political science professor Neal Milner and I were discussing his new book, "The Gift of Underpants," about his experiences growing up Jewish in Milwaukee and living his adult life as a Jew in Hawaii.

He wanted to know what it was like for me as a Jew to be transplanted from Los Angeles to Hilo at 15.

I said, "I went from being a #$@&%*! Jew to being a #$@&%*! haole."

I added that there was some strange comfort in that, and he knew exactly what I meant.

I was born in L.A. in one of the middle-class suburbs built after World War II. There were few Jewish families and occasional reminders of anti-Semitism.

I remember hitting my first Little League home run and feeling like I was floating on a cloud as I watched the ball sail over the fence and began circling the bases.

My buzz was killed as I rounded second and the other team’s shortstop spat the most offensive anti-Semitic slur at me.

When I was 10, I was playing on the street with two Catholic friends when a much bigger kid, 17 or 18, rode by on a bike and started Jew-baiting me.

He got off the bike and threatened to get physical, but my friends stepped up and said if he wanted to fight me, he’d have to fight all of us. The bigger kid backed down, and I’ll always have a warm place in my heart for my friends.

As a teen in Hilo, I was subjected to many unfriendly remarks about my haoleness and threatened with a number of lickings that I managed to talk my way out of, but I can’t remember a single anti-Semitic insult.

Most people I grew up with in Hilo didn’t seem quite sure what a Jew was. A haole was a haole, and it was just fine with me to be lumped in with the larger stigmatized group.

It pleased me to think that atHilo High, the Little League shortstop and the kid on the bike would have been in the same boat as me; I wondered how smug and superior they would have felt then.

I’ve never been an observant Jew in terms of the religion, but Jews are a people first and a religion second and I’ve always embraced the tribe.

I celebrate Hanukkah, light the Sabbath and memorial candles and tell the traditions to my children and grandchildren.

Hawaii’s melting pot has given them all diverse ethnic and religious roots, and none of the kids is officially Jewish.

But some embrace Jewishness as part of their heritage, and I love that as Hawaii hapa-Jewsthey’re barely aware that a stigma can attach to it.