Bikers, Amish, and Bitter Cold: My U.S. Adventures

Traveling as a religious Jew in the U.S. is easier than anywhere but Israel. Across 76 trips (yes—I counted and checked), I’ve had some special moments amusing stories that complement my tales in Curry with a Shoehorn and Kosher Burgers Freshly Ironed and Pressed. This post celebrates the remarkable people I’ve met, particularly outside major cities, who made these experiences unforgettable.

Colorado Springs: A First Trip to Remember

My first U.S. trip in 1998 was to Colorado Springs, nestled in the Rocky Mountains. I recall a visit to Pikes Peak (not the Starbucks coffee roast) and executives obsessed with morning golf, but the real highlight was a local family’s kindness.

Using the Jewish Travel Guide, I connected with a Denver Chabad-affiliated, but not religiously observant, family in Colorado Springs. They invited me, a stranger, for a kosher dinner, driving over two hours round-trip to Denver’s kosher store for roast chicken and salads, served on paper plates. Their warmth, despite being less observant themselves, filled me with optimism for my career’s travels.

My non-Jewish colleague and project leader was simply blown away by the generosity of people who didn’t know me nor were observant but were willing to host me because I was Jewish.

One major semi-regret, as an aside, was declining a Concorde flight home over a small fee (which I should, with hindsight, have paid personally), missing a unique experience before its 2003 retirement.

Minneapolis: Shabbat Unity

I spent years working in Minneapolis (Eden Prairie), part of it on a major IT project. On this project, I was often with Israeli colleagues. The city’s bitter cold (see a screenshot from my phone on one specific day) unfathomable to UK or Israeli natives—was striking.

Once, landing in a Columbus, Ohio blizzard, the pilot announced 0°F, shocking my Israeli team who mistook it for Celsius.

In Minneapolis, my favorite memories were what started as an initial Friday night Shabbat gathering I hosted in our hotel, buying kosher food and drinks for about 20 colleagues. Though few were religious, we formed a minyan and shared a joyful evening.

These “Oneg Shabbats” became a regular fixture of the project—held 5-6 times, after the first one always in my hotel room, and they became cherished family-like moments for many of us. One of my kids at one point wondered whether I had a secret family in the U.S. I didn’t, of course, but this was the closest I suppose I got.

Christian Prayer Group: Respectful Dialogue

In Minneapolis, I worked with truly special people, including Larry, one of the most decent men I’ve known. He invited me to his Christian Prayer Group to discuss Judaism. For over two hours, we explored Jewish topics in a deeply respectful setting, with no attempt to sway my beliefs or vice versa. This experience, echoed by ongoing personal messages of support for me, my family, and my country from Midwestern and Texan colleagues, remains profoundly meaningful.

Valencia: The Kosher Microwave

In Valencia, California, office administrator Melanie was a star. For my weeks-long project, she ordered kosher food and, refusing to let me eat cold meals, bought a dedicated “Kosher” microwave for the boardroom. Her extraordinary effort to ensure my comfort was unforgettable. I don’t know if the kosher microwave is still there, but it was my home away from home for a number of months.

Texas: Bikers, Shootouts, and Ranches

Texas, my favorite state, is truly unique. On my first visit, I stayed in an Austin hotel and found myself about the only other guest not taking part in a Hells Angels gathering. Despite their intimidating look, they were remarkably friendly—even to a kippah-wearing guest.

On another trip after driving on a Sunday morning from Dallas (where I visited the JFK museum and place of the assisination) and then went to see the site of the David Koresh compund of Branch Davidians so famous from my youth, I found myself driving through Waco. As I drove through,  I unwittingly passed right next to a violent biker gang shootout. It was happening live, and there was a lot of shooting as I went by on Interstate 35. It turns out it was a gang fight that broke out at the Twin Peaks Bar—8 killed, 170 arrested.

Yet, my favorite moment in Texas was at a colleague’s vast ranch. Coming from Israel, the scale is simply incredible—in every direction you could look was the ranch. It was huge. I ate my kosher food, drank beer, and watched as the kids shot birds meters away and as a group of colleagues came back from a hunt laden with animals. I heard them discuss the new pastime of hunting boar from helicopters with automatic rifles. Alongside the modern and excellent city of Austin is a traditional Texas that I found such a profoundly wonderful place. My favorite state.

New York: A Small-World Miracle (I was actually in Israel fot this story)

When a close family member was hospitalized in New York for a pulmonary embolism, her phone died, leaving us frantic. Recalling a family friend’s daughter worked as a nurse in NY , I messaged her:

Me: Hiya. Do you know anyone who works at Tisch Hospital?
Nurse: ME, WHY?
Me: [Family member] has just been admitted and is waiting for a CT scan and has run out of battery charge on her phone.
Nurse: Let me look. What phone does she have? I work in the ED. Going to find her right now, with a charger.
Nurse: I am with her. She is fine for now. She has the charger. She’s all good, msg her yourself she is charging.

Quite amazingly, she was on duty at the same hospital, in the ER, and went to find her. The shock on my family member’s face when she was presented with a charger by a nurse she had never met is one of the most amusing moments I didn’t get to see personally.

Postville: A Yiddish Enclave

Postville, Iowa, a tiny town in Amish country of 2,500, was one of the weirdest and most wonderful Shabbats I have ever had. A four-hour drive from Minneapolis, it’s home to many Hasidic families operating a major kosher meat plant, known sadly for an immigration raid. It is in the middle of mile upon mile of fields of grain, and you emerge from it to see a small town in the U.S. filled with Hasidic Jews and the Amish. Both Amish horse carts in supermarket lots and Yiddish-filled streets meant that spending Shabbat there is the closest to shtetl life I will ever experience. It felt like Fiddler on the Roof. Something else!

The Wrong Airport: A Race Across New York

Knowing I had a flight soon after Shabbat from Newark, I chose to spend Shabbat in Elizabeth, NJ, with a wonderful family. As an aside, they served gribenes (fried chicken skins), which I ate for the first and last time. I arrived at Newark Airport for my El Al flight, only to learn I was booked from JFK. I jumped into a taxi, urging the driver to skip toll lines despite his broken E-ZPass. Calling El Al’s VIP line, I persuaded the JFK station manager to hold check-in. Sprinting through the airport, I boarded breathless, only to hear the pilot blame the delay on duty-free shoppers.

Conclusion

From Nashville to San Diego, I’ve visited diverse U.S. cities—Knoxville, Tucson, St. Louis, and beyond. The warmth of strangers—families, colleagues, even bikers—has made the U.S. uniquely welcoming for a religious Jew. I have also had great experiences—wonderful sites like the Hoover Dam, Redwood Forests, Lake Superior in winter, had my only time on a Private Jet, as well as lots of sports (Celtics, NY Jets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Vikings, Atlanta Braves). The U.S. is much more than New York and Times Square. I could do without the insanity of its airports, but its people have been more than special, biker gangs in Waco aside.

I have had great times in the US and am grateful for those moments!