“Are you Jewish?” the Budget rent-a car agent asked as I was about to exit the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii, and begin my eight days of exploring two of Hawaii’s seven main islands (there are 137 in the 2,400 km. long Pacific archipelago). 

I thought I was being careful by keeping a low Jewish profile, which I employ these days while traveling. My baseball cap was on my head and my yarmulke safely stashed in my pocket, but the Hebrew letters on my old Jewish summer camp T-shirt was apparently showing and blew my cover. 

“I’m Jewish, too,” Nachelle the rental agent said proudly, putting me at ease. This 30-something woman of color shared that she was in the process of converting to Judaism. She eagerly proceeded to provide an overview of Jewish life on Oahu – the island which is home to the state capital of Honolulu, as well as to its Jewish governor, Josh Green, and its longtime Jewish US senator, Brian Schatz. The majority of the state’s residents live on this island, as do the majority of the estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Hawaiian Jews.

Nachelle provided useful information about prayer services, Shabbat meals, a seasonal kosher restaurant at the Chabad of Oahu, and a small kosher section at the Safeway supermarket that supplements the already abundant supply of kosher-certified crackers, cookies, peanut butter, cereal, hummus, lox, beans, and tortillas found in the store. There was surely enough kosher food available to keep this tourist satisfied on hikes, at the beach, and over Shabbat.

While this was my first trip to Hawaii, Jews have reportedly been arriving to the Aloha State since the end of the 18th century. According to an article on the website of Honolulu’s 60-year-old Reform Temple Emanu-El, “The first mention of Jews in connection with Hawaii was in 1798, when a sailor on the whaling ship Neptune recorded in the ship’s log that the Hawaiian king had come aboard and brought a ‘Jew cook’ with him!”

The Reform congregation in the Nu’uanu Valley area of Honolulu, founded by 35 families in 1938, offers a religious school, as well as bar and bat mitzvah training and services, and considers itself “a venue for Jewish and Israeli culture.” There are reportedly 17 Jewish congregations, associations, and organizations and four Chabad Houses in the Hawaiian Islands. Locals say that there is also a handful of other informal Jewish prayer groups and organizations, as well as Jewish and Israel-related activities.

Oct. 7 remembered in paradise

Denise Kaufman, a member of the Ace of Cups female rock band founded in 1967, which opened for such legendary performers as Jimmy Hendrix, The Band, and Janis Joplin, is a longtime resident of the island of Kauai. She proudly shared a video of the October 7th Kauai Memorial, marking “the first year anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” 

The two and a half hour program, at the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall, featured speeches, musical performances, and prayers by notables such as Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami; IDF Lt.-Col. (res.) Jordan Herzberg; Supernova festival survivor Jenny Sividya; Marc Levine of the ADL; Yehuda Solomon of the Moshav Band; and the gathering’s driving force, Rabbi Michoel Goldman of Chabad. Kaufman attended the program and helped organize a trip for islanders to the Nova Music Festival Exhibition during its recent two-month run in Los Angeles.

Such an illustrious group arriving from far away to attend the commemoration was no small feat. The breathtaking 50th state, with its beautiful weather and daily picture-perfect sunrises and sunsets, is located more than 2,000 miles southwest of the US mainland.

One of only two noncontiguous states in the US, Hawaii has a population of about 1.4 million, around the 10th smallest, similar to New Hampshire and Maine. A nonstop flight from New York to Honolulu is just over 11 hours; flying nonstop from San Diego takes six and a half hours.

Kaufman, who arrived in Hawaii from Los Angeles in 1983 to attend music school, was a bit of a pioneer. But Jewish merchants began arriving in Hawaii more than 130 years earlier. Some, who arrived between 1850 and 1900, owned coffee plantations and provided supplies to the island’s sugar plantations. In 1901, forty Honolulu residents founded the Hebrew Congregation of Hawaii. They also established Hawaii’s first Jewish cemetery.

Jewish presence increases after the world wars

After World War I, the Jewish Welfare Board sent Alexander and Jennie Linczer to establish a JWB center in their home. Two families soon joined them on Oahu to serve as leaders of the Jewish community. In 1939, the Jewish Community Center was founded. The leased location served as a prayer space and central place for the Jewish community. Jewish chaplains stationed in Hawaii used it for religious services. In 1942, the Hebrew Burial Society was established, which dedicated a section of the Oahu Cemetery for the burial of Jewish community members.

Many Jews arrived in Hawaii after World War II, some of whom had been stationed there during the war. In 1947, Rabbi Emanuel Kumin went there to serve as director of the Jewish Welfare Board. Soon afterward, he served as a part-time rabbi for the Honolulu Jewish community, helping Jewish life to continue expanding there in the 1950s. In 1960, they constructed the state’s first synagogue.

Few US mainlanders have family connections to the island state. However, as a child, I remembered hearing of an uncle who “served in the military and was stationed in Hawaii.” Prior to my trip, I tracked down my distant cousin Harvey and his wife, Diane, who are in their 80s. They happily invited me to visit them in their home in Kailua, 30 minutes from Waikiki Beach, where I was staying. 

I discovered that the family lore about these cousins was not entirely true. While Harvey and his brother, Alan, did indeed serve in the US Army, they were not stationed in Hawaii (though many people in service were). It was his post-army career in the US Army Corps of Engineers that brought him to Hawaii after a stint with the corps in Guam. He arrived with his wife in 1977, fell in love with Hawaii, and never left.

Harvey and Diane raised their three children on Oahu and marked b’nai mitzvah for them at what they describe as their vibrant 300-member Reform temple. They report an extraordinarily high intermarriage rate in the Jewish community, as well as difficulties retaining rabbis; and children, like their own, grow up and leave the islands for the mainland. The Jewish governor and the senator are married to non-Jewish women.

Pearl Harbor – another surprise attack

For those who go to Hawaii, whether to visit, attend a conference, or live there, the place is paradise. The state has only two seasons: sunny summer, with an average daytime temperature of 85°F (29°C); and rainy winter, with average temperature not much lower than 78°F (26°C). 

While a week is certainly enough time to sample Hawaii’s beauty, history, food, and culture, it is not enough time to get more than a small taste of one or two islands. Most flights from the mainland arrive in Oahu, as well as some to Kona and Maui. Other islands are easily accessible by affordable 30- to 60-minute flights between the main islands.

Spending a day at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial on Oahu helps visitors get a good sense of history and geography. Most Americans are familiar with the basic story of Pearl Harbor, which was bombed by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, bringing America into World War II. 

I had never truly appreciated the extent of the casualties suffered by the US – 2,403 Americans were killed, and 1,178 others were wounded. In addition, 21 ships were sunk or damaged, while 188 planes were destroyed and 159 damaged. Viewing the various films of the days leading up to Japan’s surprise attack, I couldn’t help drawing parallels to Israel’s being caught off guard in a similar fashion on October 7.

One part of the museum is the boat ride to the sunken USS Arizona battleship, which is to see a museum with views of where the ship wreckage is. It was very dramatic. Passengers are told to put their phones on vibrate, as they are going to a cemetery. Many of the battleship’s crew are still underwater, so it really has the feel of a place worthy of respect and honor for the memory of those who died there. 

I spent seven hours at the Pearl Harbor museum’s many sections, including touring the USS Missouri, which hosted the surrender ceremony of Japan on September 2, 1945; and the USS Bowfin submarine. It was totally worth it.

Maps on Pearl Harbor make it clear that Hawaii is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – about 2,600 miles from Los Angeles, and 3,800 miles from Japan. This helps account for the many Japanese families and tour groups traveling throughout the Hawaiian island, and the many Japanese residents dating back generations (43% at their height in 1920; 23% pure and mixed in 2020).

While a visit to Pearl Harbor is interesting and important, visitors should also rent a car and travel around Oahu, where there is no shortage of places to hike, snorkel, see waterfalls, and view humpback whales. Diamond Head State Monument, known as Le’ahi in Hawaiian (Hawaii is the only US state with two official languages), is a volcanic tuft cone formed about half a million years ago. It is worth making a reservation online to hike to the top of Diamond Head and view sunrise and nearby Waikiki Beach.

Pineapples, waterfalls, and hikes

Other highlights of Oahu that are close to Honolulu include Honamu Bay (sign up in advance and rent on-site snorkeling equipment to view amazing coral and fish), and the Kaiwi State Scenic Shoreline – Makapu’u Light House. I was lucky and saw several whales, though the binoculars I schlepped came in handy. 

A visit to the Dole Plantation isn’t a must, but it is fun seeing how and where the world-famous pineapples grow, as well as coffee, cacao, and macadamia nuts. Nowadays, most of their pineapples are grown in other countries, such as Thailand, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. There is a fun Pineapple Express Train ride and the Pineapple Garden Maze to keep families engaged, and there is no shortage of pineapples to sample and purchase, as well as pineapple-themed souvenirs.

On several early mornings, I set out in the dark (with my headlamp) to see incredible sunrises. Less than an hour northeast of Honolulu is the Ka’iwa Ridge (Lanikai Pillbox) Trail, a 1.6-mile out-and-back trail near Kailua. Given the early start to the day, I had time for additional hiking on the Manoa Falls trail, another 1.8-mile moderately challenging one, which ended at the breathtaking waterfall.

One of the most difficult decisions while on vacation in Hawaii is just how ambitious to be. While Oahu is replete with fun attractions, one can spend a week in Waikiki Beach, where hotels range from the simple and affordable to the grand and luxurious. The white sand beaches are gorgeous, and swimming and surfing are possible many hours a day. The night offers abundant restaurants and bars. A noodle shop across from my hotel caught my attention for its long lines day and night.

Chabad is there, too

The Waikiki hotels are located close to the beach and are a 20- to 30-minute walk to the Chabad of Hawaii, which has Shabbat services and offers Shabbat dinners for $85 per adult and lunches for $75. Somewhat steep, I thought, but I guess that’s part of how it supports its operation. It also operates Aloha Lani, a sit-down restaurant during the summer (July through September) and over winter break. In addition, the local Chabad offers meal delivery all year round through Oahu Kosher.

At the Chabad of Hawaii Shabbat morning service, 35 men, 20 women, and a number of children were in attendance. I offered the empty seat next to me to Harold, a man in his 70s – one of eight men clad in Hawaiian Aloha shirts. He and his family have been vacationing yearly in Waikiki Beach for over 30 years and recently purchased a condo. 

When I asked for an estimate of the breakdown of shul attendees by locals to tourists, he said that he wasn’t sure but playfully added, “We have an expression here: ‘If you don’t like the person sitting next to you, don’t worry – he won’t be here next week!’”

Harold isn’t the only one from the mainland who have discovered Hawaii and may be considered “snowbirds” – people who spend the cold months of Canada and the northern US in reliably warmer climates. Due to Chabad’s proximity to the Honolulu Convention Center, there is a steady flow of conference-goers. On the Shabbat of my visit, several doctors who were in town for a medical conference came to Chabad for prayers and meals. Some of the few Israelis in town hawk their wares at the many indoor and outdoor markets; some have also found their way to Chabad.

Chabad Houses also provide useful support and resources to both locals and tourists on some of the other islands. One on Maui, another on Kauai, and two on the Big Island (one in Kona, one in Hilo) offer Shabbat food to visitors and locals (free, though donations are encouraged). Some Chabad websites note that it is possible to spend Passover in Hawaii.

Over to the Big Island

After a Saturday late evening walk to see my final sunset along the beach in Waikiki (and passing a young kippah-wearing Israeli and his wife doing the same), I made havdalah in my hotel room, and the torches lighting up the bar below served as a useful aish (fire) for this Shabbat-ending ritual.

I packed, got a few hours of sleep, then caught a cab to the airport for a 6 a.m. flight to briefly explore one more island. Though any of the seven habitable islands of Hawaii’s 137 would have been good choices, I opted for the Big Island – confusingly also called Hawaii – home to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I flew in to Hilo Airport and made the hour’s drive to this spectacular park.

My 30 hours on the island allowed just enough time to explore this national park (the Lava Tube and Kilauea Iki Crater Rim give a real experience of volcanoes and of walking on the moon!) and to see a beautiful waterfall at nearby Akaka Falls State Park. I stayed overnight at the funky Hamakua Guesthouse and was up long before the sun to drive to Mauna Kea, a dormant shield volcano. 

I managed to get close to the Visitors’ Center at 9,000 feet to watch the awesome sunrise. Tour groups and people with four-wheeled vehicles are welcome to reach the summit at 13,803 feet – the highest point in the state. I opted for a quick tour of the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut factory to stock up on snacks and gifts to bring home before boarding the short flight to Oahu, then the long overnight flight back to New York.

Tough decisions await. Should I return to Hawaii to explore the other islands or continue elsewhere to see more of our beautiful world?  

Natan Rothstein contributed to the main article, and wrote the following family history.

SHALOHA, HAWAII!

‘We’re going on a trip – to Hawaii!” our parents told me and my little sister Ann in the summer of 1970. It sounded cool to this 10-year-old boy from Far Rockaway, New York; little did we two know that we wouldn’t be coming back from the big “rock” far away. Shalom and aloha – both “hello” and “goodbye” in Hebrew and Hawaiian – farewell Atlantic coast, hello Pacific island!

We were going to visit my dad’s childhood best friend, Bob Reichman – they had been two nice, regular Jewish kids from Long Island who never dreamed they would end up – for good – on the Big Island. Starting out as short-haired, straight city kids, they ended up being long-haired, pot-smoking, Hawaiian beach bums.

Surfer Bob eventually became the live-in caretaker of secluded Makalawena Beach on the Kona Coast of Hawaii Island, and my dad eventually had a rather pash lifestyle: PASH, that is – Public Access Shoreline Hawaii, an organization he founded in the 1980s.

He became an environmental activist who achieved gaining access for people, native Hawaiians especially, to shoreline that had been privatized by individual landowners and hotels. He was even awarded a resolution from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for his “life of dedication to upholding Hawaiian rights.” My mom was a librarian in a little Kona library. Not bad for a New York couple hailing from Far Rockaway and neighboring Lawrence, one of the famous Five Towns, who ended up far away on the Big Rock.

“Many people come to Hawaii to get away from things on the mainland – bad relationships, bad weather, etc.,” says Barry “Bone Doc” Blum, a contemporary of my parents who, together with them and others, founded Kona Beth Shalom (KBS), the Kona House of Peace congregation, in 1980. “Jews who come to Hawaii generally don’t come here to be Jewish – But they always end up going back to their Judaism – somehow,” he remarks.

The “Our History” page on the KBS website starts like this: “The first recorded (or recalled) Jewish community event on the Big Island was the bar mitzvah of Gary Natan Rothstein, the son of Jerry and Judy Rothstein, in Hilo in 1973.” My earliest claim to fame.

My paternal grandfather, Ben, and maternal grandmother, “Nanny” Rose, came all the way from Far Rockaway and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for the auspicious and establishing occasion. As is customary for honorees, I was bedecked in a royal maile leaf lei (fresh flower necklace).

I learned my Torah portion with Rabbi Julius Nodel of Temple Emanuel in Honolulu (see main story), who brought a Torah scroll over for the celebration.  This was no regular Sefer Torah, though – it was the one given to King David Kalakaua in the 1880s by a Jewish advisor. The only one to have ever been owned by a king, it was passed hand-to-hand until it eventually ended up at Temple Emmanuel.

My bar mitzvah was a rather royal occasion for this unconventional, long-haired new little man, almost 5,000 miles away from where the event would have been held in Far Rockaway if life had not taken a turn for the Very Far West.

We lived in Hilo at the time, the “big city” on the eastern side of the Big Island, a close drive to Bob’s lava rock homestead. We moved over to the “Kona side” five years later in 1978.

A LITTLE bit about the Big Island. Although Hawaii is small as US states go, being the eighth smallest – slightly larger than Massachusetts – the land area of the Big Island is almost twice that of the other six main islands combined, at 4,028 square miles (10,432 sq. km.) – about the combined size of the smallest two states of Rhode Island and Delaware, and 40% of the entire 137-island archipelago.

Hawaii Island is also one of the most ecologically diverse places in the world, where you can find eight to 10 of the world’s 13 climate sub-zones, such as tropical monsoon, polar tundra, and desert, within an hour’s drive, according to lovebigisland.com – even more impressive because of its small relative size. My father, in a poem he wrote titled “Hawaiiisland,” calls it the “microcosm of our planet.”

Among the island’s other distinctions is that it has America’s southernmost point (naturally, called South Point), the southernmost city of more than 25,000 people (Hilo), and the southernmost state capital (Honolulu) in the United States. It also has the world’s largest volcano (Mauna Loa, which is mostly underwater, like all the islands), and Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, which just erupted again last Friday. Hawaii Island also has one of only four green sand beaches in the world.

In 2009, Time magazine listed the “Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hawaii” in a feature article celebrating the 50th state’s 50th anniversary. It says that the first description of surfing was made by a crew member aboard one of British explorer Captain James Cook’s ships around 1779 (Dad’s friend Bob, one of many modern surfers, used to leave his surfboard at our house in Kona). 

Hawaii is called the most isolated population center in the world – some 2,390 miles from the US and nearly 4,000 miles from Japan. It is also the only state that has interstate highways that don’t connect to another state (that would be some feat of engineering, considering its remoteness), and is the only state where coffee is grown (2009). Kona coffee is one of the world’s 10 most expensive, at $40-$60 per pound! 

Another thing you may have noticed, reading all the Hawaiian words and names, is that the Hawaiian language doesn’t have many letters – only 13, in fact, about the fewest in the world. 

There are the five vowels, of course – A, E, I, O, U – and the consonants H, K, L, M, N, P, and W, plus the okina glottal stop. (The name Hawaii is actually spelled and pronounced Hawai’i.) Interestingly, except for J, the Hawaiian alphabet has all the letters from H to P, plus A, E, U and W.

There are some Hawaiian words that have interesting apparent connections to Hebrew. Aloha is the singular form of “God’; Hawaii is hava ee – “give me an island”; and a kahuna is a Hawaiian priest, like the Jewish kohen. 

The name of the volcano goddess is Pele, which means a “marvel,” “miracle”, or “wonder” in Hebrew – like pelephone. And, of course, the most famous Hawaiian word is wiki, which means “quick” – as in Wikipedia, WikiLinks, etc. Wiki wiki means “very quickly.” 

Hawaiians like to repeat things for emphasis. My parents had a pizza Italian restaurant in our Hilo days called Kau Kau Place (“the food place”). My mother and sister wore muumuus – brightly printed dresses. And the local reef triggerfish is called humuhumunukunukuāpua’a (try saying that while eating a pita filled with poi!). 

BACK TO Jews in Hawaii. Like my parents, Bob and Sylvia Reichman were also among the Jewish community’s initiators. KBS says that in August 1974, Roz Silver and her husband, Bill, moved to Kona from southern California. Disappointed not to find High Holy Days services there, they celebrated quietly at home. Gil Martin, food and beverage manager at the Kona Golf Club, noticed a mezuzah nailed to the Silvers’ door jamb and a menorah. 

Agreeing that it would sure be nice to have a Jewish congregation, they started to make contacts. Gil knew a couple from Hilo – he was Jewish and she was Japanese. They knew the Reichmans in Pahoa, parts of which were destroyed in 2014 and 2018 lava flows. One contact led to another.

The 1975 High Holidays services took place at the Hilo Community Clubhouse. The Jewish Federation in Honolulu provided prayer books and arranged for Kirk Cashmere, who became a prominent ACLU lawyer, to perform the service. “The group, dubbed Aloha Beth Shalom, became the forerunner of KBS. Kirk brought over a tiny printed Torah and the prayer books. A total of 85 people showed up for these first Jewish services on the Big Island!” the KBS website states.

Our grandparents sent my sister and me to Israel on an AZYF trip in 1981, similar to today’s Birthright. I stayed, became religious, and went back to finish college at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu. 

I was living with the Dratt family there, who brought two Chabad shluchim (emissaries) for High Holy Days one year to the small, aspiring congregation they had set up in their house: Shaarei Gan Eden (“Gates of Paradise”). One of them was Rabbi Krazjansky (mentioned in the main story).

I made aliyah in 1986. My parents and sister came for my wedding in 1995 and several times after. My parents’ story didn’t end well, unfortunately. 

Driving home from a Tu Bishvat Seder in 2005, they were in a head-on collision, and both died. I went to help my sister, who still lives on the Big Island, arrange the funeral, which was attended by over a thousand people. From this, a Jewish section was set up in a local cemetery. Two of my daughters went to visit in 2023. They felt a real connection to where their father grew up, and where they saw how important and beloved their grandparents had been there.

“Since we are on the opposite side of the world,” Barry Blum says, “when we want to face Jerusalem, we can face in any direction – including down!” 

I merited to live at literally opposite, beautiful, and important ends of the world – connected, as often happens, by being Jewish. By the way, it is rumored and attested to that my father coined the portmanteau “Shaloha” because of his great love for Hawaii, Judaism, and Israel.