>>>>You have the Achilles heel of very smart people and don't see that your experience is not everyone's. Your experience is not theirs.
>>>>
>>>>Jeez, Mike if last week was "flirting", I'd hate to know what this is :)
>>>>
>>>>I understand where Tamar is coming from. But the reality is that the U.S. recognizes certain days as National Holidays and doesn't recognize others. So it's become sort of the "de facto" standard.
>>>>
>>>>My wife and her mother's family are conservative Jewish, but they don't do anything differently on Yom Kippur. They actually celebrate Christmas. And I've come to learn that many from Jewish backgrounds celebrate Christmas - though not in the religious sense. And that's the way most of us think of it anyway - after all, we say "Merry Christmas" and exchange gifts and go to holiday parties and drive through neighborhoods checking out Christmas lights, as opposed to saying, "Weep and Repent". I don't have a single religious bone in my body, but I love Christmas.
>>>
>>>Well, that's certainly a case of different experience. I don't know any Jews who celebrate Christmas unless they're in intermarried families.
>>>
>>>As for your wife's family, it's hard to characterize them as Conservative Jews (note the capital "C") if Yom Kippur is just another day for them. Culturally Jewish, sure, but Conservative Jews at least fast on Yom Kippur (if they're physically able).
>>>
>>
>>They were not Jewish. Rural southern Illinois Catholics.
>
>I was responding to Kevin's comment about his wife's family.
>

Sorry, my mistake. I know Kevin's wife is Jewish.

I have lived in two heavily Jewish neighborhoods, once as a kid and then for nearly 20 years after my marriage in the West Rogers Park area of Chicago. The one as a kid was known as Little City, which in the casual anti-semitism of the 1960s was called Little City. Even the city park was called that. It was understood that it meant Little Jerusalem. I played with Jewish and non-Jewish kids equally. I imagine you are familiar with West Rogers Park and probably know some people who live there. In fact I know you know one, Tuvia Vinitsky. (Since I moved way north of the city we haven't seen each other so it will be great to see him next month in Phoenix). Saul Bellow lived there growing up. It was the traditional Jewish settling place in Chicago. Lots of people walking to the synagogue on Saturdays; no driving, no phone calls, and lots of men wearing those funky hats.