He overheard me finding my way in conversation with an Ethiopian teenager about her religion and, trying to be helpful, interrupted to suggest googling. Google, the great panacea for cultural division, why didn't I think of that?
"What's your name?"
"Noam."
"Like Noam Chomsky!"
"Funny, Americans know this name through that guy," he said, crestfallen.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"He doesn't represent Zionist ideals," explained he 26 year-old dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel, who's a computer programmer in Atlanta and also works some in real estate.
"Do people pronounce your name as gnome a lot?"
"All the time!"