In 1951, JTA dubbed Arno Max Gurau, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Samoa, the only Jew in Western Samoa. According to information from the cemetery in Apia, Gurau married two Samoans and one half-Samoan and passed away in 1961.

Lapushin, a 25-year-old American citizen, lives in Apia and has called the Pacific island nation home for nearly four years. A Jewish day school graduate from Atlanta, Lapushin first arrived in Samoa as a Peace Corps volunteer in October 2007 to teach computer classes. He was on the ground when the devastating 2009 earthquake and tsunami hit, killing more that 180 people. Lapushin recently returned to Samoa after a few months overseas to work as a computer consultant.

Another partially Jewish man comes from Pago Pago, in American Samoa. His name is Lancelot Tauoa, and it appears that he is related to an American Jew, Lennard Davis. The relationship was established through DNA testing. After a protracted and convoluted search, it was found that Lennard’s uncle was his father and that Lance’s grandmother had raised his great aunt Eppe’s child, Lance’s father.

Eppe, the high chief’s daughter, had become estranged from her husband and had fallen pregnant as a result of a clandestine romance with a foreign man. This man turned out to be youngest son of Lennard’s great-uncle, who had died. The man wanted to marry Eppe, but was rejected and he had never married.