Special treatment because I’m Catholic?

Right off the bat, I’m not Jewish at all..as the title says, I’m generally a Catholic.

I had a coworker one time who was a very devout Jew, which was really cool, and I learned a lot from him. He was perfectly professional and amicable, everything you’d expect from a coworker, until he learned I was Catholic. Then he started going the extra mile – buying me lunches (or bringing me homemade food), opening doors for me, buying drinks at the bar after work, making sure I had the best chair in the office, even inviting me to read at Temple, all sorts of stuff like that.

Is there any reason for this? The only theory I’ve gotten is that we’re in a heavy Protestant area, and he (and his brother) and I were the only non-Protestants in the office.