Home

In 1896, John Stiles Collins, a Quaker farmer who had come from New Jersey, gazed upon the Florida swamps and envisioned a brilliant future for the area he was to call Miami Beach 15 years later. Soon, he set to work developing the area, but within a few years his great dream came to naught. Rabbits and rodents wrecked havoc with his avocado trees, and the mango and coconut crop was a failure.

There was, however, a new dream. In 1911, Collins' son-in-law, Thomas Pancoast, arrived in Florida, and instead of swamps and avocados he saw a tropical paradise with beaches, casinos, and hotels. In 1913, a bridge was built to connect the barrier island with the Florida mainland. Two years later, Miami Beach was incorporated, and the city was on its way to becoming a popular American resort.

From its earliest days, even in 1913, Miami Beach attracted a Jewish clientele. Jews had been in Key West since the 1880s and also in Northern Florida. In 1921, for example, the first kosher hotel in Miami Beach opened at Collins Avenue and First Street. Saul Cohen opened the first kosher deli in Miami, and soon thereafter there were several other kosher restaurants in Miami Beach as well. Eating kosher was nothing new in Florida. The first kosher hotel in the state had been established by Sara and Gabriel Finkelstein in Jacksonville in 1905.

There were, however, serious problems. Jews were not permitted to settle north of Fifth Street, and Carl Fisher, a leader and real estate broker in the early days of Miami Beach, refused to sell any properties at all to Jews. As early as 1913, the newly established Anti-Defamation League in Miami launched a concerted effort to stem anti-Semitism in Miami Beach. In 1934, the Jewish social club "101" was started in reaction to the exclusion of Jews from other organizations. The immediate pre-World War II years also saw the open distribution of anti-Semitic literature.

Yet, despite all of the problems, Jews kept coming to Miami Beach and neighboring Miami. New deluxe trains brought tourists and vacationers escaping the cold winters of the North. A number of Holocaust survivors established new lives in the area after their liberation. Many soldiers who had trained in Florida before being shipped out to Europe during World War II returned to live there after the termination of hostilities. Miami Beach was fast becoming "New York in the sun."

Even after the war, however, Jews felt anti-Semitism. In 1946, a group of Jewish doctors came up with an ambitious solution to counter the anti-Semitic discrimination they were encountering in the medical profession. The land occupied by the former Nautilus Hotel was purchased, and Mt. Sinai Hospital was built.

By the early 1950s, Miami Beach became a very Jewish resort, and until the 1970s its luxurious hotels attracted the biggest names in the American entertainment world. The city also absorbed many Cuban refugees from the Castro regime. In 1959, they arrived in a trickle, but over the following six years they came by the hundreds and by the thousands.

Today there still are hotels, and the city's population of 88,000 swells three or four times in tourist season. The city's population density is second only to New York. The tone of life in Miami Beach has been changing, however, over the past two decades. The city is now a magnet for senior citizens who live in a variety of co-ops and assisted living complexes.

Not everything has changed in Miami Beach. It is still a comfortable setting for Jews to vacation. There is a wide selection of kosher restaurants lining 41st Street. There are also numerous synagogues, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi.

The past has not been forgotten. The Jewish Museum of Florida is located in the former Beth Jacob Synagogue, built in 1936 and turned into a museum in 1995. The exhibit in the museum is a chronology of Florida's Jewish past and a portrait of some of the Jewish families who have settled in the area. It is a "must" for the Jewish tourist who wants to understand local history.

The Jewish Museum of Florida is located at 301 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, Fla. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Mondays and holidays. Adults $6, children and seniors $5, Family $12. Telephone: (305) 672-5044.

There is a Holocaust Memorial at 1945 Meridian Ave., Miami Beach: (305) 538-1663.

Dr. Jay Levinson is an adjunct professor at John Jay College of criminal justice, New York.