Jews are very much on the mind of Miami’s general population. Scarcely a day goes by without the daily papers reporting events and issues germane to Jewish concerns. During the celebration of Chanukah last month, for example, there were de rigueur discussions comparing that holiday with Christmas. Several local rabbis were polled for their views on the mather.
Since the population of Miami Beach is predominantly Jewish, the local daily press provides a good deal of coverage about synagogue goings-on, social activities, and personality profiles. In this regard, the Miami Herald, the leading daily, far outdistances The New York Times although the Times services a much larger Jewish constituency.
But neither the Herald nor other dailies in the area provide the kind of in-depth local and international information and analysis of Jewish events and causes of concern to the Jews as does the Jewish Floridian, the prestigious and leading Jewish newspaper in southern Florida.
ISSUE OF A KOSHER INSPECTOR
An issue which has burst into prominence in the Miami area and which has been fully reported in the press has been the city’s decision to drop its kosher inspector job.
For the last 16 years Miami Beach has engaged a kosher inspector in order to ensure that local establishments abide by the rigorous provisions of kashruth. The city enforces kosher laws based on a state statute that prohibits false advertising.
The inspector, Rabbi Joseph Kaufman, who had held the position for two years, was fired recently. City officials reprimanded the former inspector for failing to keep daily logs of his activities and for taking a four-day vacation without approval.
(The rabbi maintains that the real reason for his dismissal was his issuing of four citations to a catering business run by the sons of influential Miami Beach Rabbi Pinchas Weberman.)
City fathers are debating whether the post should be continued. Mayor Malcolm Fromberg wants to see the $25,000-a-year position abolished because he doesn’t see it as a municipal obligation to oversee observance of religious or ritual standards.
Rabbi Irving Lehrman, the dean of the city’s rabbis, disagrees. He feels that because of the large number of tourists who come to Miami, the city has an obligation to see to it that the 125 hotels, restaurants and other establishments concerned, are supervised by an independent city inspector.
Rabbi Tibor Stern, author of numerous works on Jewish law, takes a different position. He feels that the city is taking over a function which is religious in nature and which is therefore contrary to the Constitution.
NON-JEWISH RESIDENTS INVOLVED IN DEBATE
The debate over the issue of the kosher inspector has been taken up also by the city’s non-Jewish residents. A recent letter to the Miami Herald complained that tax dollars should not be used to support a specific religious cause. The letter writer argued that using his tax dollars to scrutinize kosher laws was an absurd gesture.
While there was no anti-Semitic animus in the letter, there are hints that in Miami and in regions to the north there is evidence of an unpleasant resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiments.
A number of temples which have been built by the growing Jewish communities in Palm Beach and Delray Beach have been targeted by vandalism. On December 5 gunshots were fired in Temple B’nai Jacob near Palm Springs.
BASIS FOR ANTI-JEWISH VIOLENCE
Jewish leaders in the area attribute the violence to the sudden influx of Jewish residents to the area and the fact that “the area is not accustomed to having a large Jewish population.” Rabbi Sam Silver of Temple Sinai in Delray Beach almost makes light of the vandalism when he says: “It’s not malice. It’s just becoming accustomed to a new type of situation.”
Rabbi Alan Sherman of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach Country also tries to play down the isolated incidents of anti-Semitism to which the community has been subjected. “We’ve had a few instances of anti-Semitism. That doesn’t characterize the feeling of the community. The trouble is that you have one bad incident and people tend to generalize.”
Silver feels that expressions of anti-Jewish feelings will become muted. As evidence he points to the fact that his synagogue, which hopes to open the first temple within the city limits by spring, is now using the facilities of the local Cason United Methodist Church.
Friday night services, says the Miami Herald “which are usually packed, make an incongruous picture: the Jewish Torah in an ark beneath a cross. Worshipers are given prayer books as they enter the church: the pews contain Christian literature.”
While members of Temple Sinai are currently sharing a condominium with the United Methodist Church, congregants of Temple Anshei Shalom, from Delray West are conducting services at the Carteret Savings and Loan Association until their new synagogue (on West Atlantic Avenue near Flordia’s turnpike) is ready for High Holiday services in 1984.
That budding congregation has already experienced a swastika daubing at its administrative offices in the Village of Oriole but Rabbi Emeritus Jonah Kahn dismisses the incident as insignificant.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
