ailment

On The Bookshelf

aradise Still?

h ost of new books chronicles the Sunshine State

nd its Jewish connections, old and new.

DEE B RAWARS KY

'04iii-,to the. Jewish New

lorida is an invented para-
dise. Many Jews who live
there were born far from
the palm trees, orange blossoms
and ocean panoramas of the
Sunshine State; they crafted ver-
sions of the Jewish communities
they left behind on top of the sand.
Beyond the jokes about white
Cadillacs and white pants, poolside
mah-jongg and shuffleboard,
Florida grips the imagination of
many who visit and return, includ-
ing Jewish writers, drawn to its his-
tory and demographics as well as
its vistas.
Thane Rosenbaum, a novelist
who grew up in Miami Beach and
has set parts of his three fictional
works there, including Second
Hand Smoke, describes the place as
irresistibly Jewish. He speaks of its
idiosyncratic Jewish life "comprised
of retired grandparents, Jewish
mobsters left over from Meyer
Lansky's days, snowbirds, middle-
class Jewish Cuban refugees and,
now, gay Jewish men."

Jews Of

South

Jews y-south Florida=

Florida

As Andrea
Greenbaum,
assistant pro-
fessor of
English at
Barry
University,
Atlantic Shores, points out, there
are now 625,000 Jews in the tri-
county area of Dade, Broward and
Palm Beach; it's the third largest
Jewish concentration in the United
States, following New York and
Southern California. Greenbaum is
the editor of Jews of South Florida
(Brandeis; $34.95), a new collec-
tion of essays, documents and pho-
tographs.
She asks, "How does a disparate

8/18
2005

40

Jewish community with a strong
Florida produce, a 1935 hotel sign
component of older part-time
announcing "For Gentiles," a
retirees and a large number of rela-
poster for Sophie Tucker's 1950
tively recent Spanish-speaking
performance at the Beachcomber
in Miami Beach, a photograph of a
immigrants create a viable and rec-
ognizable Jewish community in a
group of elderly Jews who gathered
sun-drenched setting that can con-
every morning for an early ocean
vey the transience of a vacation, a
swim in the 1970s and photos of
summer thunderstorm, or a rerun
"Synagogues in the Sand," South
of Miami Vice?'
Beach synagogues no longer used.
South Florida has nearly 200
Although Florida's place in
congregations, stretching along the
Jewish literary life has connections
denominational spectrum, with a
to retiring parents — the parents
large community of Holocaust sur-
of Judy Blume, Herman Wouk,
Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud
vivors. Jews have lived in south
Florida since the late 1800s, but
and Chaim Potok resettled in
the numbers grew exponentially
Florida, as Stephen Whitfield
points out in his essay, "Blood and
after World War II.
One of Florida's earliest Jewish
Sand" — the state has its place in a
residents, Moses Elias Levy — who variety of new books by contempo-
moved to Florida from the Virgin
rary Jewish writers.
Islands in 1819 — had a plan of
resettling oppressed European Jews.
Alligators
He purchased 92,000 acres of land
in north central Florida, near what
is now Gainesville. (Even before
ALLIGATORS May Be
MAY BE
that, three Sephardic Jews from
Present
PRESENT
New Orleans bought land in
Pensacola.) Although Levy's utopi-
Andrew
an vision didn't work, he did leave
Furman,
a legacy: His son, David Levy
author of
Yulee, is considered the "architect
Alligators May
of statehood," which was achieved
s B2e 49
P.re5se) nt
in 1845. He was also Florida's first
Andrew Furman
(Wisconsin;
U.S. senator and the first Jew to
is
serve in the U.S. Senate.
originally
Nobel Laureate Issac Bashevis
from Los Angeles and is now asso-
Singer, who spent his last days in
ciate professor and chairman of the
Miami Beach, found much that
English department at Florida
was familiar, with streets filled with Atlantic University. His first novel
kosher butchers, synagogues and
is the story of a young man, Matt
Yiddish speakers. He has written,
Glassman, who completes his grad-
"Here the sound of the Old World
uate degree in journalism and then
was as alive as ever." Meyer Lansky
moves to South Florida, motivated
also spent his last years on Miami
by his desire to connect with his
Beach, as Greenbaum writes,
grandparents' generation. His first
"doing what all old Jews did:
job is editing the book review page
schmoozing, playing gin rummy
for the Jewish Weekly Times, which
and eating at Wolfie's," the latter
he describes as a throwaway.
being the archetypal Miami Beach
For Glassman, Florida is not only
deli.
a physical place, but it's a reposito-
Jews of South Florida, with its
ry of memory, with clues, he
cover photo featuring a Torah
hopes, to a family mystery. His
wrapped in a tallit — fluttering in
grandfather disappeared from
the breeze on a beach chair,
Lackawanna, Pa., when Glassman
turquoise ocean behind — is exten-
sively illustrated, including a
PARADISE on page 42
1920s Yiddish advertisement for

