I find the reality of the American Jewry experience as l have seen it both refreshing and exciting. l compare our  realities as Jews in the tiny community of 14 000 in Cape Town, (where we are constantly reminded of the over 500 000 Moslems living  there) and  where our Judaism is often reserved and unassuming,  (except if you are in Sea Point)! Everywhere we have been in Florida we have been  overwhelmed  by the numerous Channukiot we have seen. In the parking areas of Boca Raton there are Chunnukiot on the street lights; in Miami Beach we found near a Nativity Scene a very large Channukiah and dreidel decorated with shells (kitsch … but still the idea is there!) At a sports bar in Dayton Beach there was a large illuminated Magen David next to the flags of various countries and next to the all important many sports channels on the various television sets.

George Segal, a  sculptor  who was part of the  Pop Art movement of the mid-Twentieth Century gifted the Perez Art Museum of  Miami ( PAMM) a large imposing sculpture. It is a life-size tableaux situated in a room of its own. He used actual people to be his models and he then covered them in plaster of paris gauze which is then assembled to become the final sculpture. He uses a monochromatic  colour palette to further enhance the mood in the tableaux. The title of this sculpture is “Abraham Bidding Farewell to Ishmael”. In it everyone is wearing contemporary clothes. Sarah wears a hoody and is standing a distance away watching the scene unfold before her, while Hagar seemingly resigned to her fate, is wearing casual clothes and is barefooted and is carrying what appears to be a shopping bag.  Abraham and Ishmael are hugging. Ishmael wears a pair of shorts and like his Mother is barefooted. You  cannot see his face as it is in the embrace of his father Abraham.  Why is this relevant? Because our fates, like our ancestors thousands of years ago, are all intertwined.

We visited the Miami Jewish  Museum in South Beach. The museum is housed in two restored shuls which are situated next to each other. In the permanent exhibition  it is a museum that carefully curates the experiences and history of the Jewish People of Florida over the past 250 years – from the beauty queens to the crooks (Meyer Lansky, a major underworld figure, contributed substantial sums to the Florida Jewish Community), from the successful politicians and everyone in between. There too, is a photographic exhibition. The photographs are of Jewish men who were once drug addicts who were alienated from their Judaism but have found their way back to Judaism.  All the men have tattoos (except  the photographer) who has requested all his subjects to  wear the kippah the photographer wore on his Bar Mitzvah. The elderly volunteer who has come to Miami via Hungary  and Venezuela  thought the photographic  exhibition  of the men was upsetting and disturbing. However to us it was similar to a photographic exhibition we saw a few years ago in Tel Aviv with the emphasis on tattoos / taboos in Judaism.

The Holocaust Memorial which is dedicated to Elie Wiesel is imposing, impressive  and
deeply moving. It was not without its distractors who argued that Miami, and South Beach in particular  were places of  “Sea and Sun” and that the Memorial should not be erected in such a public area downtown. But with about 25 000 survivors living in the wider Miami area at the time it was built, the City Council eventually voted to let the Memorial be built. In what was seen as ‘ bashert’ (fate),the site of the Memorial is in 1933-1945 Meridian Street, South Beach.  It is a sculpture of a huge hand pointing skywards. From the  bottom of the hand ‘grow’ numerous men, women, old people and young children.The sculpture sits in a large  pool of water. The whole area is designed in Jerusalem stone. You walk through a curved area where photographs of the Holocaust as well as the names of many who have perished are recorded. The Partisans Song is on repeat in the background.The area is sheltered with many benches scattered around for quiet  contemplation. On the periphery are palm trees and not the ubiquitous olive trees you would find in Israel. As this  Memorial is in a central place in South Beach it is a Memorial that cannot be ignored by the many thousands of commuters and pedestrians who pass by it.

It is yet another example of being proudly Jewish which is such a positive experience of our visit to Florida.

Written by Sheryl