Bliss it was to be alive in that dawn, but to be in South Beach was “Jew heaven”. This ethnographic assessment comes from a minor character in Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas. And it’s true.
Miami’s Jewish life is booming. Miami — and Florida generally — is one face of the American future. It’s a Spanish-speaking city, the capital of the Caribbean. Its Jewish population is twinned with New York, so it reflects the growing edge of demographic change: more Orthodox, more Israeli, and younger.
South Beach is one of the few places in the States where you don’t feel like an alien over Christmas. Not because Christmas doesn’t exist; on the contrary, you can’t go anywhere without hearing Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad”. But people in South Beach have more important things to do, like go to the beach or pose in cafés. And anyway, fake snow and tinsel don’t sit right with palm trees and flipflops.
The Cubans who escaped from Castro’s communist holiday camp across the water remade the city, and wrestled control of its politics from the WASP founders. Waves of immigrants from the failed states of Latin America have followed. Part of the fun of Miami is the sense that everything can change at any moment.
Eighth Street on the mainland is Calle Ocho, a Hispanic tourist strip neighborhood, but much of the city — again, like Tel Aviv — feels like a work in progress. The mansions of Fisher Island — Oprah, Mel Brooks, Gloria Estefan — are just moments from the slums. New people are always arriving, new construction is always going on. The harsh substratum of American life, and the sandy foundations of this city, are ever-present.
Ninety-nine people are still missing after the collapse last week of a condo in Bal Harbor, on northern South Beach. The people who lived in the block are mostly Jewish and Hispanic. The theory is that a leaky pipe from the swimming pool eroded the foundations.
Teams from the Homefront Command and Hatzalah came from Israel at once. At the Shul of Bar Harbor, families of people whose relatives are missing were called up to open the ark for Avinu Malkeinu. It’s worth finding the footage: it tells us something important.
Life changes in a moment. When the sands at Bal Harbor at swallowed up the American dream, the Jews of Bal Harbor didn’t turn to Ron Desantis, the governor who’s a hot tip for the post-Trump Republican vote in 2024. They didn’t turn to the Democrats, or the Twitter left, or anti-Zionist cranks like Jewish Voices for Peace, either. They turned to Israel and to the ancient prayers.
Only Israel has the expertise to dig their families out of the rubble — not the Florida ambulance teams. Only Judaism — and not a liberalism built on sand — can sustain people shaken to their foundations. Of all places, it is Miami, a city of hedonists and vacationers, that offers a profound lesson for US Jews.
Dominic Green is deputy editor of the Spectator’s World edition
