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Originally Posted by Crawford
The article is talking about the Miami-Dade Jewish population, not the Miami Jewish population. There are at least three counties in "Miami", this is only one.
And yes, the population is huge, even if it had postwar decline, which isn't unlike what happened in the NYC area. Core, urban, Jewish populations declined during the era of suburban expansion, basically everywhere.
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Yeah, but North Dade and into Broward and Palm Beach counties do not characterize Miami. The Jewishness of Miami has dwindled dramatically since the 1980s. Those areas to the north don't really function as suburbs of Miami, and certainly don't contribute to Miami's atmosphere.
Increases in population there do nothing to characterize Miami as Jewish overall. South Florida, yes. I would never argue that the overall "Miami" area has a significant Jewish population and prominence. So i know what you're getting at, I think.
And it's not post-war Jewish decline here... as this article specifically talks about how the Jewish population declined from the 1970s to 2004 (the last time the study was done). The study shows "the number of Jewish households
increased by only about 1 percent, but the total number of Jews grew about 9 percent"... due to Hispanic and Orthodox Jewish increase, who have more people per household.
As for the "new young adult Jewish population of about 7,000 emerged in the downtown Miami area"... this is kinda laughable since it's due to younger Jewish condo buyers who actually live elsewhere. Ira Sheskin, the guy who did this study is a former professor of mine who I know well and speak with on occasion... he laughs about this fact of including condo buyers, but includes it in his numbers because it's "good for the Jewish community" to promote it. He lives way up in Cooper City, by the way.
Miami is just not Jewish in the way that it used to be. It was certainly a very prominent part of the culture of Miami Beach and parts of Miami. While there's still Jewish money/influence and some political power (on Miami Beach) here, it is nothing like it was. It used to have so much more of that New York vibe and Jewish culture vibe to it, but Miami has just changed so dramatically in the last 20 years.