Uh, what exactly were these "anti-Semitic expletives"?

It's just plain silly to call Florida a hotbed of anti-Semitism, seeing as how a very sizable percentage of South Florida's population is Jewish, and wealthy, and successful.

If Florida is so intolerant of Jews, why would so many decide to live there? The US has 49 other states to choose from...why move to a NAZI cesspit of hate?

RJ,

Howard is right.

I had a cousin (now dead) who moved to Ft. Lauderdale in the 1930s. She and her husband worked for a Jewish couple who owned a little Florida souvenir store in downtown Lauderdale. As recently as the late 50s, the folks who owned the store couldn't live in Lauderdale; they had to live in Hollywood.

The first time I came to Ft. Lauderdale was also in the late 50s. Not only Jews, but African Americans as well were restricted as to where they were accepted. Bathrooms were segregated for blacks, as were water fountains and beaches. Private clubs excluded Jews all over South Florida.

Mt. Sinai hospital in Miami Beach; today one of the finest (and biggest) hospitals in the area, was founded in 1944 by Jewish doctors who were not welcome to practice in the Gentile hospitals of the day.

Jews (especially from New York) were attracted to Miami Beach shortly after Carl Fisher (who was Jewish) began developing it. They were welcome there right from the start, but elsewhere in South Florida was a diffrent story.

Some residual anti-Semitism still exists today, as Howrd's article describes. There are signs that it's on the upswing lately, too -- as it is elsewhere in the US and the world.

RJ,

After doing some more research, I can't verify whether Carl Fisher was Jewish or not.

He did invent the sealed beam headlight, though, and in 1913, sold his company, which by then was making ALL the headlights for American cars, to Prest-O-Lite for $9 million.

I've been a Florida resident since 1970, coming here after growing to age 20 in Boston. After leaving a hot bed of racism which had become deadly at that point the first thing I realized was the lack of outright hostility between the races.

Naturally, still being the south, there were many 'good ole boys' who's only use for blacks was as cheap labor. Being a 'long hair yankee' I wasn't far behind. Still, this was better (race wise) than Boston, where bussing was just instituted and the National Guard had surrounded my old school, Southie High, with M-16's locked and loaded to prevent all out chaos.
Had I walked the wrong streets in Boston I would have been killed, if not by the blacks most certainly by the Puerto Ricans. It was a lovely fucking place.

Meanwhile, here in Florida, all of the black guys at work and myself were hangin out at lunch, laughing at all of the ass holes around the country.

Now I'm sure there are cases of racism around, as there is anywhere else. To deny it exists is just sticking your head in the sand, but what you're talking about here are very few. You have to shove your hand pretty far up your ass to find people who are outright racists these days. That being said, I'm a realist, I know that there are many people who still hold bias, both black and white and yes, even Jews, which is something that can't be controlled. The thing is it is a private thought and many times it only takes a positive personal encounter to turn those feelings around.

As far as anti-semitism, quit fucking whining.
I'm called a wap or a ginny behind my back as often or maybe more than Jews are.

There must be nothing else wrong in this world when we have to worry what an ACTOR, (oh, what a great mind he must have to be an actor) just let the guy act and forget about it.

In the words of the infamous Rodney King; "Can't we all just get along?"

RJ: why would people come to Florida in such droves if it is as it was when I was young? You really have me there.

The expletives are a whole article and not one that would be entertaining. It would be like listing all the words then used to describe African-Americans -- none of which I have ever used except with quotation marks when describing the signs of past times. I would only mention my morning greeting from the coach as "jewboy" and the civics teacher telling us that if "they let niggers in" we students had a right to leave school.

I was not running down Miami which has become international, multi-lingual, vibrant and pleasant. The problems of the South are long-standing and, worse, seem to be growing in the rest of the country as well.

"Can't we all just get along?" Great thought!

However, I take offense that I am "...fucking whining." I survived the comments, taunts and threats of growing up in the South. Anti-Semitic words are just words. Any childhood tussles I probably lost but never backed down. The worst was the constant insults from some teachers.

I didn't whine. I left. I visited to see my family for short visits.

I go to Miami now for its' superb medical facilities.

Clavos, your insightful comments are always appreciated.

As for Mel. He made himself a convenient symbol and a joke.

Howard,
I'm sorry for that, it didnt come across as I intended. It was more along the lies of quit paying attention to the few ignorant ass holes who would be so brazen to display their ignorance in such a public display.
Sometimes I don't kid around properly, my apology.
Peter

I've met quite a few immigrants from Venezuela in Jerusalem. I didn'realize why they were coming here. Now I do. Thanks, Howard.

I remember visiting relatives who moved to Florida in the 1960's and saw the difference between the part of Miami on them mainland, and the part of Miami Beach on the coastal strip. I met Cuban (Jewish) relatives who had fled Castro after he has stolen their business in la Habana.

Apparently, since Chavez is cozying up to the Arab pigs who want us all dead, Venzuelan Jews are figuring out that Caracas might not be the best place to light Sabbath candles...

Hopefully more of them will come here.

I can surely understand Howard's feelings towards anti-Semitism since when unchecked has lead to the Holocaust in the heart of Western civilization, pograms in E. Europe, Inquisitions under Catholic countries worldwide and Crusades in both W. Europe and the Holy Land. I've never noticed absolute genocide attempts towards any other national groups.
I, too, live in Jerusalem and I've noticed that many Argentinians Jews have FAILED in their attempts to move here since they've historically run small businesses and find that difficult to do here.
I must comment on the "Rabbi Jesus" book. I remember asking my first graduate professor, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, what innovation Christianity had over Judaism since all of the lovely ideas that'd we'd been studying in Christianity were actually JEWISH. I'll never forget his response. There was only ONE innovation, he claimed, and that was TURN THE OTHER CHEEK. I asked him if I'd hit him on one cheek if HE would turn his other cheek & the classroom grew very quiet and the unanswering professor very red.
If a Nazi would hit someone on one cheek and the victim turns his other cheek, that's a good way to end up in an oven in Auschwitz.

I'm sure Florida was a racist mess back in the 1930s or 1950s...pretty much all of the South (and a good portion of the North) was openly bigoted back then.

What I am talking about is the present day. South Florida today is a lot more like Long Island than it is Alabama or South Carolina.

I'm sure there are still bigots in Florida, but I'm also sure that there are bigots EVERYWHERE.

As a Florida resident, I am just a bit defensive about attacks on my state. To me, such attacks are almost personal. That's why I do not hesitate to forcefully respond to insinuations that my state is somehow "backwards" compared to other states.

I've lived in the North too. There are just as many problems up there as there are down here.

RJ #9,

With all due respect, your Florida, in the Orlando area, is NOTHING like my Florida (Miami/South Florida), although they are growing more alike daily.

My Florida is part of Florida (and the US) in name only, and I DON'T mean that in a derogatory sense. Miami, as I've written in other threads, is an exciting, colorful, and vibrant city, but it bears little resemblance to the rest of the state.

I was born and grew up in Mexico City. The Miami of today has much more in common with that fine, cosmopolitan city than it does with say, Jacksonville. And I love it that way.

But "Florida" it ain't.

Clavos:

I agree that South Florida is much different from the rest of Florida. In fact, "Florida" is probably one of the most heterogeneous states in the country.

I have done my best to avoid Jacksonville, so I can't really talk about it.

But I've lived in Orlando, and it was pretty cosmopolitan...and high-crime.

Tampa - St. Pete (where I have also lived) reminds me (and not in a good way!) of a blighted Northern city (like Detroit or Cincinnati).

Miami - Ft. Lauderdale (where I have also lived) is a cross between the Caribbean and New York.

The Ocala - Gainesville area (where...uh...I have also lived) is pretty much rural social conservatives with college students mixed in.

The Panhandle of Florida is basically south Georgia and south Alabama.

South-West Florida is a bunch of rich people mixed in with rural Southerners.

But in all my travels throughout this state, I have never once encountered a "hotbed" of anti-Semiticism. Never.

And if it exists, it sure as hell ain't in South-East Florida (which this article is about)...

Clavos, Ruvy and Ra'anan have helped the discussion and my mood. They have the good taste to agree with me.

RJ. You are a resident (and native?) of the Great State of Florida and do a good job of defending its' present image.

I think of Florida from my birth in '47 until I fled in 1966. I managed to avoid Jax for all those years, too, and surely agree with your complimentary view of Tampa. I drove trucks for 8 months when I was 18 for an auto parts outfit from Tampa to Kissimmee, Orlando, Daytona, Melbourne, etc. You just didn't hang out enough with guys who were in the "speed shops" making their 53 Mercs into 'rods with flames on the fenders.

Miami was and is different and, indeed, it is now one of my favorite US cities even if not as beautiful as SF or Boston, as exciting as NY or LA. However, in 1965 my pal at USF took a semester off to work. He was a busboy or caddy at the Doral in Hialeah where my wife and I stayed safely through Hurricane Wilma. Nice place now. My friend came back with $s falling out of his pockets and I said I'd go another semester. No, he warned, "no niggers, Jews or Catholics."

Florida is not always as bad as I remember -- it was my childhood after all -- but it still has its' share of bigotry. So does the North but it comes out quicker and more violently in the South. It even is left on answering machines which may be what attracted me to the story so much.

So, I agree SE Florida is now sophisticated and cosmopolitan. But, under the surface, lie some ugly feelings that man should have eliminated half a century ago.

Howard,

I attended USF from the fall of '66 (fresh back from Vietnam) until I graduated in December '69.

Didn't like Tampa much, but thought the school was great--met my wife there!

Twenty years later, in the late 80's I was transferred back to the bay area by my then employer, but we lived across the bay in Redington Beach--still own the house there, because when we got transferred out to San Antonio, my wife and I so loved the Pinellas beach area we decided to hang on to the house and go back some day.

Haven't done it yet, but maybe someday, if I ever retire.

RJ,

One other point. In #1 you say:

It's just plain silly to call Florida a hotbed of anti-Semitism, seeing as how a very sizable percentage of South Florida's population is Jewish, and wealthy, and successful.

In my experience, living in several areas throughout the US, as well as some foreign countries, prejudice against a given ethnic group is usually strongest in areas where large numbers of that group are found.

There is ant-Semitism in South Florida, though obviously it's not as strong as in years past.

If there is such "widespread" anti-Semiticism in South-East Florida, and yet Jews continue to voluntarily move there in large numbers, and most of them have success in building a life down there (in fact, many become outright wealthy), then it appears that the supposed "rampant" anti-Semiticism of South-East Florida isn't much of a problem then, is it?

All this post cited was a single telephone call from a single person, bereft of an actual transcript. No firebombings of synagogues, no "Jews need not apply" signs outside of businesses. Just a single unintentional voicemail, whose audio contents have not been posted.

Let's just say that I am unimpressed with the "evidence" that Florida is going to become the next Treblinka...