In September 2023, I met Gabriel Groisman at a “health and wellness” café called Pura Vida, just across Indian Creek from the Miami Beach village of Bal Harbour, where Groisman—a genial 43-year-old lawyer and father of five—served as mayor from 2016 to 2022. We drank smoothies in white wicker chairs under spiky seagrass lampshades, and he told me why Miami is the best place in the United States to be Jewish.
“Just in the Bal Harbour area, there’s five synagogues, and if you count the minyans, there’s even more,” he said. “I could walk into the Syrian synagogue or the Moroccan synagogue or the Chabad or the ultra-Orthodox meeting at the hotel here, and it’s the same response. They’ll invite you to their homes. If you’re single, they’ll find you a girlfriend. It’s a very welcoming community.” …..more