All right, welcome. I am your host for this series
of podcasts. My name is Iqbal Akhtar. I'm here
in Miami. And we're very honored to have Joe
Jacoby, who is one of the preeminent leaders
of the Jewish community here in Miami. And I'll
let him introduce himself in terms of his background.
But we first want to just... talk through a little
bit of your history, your background, and then
how you came to kind of interfaith work and why
you think these things are important, and then
kind of thinking about where does the future
of our community lie. So if you can just start
us off a little bit about your own background.
I'm a native Miamian. I grew up here. I was a
graduate of public school. which you don't see
much of anymore here. And I matriculated from
high school to the University of Florida, and
I came back to Miami to find a career, which
I found. I was accepted to a law school in Houston,
Texas, because my entire family are lawyers,
and it wasn't for me. So I went in a different
direction, and I found a great career, and I
worked at it for 50 years in Miami, and I sold
my business in 2017. And I went to work for the
company, the national company that bought it,
and I was with them for another three years.
And at the pandemic date, I was able to walk
away. And so I've been able to pour myself into
the work that we've been doing together. And
it's wonderful to have a trusted partner to do
that. No, absolutely. It's been really remarkable.
Talk to us a little bit. How has, well, I guess
Miami changed from the time that you were young
until today. It's a different city. Well, it
was so small. There was maybe a quarter of a
million people here. Now there's millions. But
my high school graduation class was about 1 ,150
students. So it was rather large. It's a public
school. And the Jewish community was very, I
would say, small and very, I would say, isolated
from the community in a lot of ways, which was
never one of my comfort zones. I've always wanted
to be a member of the community. So I think maybe
that's where some of my instincts and some of
my energy has come from. to do the work that
we're doing. But it was a great community in
those days, very small. And I have fond memories
of growing up in Miami, Florida. And when you
see somebody at my age that says they were born
here, it's very unusual. But like for my kids,
who were both born here, you know, it's not very
unusual. It's changed. So what brought the Jewish
community to Miami? Well, in 19, my parents,
excuse me, my father and his family moved here
from Pensacola, Florida, which had a much bigger
Jewish community at that time. There was this
Jewish community in the south that stretched
from Atlanta to New Orleans, and Mobile, Alabama,
and Pensacola, and my great -grandfather was
a... you know a shop owner you know he was a
he was a merchant and he had a store in Mobile
Alabama and then my grandfather who I'm named
for saw opportunity in Pensacola because they
opened up a naval air base there and they opened
up a bar and package store you know liquor and
so they and then the children of that of my you
know for my grandparents My father and his sister
and his brothers moved to Miami because there
was opportunity in Miami. So that's when I think
the Jewish community kind of began to take off
was about 1926. Okay. It goes way back. Yeah,
I mean, I know the community in New Orleans is
also quite old. Very old. Yeah, and there's a
lot of institutions that are there as well. Marcia
Zerowitz. who ran the Jewish Museum of South
Florida. She put a book together called The Jews
of Florida, and my family is in that book. Oh,
that's amazing. It goes way back. So I know there
is also a history of discrimination against Jews,
not just in Florida, but in the South especially.
I can give you two very quick stories regarding
anti -Semitism. When my mother and father married,
they wanted to live in what is now Coral Gables.
And there were signs in front of apartment buildings
that said, Gentiles only, no Jews allowed. And
we have pictures of that. I have images of that
that my mother took because she couldn't believe
it. And they were astounded at that time. And
then if you fast forward to, I would say, 15
years ago, 20 years ago, I got a phone call on
my way to play golf in Miami, going to Miami
Beach. And it was my mom, a blessed memory. And
she goes, where are you going? And I go, I'm
going to go play golf at Lagorse Country Club.
And she goes, oh, honey, you can't play there.
Because that was a Gentile -only golf club, which
has changed. It's changed. But that's what it
was like in Miami for her in that era. And it
had changed in my era. So there was hope, I guess
you could say. So what is, you know, getting
to that topic of anti -Semitism, what does that
look like today? It's taken on a very strange
perspective. If you interchange Jew for Zionist
or Zionist for Jew, that's where the problem,
I think, is the crux of the problem because you
can be both. You can be a Jew and you can be
a Zionist. You can be a Gentile and be a Zionist.
The problem is that for the anti -Semitism today,
it's kind of lumped into one thought. And that's
just inaccurate. And sadly, it's what I think
is driving the social media that we see, most
of the anti -Semitism that we see in social media.
With you sort of being raised in Miami, your
children, of course, being born here and living
now away from Florida, how has their relationship
to Judaism and the Jewish identity shifted over
the generations? It's really portable. Both of
my kids went to Beth Am, Temple Beth Am, which
I'm a member of. There's also a day school at
Beth Am, and they both attended the day school
there, the Hebrew day school, the Rambam day
school. And now I have one daughter that lives
in Atlanta, Georgia, and we have two grandchildren
there, and my granddaughter, She's eight years
old. She's attending religious school at The
Temple in Atlanta. And my four -year -old grandson,
he doesn't really go to any religious school
yet, but he will. That's where they'll go. They're
members of The Temple. And my daughter that lives
in Connecticut, lives in Westport, Connecticut,
they're members of Temple Israel. And my grandson
goes to the religious school there. I mean, my
granddaughter goes to the religious school, and
my grandson goes to day school there. Okay. So
it's portable. It's whatever we were able to
transmit in the beauty of living a Jewish life
and having them grow up in Miami at Temple Beth
Am has really kind of, you know, they're both
seeking that for their own lives and for their
own children. What are, for you, the core values
of being Jewish? The core values of being a Jew?
There's so many, but I think that in the Torah,
and I know you know these things, because you
and I have had these conversations, one of the
most used comments or used sayings in the Torah
is that, you know, be kind to strangers because
you were a stranger in a strange land. And I
think that opens up to community. I think, you
know, and I believe that's what the Torah...
which was given to us, it's about building community.
And when you say build community, that means
everybody in the community, you know. And so
that's a core value for sure. And then, you know,
the most core value of all, you know, you want
to treat people the way you want to be treated.
And I think that's a core value. You've seen
a lot of stages in terms of the development of
the United States also throughout the course
of your life and of course your family's time
and presence in the South. Where is the United
States headed as a society? We seem to be real
divided, siloed. You hear all of these buzzwords.
But I don't think it's really as unusual as people
want to make it or as social media makes it.
I think that that's pretty much the way it was
before the Civil War and drove us to a Civil
War. I think that we've been this way on many
issues over the course of the lifetime of the
United States. But this has a more insidious
feel to me. And that I follow social media because
I'm working in this area with regard to anti
-Semitism and trying to build community with
other people, other than Jews. And the social
media drives this hate like nothing I've ever
experienced before in my life. And it's alarming.
I mean, it's alarming. which makes the work that
we do even more important. It drives me to work
on this and to be a part of it and to try to
have, if I can have a conversation with one person
and change their mind about what maybe a Jew
is, or maybe together we change the minds of
how people view Jews and Muslim people and even
the Christians that live in our community. then
I think our job is not complete by any means,
but, you know, we're on the right track. What
is, so with regards to social media, what do
you think, so if you had the ability to change
kind of the way that people use technology or
the way that people... the way the tech companies
kind of have organized their social media, what
do you think would be a good either cultural
or policy solution to kind of the polarization?
Boy, that's a mouthful. I think that maybe age
should have something to do with this. Okay.
Where people have access or limited access depending
on the age. I think that's important. And then
I think... Education, education, education. The
more you know about somebody else, the easier
it is for you to have a better understanding
of who those people are. And it kind of assuages
the hate mongers that tell you differently in
social media. And again, I wouldn't know how
you prevent that, but I would think that they...
If it wasn't about money and those people in
social media, and we know who they all are, if
they were to look at that, they could certainly
come up with algorithms, in my opinion, that
could change that model. So how do you affect
that kind of change? Iqbal, with all due respect
to you and the educators in the world, I have
no idea how we would do that. So in terms of
education, I mean, one of the things that I think
is important for me and I think for a lot of
us is thinking about character formation and
sort of how do we produce the next generation
with people, with, you know, solid values, right,
in terms of respect, in terms of humility. Some
of these values are important to all of our traditions.
And a lot of times, I think, unfortunately, nowadays,
the education, especially secular education,
just tends to focus on kind of mastery of certain
types of knowledge. But sort of that character
formation part of it is either left for religious
institutions, for families, or it just doesn't
happen. What are your thoughts on kind of character
formation? I think there's a certain amount of
that certainly in your DNA, and you're not going
to be able to duck that. But I think that it
starts with family, and I think that it's a learned
tradition in most cases. And then I think that
you have to be a lifelong learner, and you have
to have an open mind, and you have to be able
to accept all these people in the community as
your equal and understand that they have. their
known or their their truths and you have yours
but doesn't mean that you don't communicate with
them it doesn't mean you don't try to build a
community with them and try to make it a better
place um so i you know to answer your question
directly i think it's it you know i um come from
the perspective of of learning and of torah so
that's what was given to me but i have and as
we've had these discussions i'm reading the quran
right okay and Most of our biblical stories are
in the Quran. In fact, I think it was you that
told me that Moses gets mentioned more than the
prophet in the Quran. And there's some commonality
there. So there's something there that you can
build up of without having to even have the meetings
and the conversations that we've been lucky to
have that I believe. brought us to this moment.
Absolutely. I agree. I know you've traveled the
world as well, and you've been to many different
places. We talked very briefly about China. What
is the place that you have traveled to that has
had the most impact in terms of your... India.
Okay. Talk to us a little bit about that. India
is a... They have a caste system. You're probably
aware of that. But they have quite a community
there. And they look after one another in a lot
of different ways, which I found interesting.
But I found it to be a very spiritual place.
And I found it to be where a lot of people go,
I wouldn't want to be there. I wouldn't want
to go there. I found it to be, it assaulted my
senses in every aspect. And I found the people
to be incredible, and they're all living their
truths, too, because they have a Muslim population
there, and they have a Hindu population there,
and they have the Sikh population there. I mean,
there are so many, and that's what I found really
most interesting, is they had all of these different
groups, and they were all kind of, they weren't,
I believe, as divided as we are in the United
States. So that was appealing to me. Okay. You
know, and I would go, I want to go back. I would
go back to India in a minute. Okay. Yeah. That's
wonderful. Yeah. You were also the leader of,
you were the head of the Temple Bethan here.
What are some of the accomplishments that you
were most proud of and some of the challenges
that you had also leading the community, which
I'm sure there were quite a number of those as
well. Yeah, Beth -Am's a complicated place. It's
one of the largest synagogues in the southeast,
and we have now close to 2 ,000 families. So
the impact that you can have at Beth -Am, if
you think about it, an average -sized family
of four, you're looking at a lot of people in
one place. And the challenges are many. Back
in my day, my wife, as you know, was just installed
as the current president of Bethlehem. But I
did this when I was like 45. I did it like 30
years ago. So it was a completely different place.
We had the day school. The day school drove the
synagogue. It still does today. That's where
all the money comes from, basically, to do all
the programming that we do, the compelling program
that we do. And we were blessed because of that.
But the challenges are like any challenge in
any community with different personalities and
things like that. But I guess I felt that there
was a shortage of leadership in the synagogue.
I think there still is. And I never... wanted
to be the president of the congregation, but
I think that during my period or my era, the
music stopped and everybody jumped in the scene.
So I took the position on. But it was a challenge,
but I grew as a person from it, and I don't know
that I became a more spiritual person from it
because it's the business side of religion. I
would prefer to be studying and learning than
administrating. And my wife has a significant,
her budget is twice the size of the budget that
I had when I was president. And so she's got
her hands full and she's got more meetings than
I think I had back in the day. But it was, there
were highs and lows. The highs were great and
the lows were bad. And it's a one -time deal.
You never want to do that again. I can imagine.
Two more questions. One is in terms of this conversation
that we're having, the ongoing conversation between
Islam and Judaism, what are some of the things
that you want to learn more about? As you know,
I'm studying, I wouldn't use the word study.
I'm reading the Quran. I'm not studying it. To
study it, I would need a study partner, which
I might engage you in at some point. But I'm
reading it. And I think that's the first step.
I think that you've got to walk in somebody else's
shoes to understand and then be able to communicate
and then to be able to build from that. As we
have done with this work that we've been doing
you can't just jump into it. It's not something
that You have to build trust right and if you
don't build the trust then you can't you can't
build anything beyond that and I'm I'm convinced
that That if you can communicate with your neighbor,
and if you can understand your neighbor then
you can build something that we need to see happen
in the United States and in the universe as well.
And that is just compassion and love for one
another. Absolutely. Last question. What message
do you want to relay to your great -grandchildren?
That I tried. I put my best foot forward. I gave
it 100 % effort. And I believe, I hope that they
will see the value in having a cohesive community
where everybody has respect for one another.
And you're hopeful about the future? Indeed.
Okay. Yes. I have five grandchildren, and I see
the future in there. and their faces that's good
and i'm and and what i see makes my day okay
that's wonderful well thank you so much for your
time i really appreciate you coming out here
thank you it's always a pleasure to be with you
and to work with you thank you so much