Norman Ciment [former mayor of Miami Beach] : But you asked me one other thing. You asked me what other major event occurred in Miami Beach that turned it around. Do you know what an eruv is?
Kathy Hersh: A what?
Norman Ciment: You ever hear of it? An eruv, e-r-u-v? Let me explain it to you. In the Jewish world the Orthodox Jew is not allowed to carry on the Sabbath. They don't carry keys, they can't wheel a stroller, they can't carry an umbrella, so that prevents them from going very far because they can't carry anything with them. So in the old countries where they lived in these little shtetls or little villages, there is a Rabbinical law that if you put a string or a cord around the city where you live, it encapsulates the community where that string covers and if you live in that type of a community, you're allowed to carry.
I was in office three weeks and there was a very big Rabbinical scholar on Miami Beach, his name was Tibor, Rabbi Tibor Stern. He ran the congregation that was located on 15th and Washington Avenue and he was the head Rabbinical officer for Hebrew National Nationwide in America and he lived on Flamingo Drive where I lived at the same time and I knew him very well. And he came to visit me. And – in office. I was in office three weeks. And he said to me, “Ciment you were not elected simply because you're a good looking guy, you're elected because you're going to bring and build an eruv in Miami Beach". “How am I going to do that?” I said, “That costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. You need cherry picking trucks and you need people to go up and string over all these waterways all over the city.” He says, “Yes, but you're going to change Miami Beach if you do that because you're going to attract thousands and tens of thousands of people who will vacation here, who will live here because you'll have that eruv.” I said, “Well if you raise the money for it I'll be happy to do it,” you know?
About six months later representatives of the union came in and they started talking to me about they need pensions and they need raises. Every time there's a new, a new set of officers that were on Miami Beach the city employees are always coming and asking for more and more and more. It's normal. And they had supported the incumbent not me, but they were telling me how they supported me, you know? It's an interesting part. And I said to them, “What do you guys do for the city that you don't get paid for? Everything you do you're getting paid for and you're getting more than enough right now. Show me something that you do where you're doing it as a community service.” “Well do you want us to do?” I says, 'I’ll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to help the 14 community build an eruv. Let the city contribute the cherry picking trucks, you supervise them and let them put their string around the city. It'll help bring in a whole new element.' The long and short of it was, they did it, they helped it, they built an eruv in Miami Beach and at that point you then had ten kosher hotels that were operating and they were bringing in this element from all over the world because we made the front pages of every one of the major newspapers saying that Miami Beach of all places, the fun and sun capital of America, now had an eruv.
So you had the Saxony, and the Caribbean, the Boulevard, the Crowne, the Days Inn, the Sterling - every one of these hotels were attracting. And then the community started growing because those people that wanted to live in a community that had an eruv were attracted to it. They found it very comfortable to come live here.
