The Big Read 2025: Walking Tour: Jewish Miami Beach – A Century of Community, Culture & Change
Join us for an immersive, multisensory exploration of the historic Jewish presence in South Beach, tracing the rise, evolution, and enduring legacy of the Jewish community in Miami Beach over the past 100 years. Examined through the lens of how neighborhoods inform identity – inspired by Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street – this walking tour delves into how Miami’s Jewish communities helped shape the cultural and architectural fabric of South Beach and invites participants to experience the neighborhood as a living archive, where architecture, memory, history, and culture intersect.
Highlights include:
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A walking tour of Jewish Miami Beach, led by Howard Brayer of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU.
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Reflections on Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself and the post-war Jewish experience.
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A look at Andy Sweet’s vivid photographs documenting the 1970s retiree community.
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An exploration of historic synagogue buildings now home to the Jewish Museum, and exhibitions like MOSAIC, which chronicles more than 250 years of Jewish life in Florida through stories and artifacts from India, Colombia, Venezuela, and Cuba.
This tour is fully ADA-compliant. Please bring a water bottle, sunscreen, a hat, and comfortable walking shoes.
Presented as part of the 2025 NEA Big Read Miami in partnership with the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
El proyecto NEA Big Read es una iniciativa del National Endowment for the Arts (el Fondo Nacional para las Artes de Estados Unidos) en cooperación con Arts Midwest.
