Palm Beach: Ground zero

"It used to be very tough to be a Jew here," says Ken Swart, spokesman for the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, based in Boca Raton. "If you go back to Boca Raton in the 1960s this used to be a restricted city. No Jews allowed. If you tried to buy a house or join a golf club, forget it," Swart says.

But the barriers came down during the 1960s. Today, some 130,000 Jews live in a three-town area in and around Boca Raton, and they comprise 43 percent of the population. According to local Jewish organizations, it's the fastest growing Jewish community in the United States.

Another 101,000 Jews live in the rest of the county. In Boynton Beach alone, the Jewish population grew from 9,262 in 1987 to 37,444 today, according to the Jewish Federation. Some 10,000 Jews live in one sprawling condominium complex called Century Village between West Palm Beach and the sugar cane fields to the west.

"We're about 65 to 70 percent Jewish here out of a total of 14,000 people, with a sizable Italian population as well," says Marvin Zwiebach, president of the congregation at Synagogue Anshei Sholom, which is within the walled complex. "The people who have come here, both Jews and non-Jews, come from the northeast mostly and some from Chicago. Those people tend to be liberal. And that has been liberalizing the southern part of Florida."

Zwiebach, who always wears a yarmulke and a guayabera, stands next to a shrine in the synagogue dedicated to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Asked about almost 200 votes that were recorded at Century Village for Pat Buchanan, Zwiebach shakes his head.

"Bush maybe -- some of my best friends are Republicans -- but Buchanan never," he says, attributing the votes to the confusing ballot.

Kurt Weiss, president of the United Civic Organizations at the village, scoffs at the totals. "The people here who are truly for Buchanan, you could fit them in a phone booth," Weiss says. "They screwed up the ballot ... We need a fair vote."

About 10 miles away in Riviera Beach, a town of some 30,000 people 70 percent of whom are black, the Rev. Herman McCray says he believes the balloting process was unfair. McCray's barbecue ribs takeout business looks out on a weedy road called Old Dixie Highway.

McCray, 59, who was born in the county, doesn't just see Old Dixie here; he lived it -- and not that long ago, he says.

"Thirty years ago, there was still an ordinance in force in this town that said blacks couldn't go to the white beaches." Sitting on a tree stump on the porch of his business, he points to the remnants of a 4-foot-high cinder block wall next to his building. "That wall right there used to divide the black community here from the white community. That's why they built it. That was in the '50s. You went over that wall into the white neighborhood, they drove you out of there or they arrested you ... You talk about racism? It was here ... and it's still here in this election."

In 1967, the town experienced a major race riot -- a low point in local political history. But little by little, blacks became the majority in Riviera Beach, and in 1970 it became the first town in Florida with a significant racial mix to have a majority of blacks on its town council. The "wall" came down.

"Because we're the majority here, people in Riviera Beach are used to their vote making a difference, on the local level especially," said McCray. He said in the national race between Gore and Bush those black voters also have crucial interests that demand a revote.

"We've seen what Bush's brother has done here in Florida," he says, referring to Gov. Jeb Bush. "We've seen him propose a plan which he calls affirmative action but really just snuffs out affirmative action. We expect his brother to do the same. Just like their daddy did. Who else but George Bush could have put somebody like Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court? We don't need more."

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