Blazing a Trail

If you have ever visited the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU in Miami Beach, perused the book Jews of Florida: Centuries of Stories, or celebrated Florida Jewish History Month in January, you have Marcia Jo Zerivitz to thank. In fact, most of the documented history of Jews in Florida – and even the national celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month in May – can be attributed fully or in part to her trailblazing work.

Marcia Jo’s efforts and activism span decades, but she can pinpoint exactly when her origin story began.

When her kindergarten class in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, was making Christmas tree decorations, Marcia Jo raised her hand to tell her teacher she didn’t have a tree at home. Teasing from her classmates prompted Marcia Jo to ask her mother why she was different, and that led to them bringing their family hanukkiah to class to explain Hanukkah.

“That was my first lesson in silence is not golden,” says the 86-year-old Marcia Jo, who now lives in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

That experience also convinced her family – the only Jewish one in town – to move the following year to Charleston, West Virginia, which had 900 Jews at the time. Charleston provided the close-knit Jewish community the family was seeking and the opportunity for Marcia Jo to engage in Jewish rituals, education, and leadership.

A Leader, Not a Follower

“Every organization I joined, I became president,” she says. “I was chosen to be the leader.”

Marcia Jo remembers her rabbi explaining that working for Jewish organizations was one way to embody the Torah’s lessons and take on the collective responsibility for all Jewish people. That message would remain influential in her life.

After graduating from high school, Marcia Jo attended West Virginia University, where she was president of Hillel and started the first Jewish sorority when the other sororities wouldn’t allow Jewish students.

“Everywhere I went, I wanted to be sure there was a Jewish life there,” says Marcia Jo.

After marrying her high-school sweetheart and moving to Orlando as a military wife in 1965, she volunteered with, fundraised for, or helped start almost every Jewish organization in town. That included ORT, a global Jewish educational network; Hadassah; Israel Bonds; and AIPAC, America’s pro-Israel lobby. Marcia Jo was also a founder of the Hebrew Day School (now Gotlib Jewish Academy) and helped launch the TOP Jewish Foundation. She was often the first woman serving in these leadership roles. As a representative of ORT, she was invited to sit on the Jewish Community Council, which became the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando.

In 1974, Marcia Jo was asked to serve on the newly launched women’s division of the United Jewish Appeal Young Leadership Cabinet. She remembers the women being asked why they were involved in the Jewish community.

Continuity Issues

“They talked about Jewish relatives in places with long established Jewish communities,” recalls Marcia Jo, “but we didn’t have that depth of generations [in Florida], and I got concerned about how we were going to have Jewish continuity. We don’t have enough people before us to lead the way and teach us how to be Jewish.”

At a leadership retreat in the mid-1970s, Marcia Jo heard a powerful message from Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, who cofounded CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership with Elie Wiesel and Rabbi Steven Shaw.

“Rabbi Greenberg taught us if your memories are Jewish, you will be Jewish,” she says. “I thought that said it all.”

As Marcia Jo traveled throughout Florida in her roles with ORT and Israel Bonds, she realized Jewish Floridians’ memories had not been documented.

“I was appalled,” she says. “We Jews in Florida had no history. How were we going to continue if we had no Jewish history?”

A Monumental Task

After working on community development for the Jewish Federation, Marcia Jo became its president and then its associate executive director. In 1986, she served as the capital campaign leader to expand the campus into what is now Shalom Orlando. Around this time, the Soref JCC in Greater Fort Lauderdale had received a grant from the Florida Humanities Council to record the history of the Jews in Florida.

“I was invited to a meeting, where I talked a lot and was asked to head the project,” says Marcia Jo.

That meant not only researching the history but also raising additional money to document everything. Marcia Jo got to work. She set up task forces in 32 communities across the state and created outlines and instructions to help them collect photographs and artifacts.

Marcia Jo ended up raising $2 million, traveling 250,000 miles between 1984 and 1992, and recruiting volunteers to collect Florida’s hidden Jewish history from more than 250 years – all through grassroots research before the advent of Google and laptops. This work became MOSAIC: Jewish Life in Florida, an exhibit that traveled to 13 cities between 1990 and 1994. Marcia Jo created the individual displays and educational materials for each community.

A Pioneer’s Work Is Never Done

However, she knew the traveling exhibit needed and deserved a permanent home. Through more fundraising efforts and grants (most of which she wrote), Marcia Jo raised $36 million to house the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU in two restored former synagogues on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum opened in 1995 and is believed to be the first in the United States to document a single ethnic group’s history in one state.

Marcia Jo’s work did not end there. She initiated the legislation for Florida Jewish History Month (January) that was signed into law by Governor Jeb Bush in 2003. This made Florida the first state in the country to have a designated Jewish History Month.

In 2005, Marcia Jo met Debbie Wasserman Schultz – the first Jewish woman from Florida elected to Congress – and the two played key roles in establishing May as the national month honoring Jewish history. Through bipartisan legislation, Jewish American Heritage Month was established in 2006 through proclamation by President George W. Bush.

Marcia Jo retired from the museum in 2011 and moved to St. Pete Beach with her second husband, Elliott, who passed away in January of this year. She helped curate and wrote the exhibit catalog for Kehillah: A History of Jewish Life in Orlando, which was on display at the Orange County Regional History Center from November 2017 to February 2018. Because exhibits come and go, Marcia Jo then focused her efforts on writing Jews of Florida: Centuries of Stories, which was published in 2020. Today, she continues to write articles, lecture on Zoom or close to home, and spend time with her children and grandchildren.

“I’ve done all of this all these years to build a defense against antisemitism to help ensure Jewish continuity. Antisemites want to erase Jewish history; they want to silence us. It is most important now to be more Jewish – know our history and what Jews have contributed to make this world a better place – even for those who hate us. Many American Jews, mostly young people, don’t know our history or why Israel was established in 1948 at a time when no country in the world wanted Jews. It’s happening again – and we are not prepared. Jews are like cut flowers. We wither and die without roots. Our collective memories and history are our roots to grow the next generations of Jews.”