Surfside’s Jewish community grows closer after tower collapse: ‘It’s three degrees of separation’

According to Ira Sheskin, a professor in the geography department at the University of Miami who has done 50 demographic studies of U.S. Jewish communities, the four towns that make up the North Beach Zip code 33154 (Surfside, Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands and tiny Indian Creek) have a total population of about 14,600, of which 5,000 are Jewish. He says 34 percent of that number describe themselves as Orthodox, 24 percent as Conservative, 18 percent as Reform and 24 percent as “just Jewish.”