January is FLORIDA JEWISH HISTORY MONTH by Marina Berkovich

Florida celebrates its Jewish History in a month of January since 2003. Florida became the first state to formally recognize Jewish contributions and celebrating their impact on state’s development. Governor Jeb Bush signed it into law, culminating a concerted effort led by Marcia Jo Zerivitz, founder of Jewish Museum of Florida. Following Florida’s discovery by Ponce de Leon for Spain in 1513 during the Inquisition, Jews were not allowed to settle in Florida for 250 years. First recorded Jewish settlers arrived in 1763 to the Panhandle region, after British takeover.

SWFL Jewish timeline begins with Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, later General, Abraham C. Myers, who served in the United States Army as Chief Quartermaster of the Department of Florida under Brigadier General David Emanuel Twiggs’s command in Fort Brooke, now Tampa. 39-years-old Myers, a West Point graduate and Seminole Wars veteran, descendent from Jewish-Americans of South Carolina religious and political prominence. He was most prominently honored by having a new fort named after him on February 14, 1850. This fort was just rebuilt on the Caloosahatchee River after the previous two forts that the U.S. Army built and operated there were destroyed: Fort Dulaney, in Punta Rassa, by a hurricane in 1841; and then Fort Harvie, built in 1841 and abandoned in 1842 at the end of the Second Seminole War, and subsequently burned, presumably by the local tribes. Then, amid preparations for Abraham Myers marriage to Twiggs daughter Marion, a southern belle of 17, and to everyone’s surprise, the new fort was named after the soon-to-be General Twiggs’s son-in-law, and thus the City of Fort Myers was officially begat. Newly relocating SWFL residents love this historical fact. Named after a Jewish man? Not uniquely unfathomable fact that is precious to the Jews but may not be so to the non-Jews.

Myers’ life, like most lives of the time, was subjected to twists and turns of the still new United States, complicated by the Civil War, his Southern honor, and his young bride’s sharp tongue. Marion offended General Davis’s wife, Varina, who had Native American blood in her veins. Myers, a Southern gentleman, served as Confederacy’s first Quartermaster General and since his professional responsibilities were to supply the army with necessary provision, a fete that became quite impossible during blockade, the “blame the Jew” movement was vocalized in many circles and in the press. Myers was ousted and replaced by Jefferson Davis’s appointee Alexander Lawson, following a loud process in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia in 1863. Everyone understood that to be an act of retaliation for Marion’s prior racially-slanted remarks against Varina. Early in 1864 Myers refused to serve under Lawson, causing many to blame Myers for the ultimate loss. Myers’ son, Lieutenant General John Twiggs Myers, a famed US Naval hero, was born in Germany, where the Myers’ family was exiled until 1876.

Marina Berkovich Founder/President/CEO and her husband, Alex Goldstein Founder JHSSWF

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The Jewish Historical Society of Southwest Florida

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