A place where people can ‘be proud of their Judaism.’ Cutler Bay approves first synagogue

The only synagogue in Cutler Bay is easy to miss.

It’s in a strip mall sandwiched between a massage spa and Chopsticks House restaurant to the left, and a bank and Wingstop to the right.

Rabbi Yossi Wolff and his wife, Mindy, executive directors of the Chabad of Homestead & Cutler Bay, have operated out of that location since 2010.

Now they’re ready for an upgrade.

“We outgrew this place,” said Rabbi Wolff. “It’s really not ideal.”

In 2020, the Chabad, which is an Orthodox movement, found another location, purchasing a 1.14-acre property that’s less than a five-minute drive from the strip mall where it leases the small storefront. The Chabad will now have what their attorney Miguel Diaz de la Portilla described in a Town Council meeting as a “permanent and dignified home” for the synagogue — the first in Cutler Bay.

After nine months of public meetings, the Cutler Bay Town Council in October approved a zoning change that converted the land from single-family residential to institutional, permitting the construction of a building for religious use, and variances that allowed an institutional structure on about 1.1 acres despite the minimum lot size requirement of 5 acres.

“It proved to be quite challenging to get it,” Wolff said of the approval.

The zoning change comes amid growing development in the town of about 45,000. A $1 billion redevelopment of Southland Mall is expected to break ground next year. Mayor Tim Meerbott hopes that project will make Cutler Bay the “economic engine” and “geographic hub” of South Miami-Dade County.

READ MORE: Will Cutler Bay be Miami-Dade’s next boomtown?

A plan to build 196 apartments for the age-55-and-older community has been approved, and the town recently held its first public workshop to discuss a proposal for another 760-unit development comprised of four apartment buildings.

The zoning change allows the Chabad to tear down the existing 1951 house and build a synagogue on the property, create an entrance directly off Old Cutler Road and build a parking lot with 15 spaces.

On the new property, a squat brick-colored bungalow is partially camouflaged in the lush yard shaded by native gumbo limbo trees, where monstera plants stand 4 feet high and fallen sprouted coconuts threaten to trip passersby.

Construction is planned on the new site for a courtyard-style building, which will have an east-facing sanctuary space, classrooms, an office for the rabbi, a multipurpose meeting room and a mikveh, which is a ritual bath.

While the scale of the Chabad is smaller than other projects proposed in the town, the zoning change tapped into a fear among some residents that the small town charm that drew them to Cutler Bay could be slipping away.

“My biggest concern is just setting a precedent. I know many of the developers are watching this closely,” resident Daniel Watson said at the Oct. 19 council meeting. “Once this goes through, then what leaves anybody unable to checkerboard single-family neighborhoods with institutional use buildings, whether they’re for wonderful uses or not?”

‘Some much-needed religious diversity’

Over 123,000 Jews live in Miami-Dade County, making it the 11th-largest Jewish population in the United States, according to a 2019 study by the Berman Jewish DataBank.

Ira Sheskin, one of the researchers for that 2019 study who is the director of the University of Miami’s Jewish Demography Project, also conducts the Greater Miami Jewish Federation Population Study every 10 years. In 2014 — the most recent year the population survey was conducted — there were approximately 36,500 Jews living in South Dade. That reflected a 4% decrease from 38,200 in the prior study conducted in 2004.

“South Dade was the young Jewish community, and Miami Beach was the old place. It’s switched now. Now Miami Beach is the young, hip place to be, and South Dade is now the old place,” Sheskin said.

Wolff said he was motivated to build a permanent location in Cutler Bay because of the smaller Jewish presence in the region.

“Typically the numbers are less down here compared to Miami Beach or North Miami Beach, which is the reason that we’re here: to make a Jewish identity,” Wolff said.

In pressing for the zoning change, attorneys for the Chabad argued that it’s difficult to establish new religious institutions in Cutler Bay.

In an Aug. 30 letter to the town attorney, Franklin Zemel writing on behalf of the Chabad said Cutler Bay’s zoning code “was designed to make it essentially impossible for new religious assembly to enter the Town.”

“This conclusion is supported by the fact that, according to its own public records,” Zemel wrote, “the Town has only issued two certificates of occupancy for religious assembly since the Town’s inception nearly twenty years ago, and one of those is for our Client to operate in a leased store-front.”

Wolff said regular Saturday services typically draw about 20 to 25 people, and that as many as 60 to 70 can show up on High Holy Days like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In some instances he’s had to rent an air-conditioned tent in his backyard to accommodate the crowd.

“I’ve been in a lot of synagogues over the years, but this is probably one of the happiest synagogues,” Melvyn Greenstein, a longtime Chabad attendee and Pinecrest resident, said.

The new location will have room for approximately 80 people. The increased space is a “dream come true,” Wolff said.

Next-door neighbor Bobby Hartwell had concerns about the planned site, saying the capacity is “extreme for the size, shape and character of the property.”

“The density of this project is unacceptable and raises many concerns such as privacy, parking, traffic that will increase and overflow parking,” Hartwell said at the Oct. 19 Town Council meeting where the project was approved.

Rene Luis Lopez-Guerrero said he has no issue with the Chabad being built in Cutler Bay, but that the project is too large for the location.

“It will change the nature and the feel of the neighborhood,” he said. “If this is allowed, then what’s going to stop my neighbor across the street from doing something similar?”

During that meeting, the opponents were outnumbered by the supporters, including resident Naeem Ramatally, who said he travels to Perrine to attend a mosque, and that the Chabad is a “great opportunity to add some much-needed religious diversity” to Cutler Bay.

Pastor Robert Augi of the Cutler Bay Worship Center, a church about a quarter-mile from the Chabad’s new location, also expressed support.

“I can’t speak to much more than just the reality of being a good neighbor,” Augi said.

Town Councilman Roger Coriat pointed to other major developments underway.

“I cannot even fathom what the transformation of Southland Mall will mean for the town and for South Dade as a whole. And I could go on and on,” he said.

“We will have the only synagogue, I think, south of Perrine,” Coriat later added. “This will be something else for us to be proud of … I think it will be a token to what our community has achieved.”