‘A quiet giant,’ former Florida Rep. Murray Dubbin, a Miami Beach city attorney, dies at 93
Murray Dubbin was described as a “mensch in capital letters” by a friend and fellow founder from the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. She loved him.
The Yiddish mensch, familiar from much usage in American English, is “a person of integrity and honor.”
Author Marcia Zerivitz’s description sounds about right when discussing Murray Dubbin, who died under hospice care at his North Miami home at age 93 on Oct. 5, according to his son Sam Dubbin.
Dubbin was born to a pioneering Miami Jewish family in Miami on Aug. 1, 1929. He was a member of the Florida Legislature for 12 years between 1963 and 1974, where, among other achievements, he was chairman of the Constitutional Revision Committee that created the 1968 Florida Constitution.
When Dubbin was elected to the Florida Legislature in 1963, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Baker v. Carr that required the state to increase the representation of urban populations in the Legislature, Dubbin was one of the first two Jewish men from South Florida elected to the Florida Legislature, according to Zerivitz, the founding executive director of the Jewish Museum. The other? Louis Wolfson.
“That long to get a Jew elected from South Florida? Really remarkable,” Zerivitz said.
“When I think of Murray I think of sweetness and caring and pride and love for all the institutions and the family — he was just a very special man,” Zerivitz said.
CREATING MIAMI INSTITUTIONS
For her book, “Jews of Greater Miami” (Arcadia Publishing, 2009), Zerivitz put Murray’s mother,
Ruth Belle Zion, on the cover in an image that is so Florida. She’s holding an alligator. Her father, Murray’s maternal grandfather, Morris Zion, a clothing merchant in Key West, founded a synagogue in the
Keys in 1887.
Soon after settling in Miami, Zion was one of the founders of Congregation B’nai Zion in 1912. Now known as Temple Beth David, it was the first synagogue in Miami, Zerivitz said.
“He was just very, very proud of his heritage,” Zerivitz said of Dubbin. “His family has a very proud history and he was very eager to share that and is probably why he wanted to get so involved in the [museum] project.”
During his tenure in Florida’s Legislature, Dubbin was instrumental in the creation of Florida International University between 1965 and 1972.
As a result, in 1974, Gov. Reubin Askew appointed Dubbin — a graduate of Miami Senior High and the University of Florida undergraduate and law schools — to the Board of Regents of the State University System. Dubbin served a term as chairman until the early 1980s. There, Dubbin authored legislation to reform and equalize funding of capital outlays for Florida’s education budget in a state funding formula that came to be known as the “Dubbin Act.”
“He was a quiet giant in terms of taking care of business,” said former Florida Rep. Elaine Bloom, who was first elected to the Florida House in 1974. She retired as president and CEO of Plaza Health Network, a South Florida network of skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities, in 2021.
“He was phenomenal. Because of him FIU was built the way it started. He was a tremendous supporter of civil rights, of equal rights for women, and of justice. He was a real fighter,” Bloom said.
BATTLING INJUSTICE
Martin Dyckman, a retired associate editor of the former St. Petersburg Times and a freelance political writer, recalled writing a multi-part series the St. Petersburg Times had assigned to him on Florida’s prison system in 1971.
“Murray tipped me to one of my best stories during the prison series,” Dyckman told the Miami Herald Friday.
According to Dyckman, a teen had been sentenced to two years in Apalachee Correctional Institution for one marijuana cigarette. At Apalachee, the boy was raped by three inmates and he testified against them. They were convicted, which meant the teen had to be kept in protective isolation for the rest of his sentence lest he be murdered.
“When he wrote to the sorry-ass parole commission, all he got back was a letter saying, ‘I hope you and drugs have parted company forever.’
Enter Murray, who sought out Dyckman to tell him of the case, after the boy’s mother went to Murray to plead for his help.
“Murray gave hell to the parole commission, which let the kid out,” Dyckman said in an email to the Herald.
“That was unusual, because politicians who pulled strings with the bureaucracy commonly didn’t want it known. Murray’s point was that it shouldn’t have taken intervention from an influential figure like him for the agency to do the right thing,” Dyckman said.
“Murray lived a long life and should be remembered as a major figure in the progressive reforms of the 1970s ... and what we wistfully refer to as the Golden Age of Florida politics and government,” Dyckman said. “I suppose it troubled him greatly, as it does so many of us, to see what’s happened since, but perhaps the legacy of those times will eventually inspire a better future. He was nearly the last man standing.”
ERA FIGHT
Dubbin’s son Sam, an attorney in government law and civil litigation in Coral Gables, remembers watching his father give the concluding argument in favor of passage of the Equal Rights Amendment on the House floor in 1973.
“He was the chairman of the Rules Committee, which meant he really controlled how things were going on in the Florida House of Representatives. He put it on the agenda,” Bloom said of Dubbin’s push to pass the ERA.
Dubbin quoted legal precedents, eminent statesmen of many eras, and the Passover Hagaddah as sources of authority to support the expansion of human liberty in every generation, his son said.
“When the vote failed, I understood, as he surely did before beginning the speech, that the fight for justice was, and would remain, never-ending,” Sam Dubbin said.
The senior Dubbin had met his wife, Helene Shonbrun of Tampa, when she was studying at the University of Florida in 1950. They wed after her sophomore year. She put her studies on hold, finishing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work at FIU in the early 1970s when their four children were growing up.
Dubbin’s biggest career disappointment was the House’s failure to approve the Equal Rights Amendment for women, his son said. But that didn’t dissuade Dubbin in how he conducted his personal life.
“Dad was a tremendous source of support for our mother’s remarkable service to the community. She worked for great institutions such as Fellowship House and New World School of the Arts, and served as the president of the Patrons of the Museum of Science, the Theodore Gibson Foundation, and the Jewish Museum of Florida, over a 30 year span, with
Dad’s total support,” Sam said.
“My father set an amazing example to all of his sons — and our spouses — of hard work, love of family, and a commitment to helping others,” his son continued. “He and my mother were always available with sage and honest insights about life and parenthood. Their deep and enduring love for each other was inspirational. Even after 71 years of marriage, they seemed to always hold hands and kiss, whatever the occasion. Dad was always ready with a hilarious aphorism, which our kids called ‘Papa Murrayisms.’ Maybe his most memorable quote was his wedding toast to my wife Lori and me in 1979: ‘Kids, have fun.’ ”
JEWISH MUSEUM OF FLORIDA-FIU
In 1984, after his time in the Legislature, Dubbin and his wife, Helene, alongside Zerivitz, were founding board members of the Florida Jewish History Mosaic Project, which became the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU in the former Beth Jacob Synagogue space on
South Beach’s Washington Avenue.
“Murray played a very major role in that,” Zerivitz said.
MIAMI BEACH CITY ATTORNEY
Former Miami Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber appointed Dubbin, then 66, to serve as city attorney for Miami Beach in 1995, a role he held until he retired in 2007. Dubbin continued his mediation practice until 2018. Dubbin had previously served as North Bay Village’s city attorney.
Gelber’s son, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, recalled that his father recruited Dubbin because Dubbin was the kind of attorney who would tell the city what it needed to hear, not what its commission may have wanted to hear. That’s one reason Gelber often turned to Dubbin for advice during his own time in office.
“Murray was really a lawyer of immeasurable talents and character,” Gelber said. “My dad thought one of his best accomplishments was to lure Murray to be the city attorney at a time when it really needed great advice. Murray was a real statesman. He was not afraid to say to anyone, ‘This isn’t right.’ Or, ‘This is what you need to do’ even if you think you don’t want to do it. He was the best advisor you could have in all matters, not just those of law.”
Adds David Lawrence Jr., retired publisher of the Miami Herald and chair of The Children’s Movement of Florida: “Going back decades, Murray Dubbin was an extraordinary example of ‘public servant’ in what so often is remembered as the Golden Age of the Florida Legislature. My friend Murray was a stalwart of service in the Sixties — and ever since.”
SURVIVORS, SERVICES
Dubbin’s survivors include his wife, Helene; his sons Clifford, Sam, David and Eric Dubbin; 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren; and his two sisters, Bonnie Askowitz and Robin Yablonsky.
Services will be at at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, at Temple Beth Sholom, 4144 Chase Ave., Miami Beach and live streamed at www.tbsmb.org/watch. Donations in Murray’s honor can be made to the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU at jmof.fiu.edu.
Howard Cohen: 305-376-3619, @HowardCohen