Nevertheless, the shops that line the main boulevard enthusiastically
compete with each other for the passengers' business. Salespeople standing
on the sidewalk bid you to come in and look.

As they have cruise ship-related gimmicks to get you into the store, the
sales personnel are not quite so aggressive as, say, their counterparts on
the Avenida de la Revolucion in Tijuana, but they can be persistent.

"Come inside, you may already have won the lucky cabin number raffle," one
man told my wife Nancy and me as we strolled down Avenida Rafael E. Melgar,
which faces the Caribbean.

"Take a look,"said another drummer. "Every customer receives a free charm!"
Strategically placed among the welter of shops are 10 stores all bearing the
same Diamonds International logo. Knowing that there is a concentration of
Jews in the diamond business, Nancy and I stopped in one of these stores and
inquired of a saleswoman about Cozumel's tiny Jewish community.

She conferred with a colleague, who came out and introduced herself as an
Israeli. She said that the Diamonds International chain is owned by a Jewish
family from New York, and that I could find at another address a member of
that family, who was in charge of the company's operations in Cozumel. She
called ahead to let him know we would be coming.

We walked several blocks to another jewelry show room and, after we
identified ourselves to the satisfaction of security personnel, we were
admitted to an administrative area in the rear of one of the Diamond
International stores. We were ceremoniously ushered in to meet Shaun Gad,
the manager of the extensive enterprise, who turned out to be 25 years old.
Gad said his cousin, Albert Gad, was the owner of the Diamonds International
chain, which is based in New York City but which operates in various cities
throughout the world. Currently, he said, plans are to expand from 10
jewelry stores to 15 in Cozumel, which he described as one of the world's
busiest cities for retail jewelry.

In addition to those stores, he said, the company owns in Cozumel a
jewelry-making factory, a carpentry shop (why buy so many cabinets from
someone else, when you can make them for yourself?) a bar and restaurant
(Kiss My Cactus), and a store that sells Cuban cigars.

Currently, the family employs 720 people in Cozumel, among them
approximately 30 expatriate members of the Jewish community who meet at each
other's homes for Shabbat dinners, Gad said.

Impressed that he was managing so many people, I asked where he had gone to
school. Wharton School of Business? Stanford? Harvard?

He smiled shyly and said that he had learned the jewelry business from his
family, and that he had earned some college credits via Internet
correspondence courses after he was dispatched to Cozumel seven years ago--
when he was 18.

How does one train to be the manager of such an extensive diamond operation?
"One thing is diamonds, another is managing an operation," he responded. "I
know the industry, and I learned it from my family, thank God, and that part
was taken care of. The other part of coming down and learning how to run an
operation, that was just experience."

He said his lack of college was the exception in his family. "My brother and
sister have graduated -- I was the only one who didn't," he explained. "You
can get any kind of business degree in the world; I can get all these
different degrees, but once you get into the real world, and you really
battle it out, it is a different story."

A young Israeli, Yossi Mayer, listening to the conversation, smiled. Nodding
to him, Gad told us, "He is training now to be a manager at another
location." 

"Where?" I asked. 

"I can't say, just yet," Gad replied. "I know; I just can't say."

Cozumel, said Gad, "is the 47th Street of the Caribbean. This is where it is
-- a much more simple, relaxed version, less competition, less hassle."

A born salesman, he added: "We bring good deals to people who don't live in
New York, who don't live in larger cities and who want to buy jewelry on
vacation."

I asked why Diamonds International had so many stores in one city, and now
was planning to open even more.

He explained that the growth is in response to the fact that more and more
cruise ships visit Cozumel (including Crystal Harmony, on which Nancy and I
had arrived that day.) Over the last six years, he estimated, business has
increased some 250 percent.

"If you look at all the other Caribbean islands, we have learned from our
experience," he said. "Let's say, St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) has 300
jewelry stores -- and with the 300 jewelry stores it is a very competitive
market."

"What we have done here (in Cozumel) is made it less competitive with other
companies and made it more competitive within our own company, which is good
for us."

The Diamonds International stores compete against each other. There are
other chains as well, including Touch of Gold, Emerald Mines and Goodmark,
said Gad, but "it is a friendly environment, not like 47th Street as far as
competition. Everybody here are good friends."

The owners of the Goodmark chain also are Jewish, and some of their
personnel join those from Diamonds International for the Friday night meals..
While in New York City the diamond trade is dominated by Orthodox Jews, Gad
noted that at this Mexican resort, "it is impossible to be super-religious."

"There is no kosher food on this island,"he said. "Even in Cancun, there is
no kosher food. You can't be kosher here unless you are eating fish."

On occasion, said Gad, he travels back to New York for business meetings,
and he likes to bring back with him kosher meat cuts. Such opportunities
being infrequent, however, he does consume the local poultry and beef, even
though they have not been butchered according to Halacha. But, he stresses,
he never touches the other "garbage," meaning shellfish or pork.

"It is the same with me," said Mayer.

Leaving Gad's office, I couldn't help but smile at the image that had popped
into my mind. I imagined the young diamond merchant returning from a
business trip and calling his closest industry associates into the inner
sanctum. "A treasure!" he would say, while carefully unwrapping a mysterious
package. 

"What? What? The Hope Diamond itself?" they would ask
.
"Better," he'd reply. "A kosher brisket!"