The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, January 31,1980 -Page 11
HI
By SIMEON BAKER
SANTO boiVUNGO —
The Dominican Republic which occupies two-thirds of the Hispaniola Island and is surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and the AtlanticOcean, is a relatively smaUcountry in the Latin-American area, with a population of five million. Over a million of the republic's inhabitants reside in the capitol city of Santo Domingo which has become* due to its all year-round summer-like climate, a flourishing tourist center.
In' July of 1938, during the Evian Conference, called by 30 nations id deliberate the fate of the Jews in Hitler's Germany, the "strong man" and at that time dictator of the Dominican'Republic, Rafael Trujillo, came forth with an offer to permit immigration, resettlement and absorption of 100,000 Jews into his republic. His declaration was met with great enthusiasm, in view of the fact that none.of the; other nations — large arid small including the United States, at whose initiation the Conference wasconvened, was ready to admit them and had their borders tightly shut to all the unfortunates.
As a result of the Trujillo offer, the "Joint Distribution Committee" formed a special Agency, in New^York. to deal with the resettlement of the Jewish refugees In the Dominican Republic and named it the Dominican Republic Settlement Association, for short DORSA.
In January of 1940, the Agency and the Trujillo government signed a contract to' admit the first group of refugees. Trujillo was very proud of his deed and immediately assigned a special area in his country where these new immigrants would.engage in farming. At the same time, he managed to procure shares in the undertaking, thus ' becoming a partner in the project".
The tract of land was bought for $50,000 in the then wilderness of the village of Sosua. near the tpwn of Puerto Plata, in the northern region of the country, and the first group of refugees, all of them skilled workers, arrived directly from Germany in May of 1940 and consisted of some 35 persons. The latter groups came, via Portugal, in September and December of,
the same year from Switzerland where they were kept in special refugee camps. '
On a recent visit to the Dominican Republic, I spent three days in the area of Sosua and had the opportunity to become more closely acquainted with the life and problems of the remaining Jewish colonists. I also met with many leaders and members of the tiny Jewish community of Santo Domingo. ^
Of the 100,000 refugees Trujillo promised to admit* only seven or eight hundred actually came. At the beginning, moist of these arrivals settled in Sosua and started their agricultural experiment, patterned after the Kibbutz system of Israel, and failed."The reason for this failure." explained Judith kibel, who was a kitchen worker in the Sdsuan settlement,"wa.s our lack of idealism and the overabundance of materialism." Later, they turned to private farming, following the example of the Israeli moshav, and started to sell their meat and dairy produce to factories. Today, these colonists own a dairy factory which produces many kinds of cheese, buttdr, yogurt and chocolate drinks. They also have a meat factory where they make various. sorts of sausage* hot-dogs and ham.
Sosua. which now has a population of 10,000 and can be reached In only three and a half hours by automobile from Santo Domingo, is famous for its beautiful beaches and picturesque liandscape.
The meat arid dairy. factories of Sosua belong to 49 farmers. 75 percent of whom are the Jewish colonists. This information was relatied to me . by Herman Strauss, president of the board of directors of the Sosua Company, well-known throughout the country / He proudly stated that their sale of meat and dairy products amounts to seven million dollars annually and that over 4.000 people are employed in the factories built by the Jewish refugees from Gerniany and Austria. He also made sure to stress that the original shares in this enterprise were being sold at 10 pesos,each, with a current price of 15.000 pesos per share.
Of the first group of 35 who reached Sosua from Germany and Austria, only three remain. A number of them died and others migrated to a nuniber of cities in the;
United States. A similar fate befell the members of the other groups who settled in Sosua in the course of 1940. Of these groups there are at present only 36 Jewish families, it is, of course, no simple matter to account statistically for these families.*^ Actually, there are in all of Sosua but six or seven all-Jewish families, with the rest of them intermarried to non-Jews.
The special occasions during which the colonists gather in the Synagogue are the Passover Sedorim, Rosh Hashana, Ycm Kippur and bar mitzvahs, which are observed even in intermarried families. Although the remaining Jews in the area are far from orthodoxy, they use prayer books in the Orthodox version. While in the Synagogue. I accidentally came across a Slichot Book, printed in the German city of Redelheim in 1865. There are many more rare antique items in this place than are congregants to appreciate them. The president of the synagogue, Manfred Newman, who is a farmer and insurance agent, is more hopeful regarding the future" of the community than are the rest of the Jewish residents of Sosua. He bases his optimism on the fact that many of the. younger.people are returning to the farms. He, his wife and family came to Sosua in 1954 from Israel, where they resided for 20 years.
The Jewish leaders plan to erect a museum near the synagogue that will depict and house the story of the arrival and life of the Jewish refugees in Sosua. This will be a accomplished through exhibits of photographs, machinery, as well as other memorabilia; The object of this museum will be to portray the creativity and contribution of the Jewish settlers to the Dominican Republic, as well as to express their appreciation to its people and Government'for the opportunities extended: to them in their hour of need.
According to an interview I had with Minister Victor Cabaral, former diplomat, present member of the cabinet and very prominent personality of Santo Domingo, 1 was informed that the government is highly in favor of the museum project undertaken in Sosua.
Simeon Baker is a New YorH-based writer.
It's no Joke, bat onfortonately for the natives of Kabol, Afghanistan, the expression,
Rnssians are Coming!" is more than a name of a p<voIar movie. The Soviet action has caased onrest throoghoot civilized"world.
(Religious Nevi/s Service photo) "the Russians are Coming! The
N.Y, university appoints Jew
NEW YORK [JCNS]
Professor Michael I. Severn. 48, who has served with distinction.as dean of the Columbia Law School, has been appointed the 17th president of Columbia University here.
He is the only Jewish president of an Ivy League establishment, the prestigious organization of colleges and institutes of higher learning in the eastern and west central parts of the United States.:
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