Sosúa

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Sosúa

Sosúa, a Jewish agricultural settlement founded in 1940 on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. At the invitation of President Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, approximately one thousand European Jews, mostly Germans and Austrians, fled to the Dominican Republic to escape Nazi persecution. Trujillo hoped their presence would counteract the Haitian influence in his country and improve relations with the United States. The colony at Sosúa received funding from the U.S.-based Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) and became famous for the manufacture of cheese. However, the Jewish colonists failed to integrate successfully into Dominican life, and Sosúa has suffered from the emigration of second- and third-generation inhabitants to the United States. As of 2007 their numbers had dwindled to 25 families from a high of 125 in 1947.

See alsoJews .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Josef David Eichen, Sosúa: Una colonia hebrea en la República Dominicana (1980).

Judith Laikin Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics (1980).

Frances Henry, "Strangers in Paradise: The Jewish Enclave at Sosúa," and Kai P. Schoenhals, "An Extraordinary Migration: Jews in the Dominican Republic," in Caribbean Review 14, no. 4 (Fall 1985).