In the late 1930s, few countries were willing to accept Jewish refugees. One nation—the Dominican Republic—opened its doors. Working with the Dominican government, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee provided passage and support to establish a small agricultural settlement in Sosúa—an abandoned banana plantation on the northeastern shore of the Dominican Republic. Jewish settlers built a community that still exists today.
Created in cooperation with the Sosúa Jewish Museum, this bilingual exhibition (in English and Spanish) showed how settlers were recruited, how they came to Sosúa, what awaited them there, how the settlement grew, and the evolution of this small Jewish community.
The video below was displayed in the exhibition.
This exhibition was made possible, in part, through major funding from the Leon Levy Foundation, with additional support provided by: former NY State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, Former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Former City Council Member Miguel Martinez, and the American Jewish Congress.