Jews In The Dominican Republic

The breaking story of Melky Cabrera's Jewish ancestry (a story you will read about no where else but here) led to some research into the history of the Jewish population in D.R. Looks like Melky might trace his ancestry back to Francisco Henriquez de Carvajal. "The majority of Jews in the Dominican Republic lives in Santo Domingo, the capital. There is also a community in Sosua. The great majority are of Central European origin. Jews from Curacao settled in Hispaniola in the 19th century, but did not form a community. However, they did have a cantor and mohel. The oldest Jewish grave is dated 1826. The Jewish group became prominent in Dominican life, but over the years intermarried with the local population and most of them converted to Christianity. Among their descendants were President Francisco Henriquez y Carvajal (1916) and his son Pedro Henriques Urena who became the leading Dominican man of letters. The Dominican Republic was one of the very few countries prepared to accept mass Jewish immigration in the 1930's. At the Evian Conference it offered to accept up to 100,000 Jewish refugees. The DORSA (Dominican Republic Settlement Association) was formed with the assistance of the JDC and helped settle Jews in Sosua, on the nothern coast. About 700 European Jews reached the settlement where they were assigned land and cattle. Other refugees settled in the capital Santo Domingo. In 1943 the number of Jews in the Republic peaked at 1000. Since that time it has been in constant decline due to emigration and assimilation. A very high percentage of the Jews has intermarried but many non-Jewish spouses and the children of mixed marriages participate in Jewish communal life."