Jewish Sephardim were the first to live in the city of Santo Domingo. These Jews were probably escaping the Spanish Inquisition around 1492.

In the 19th century Jews from Curaçao settled in Hispaniola, but most of them hid their Jewish identities Marranos, or were unaffiliated with Jewish tradition.

It was only in 1938, that the Dominican Republic declared the intention to take in 100,000 Jewish refugees.  This was surprising, considering the Dominican Republic was then ruled with an iron fist by dictator Rafael Trujillo, who showed no value for human rights in 31 years in power.

Trujillo welcomed the Jews to curry favor with Roosevelt after he was dubbed “the butcher” in the U.S. for ordering the massacre of thousands of Haitians living in the D.R. in 1937. Trujillo also thought the German and Austrian Jews would “whiten” up the dark-skinned population of his country.

They were sent to Sosúa, an area that required development. Every Jew who settled here received a small plot of land, a few cows, a bull and a horse. They built farms and established a cooperative that marketed and jointly sold the milk and meat products from their farms. After the war, many Jews left.

Today, there are approximately 100 Jews living in the Dominican Republic.