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The Dominican Republic was a haven for Jews fleeing the Nazis. A museum project could tell that story.
SOSUA, Dominican Republic (JTA) — Sitting inside a small wood-frame shul just around the corner from Playa Alicia, where tourists sip rum punch while watching catamarans glide by, Joe Benjamin recounted one of the most uplifting but often forgotten stories of Jewish survival during the Holocaust.
“I was bar mitzvahed right here,” he said, pointing to a podium at the front of the sanctuary in La Sinagoga de Sosua. It was built in the early 1940s to meet the spiritual needs of about 750 German and Austrian Jews.
At the time, the Dominican Republic was the only country in the world that offered asylum to large numbers of Jewish refugees, earning the moniker “tropical Zion.”
Benjamin, 82, is president of the Jewish community of Sosua and one of only four surviving second-generation Jews remaining in this touristy beach town on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. His parents were part of the unconventional colony of Jewish immigrants who established an agricultural settlement between 1940-47 on an abandoned banana plantation overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
“When I talk about that, I get goosebumps,” Benjamin said. “This is a distinction that the Dominican Republic has. It was the only country that opened its doors to Jews.”
Joe Benjamin, president of the Jewish Community of Sosua, inside the sanctuary of La Sinagoga. (Dan Fellner)
At the 1938 Evian Conference in France, attended by representatives of 32 countries to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wanting to flee Nazi persecution, the Dominican Republic announced it would accept up to 100,000 Jewish refugees. About 5,000 visas were issued but fewer than 1,000 Jews ultimately were able to reach the country, which is located on the same island as Haiti, about 800 miles southeast of Miami.
Benjamin was born in 1941 in Shanghai, the only other place besides the Dominican Republic that accepted large numbers of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Shanghai, then a divided city not under the control of a single government, did not require a visa to enter. About 20,000 Jewish refugees immigrated there, including Benjamin’s parents, who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.
In 1947, with a civil war raging in China, Benjamin’s father realized the country “was getting a little difficult” and looked for another place to raise his two children.
“I think my father read it in a newspaper – there was a Jewish refugee colony in the Dominican Republic,” he says. “My father had no idea where that was, but he said, ‘I’m going there.’”
Benjamin’s family took a ship from China to San Francisco, a train to Miami, and then flew into Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital city. At that time, the city was officially called Ciudad Trujillo after the country’s dictator, Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
Photos of some of the 750 Jewish refugees who settled in Sosua in the 1940s on display at the Gregorio Luperon International Airport in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. (Dan Fellner)
Historians suggest the Dominican dictator’s motives in accepting large numbers of Jewish refugees at a time when so many other countries — including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom — turned their backs were fueled more by opportunism than altruism. It’s believed that Trujillo wanted to improve his reputation on the world stage following the 1937 massacre of an estimated 20,000 Black Haitians by Dominican troops. Furthermore, Trujillo liked the idea of allowing a crop of mostly educated immigrants who would “whiten” the country’s population.
“He was a cruel dictator,” Benjamin said of Trujillo. “But it’s not for me to judge. Because for us, he saved our lives. If you’re drowning and someone throws you a rope, you hold on to it. You don’t start asking his motive. You just hold on.”
In 1947, Benjamin was among the last group of Jewish refugees to arrive in Sosua, one of about 10 families known by the other colonists as the “Shanghai group.” The Sosua settlement was run by an organization called the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) that was funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York.
“DORSA would give you 10 cows, a mule, a horse and a cart,” said Benjamin. “My father by profession was a cabinet-maker. He thought he was going to do that here. But there was no market for that. So he dedicated himself to farming.”
Benjamin said conditions in Sosua were “primitive” and a difficult transition for many settlers who had been city-dwellers in Europe. Still, he spoke fondly of a childhood in which he was relatively insulated from the horrors that befell so many other Jewish children his age.
“We had enough to eat,” he says. “We enjoyed the beach. And I went to a Jewish school.”
La Sinagoga de Sosua in the Dominican Republic served the spiritual needs of the Jewish refugees who found a safe haven in Sosua during the Holocaust. It’s now open only for the high holidays. (Dan Fellner)
The school, originally called Escuela Cristobal Colon, opened in 1940 in a barracks and was attended by Jewish children as well as the children of Dominican farm workers. The school still exists and is now called the Colegio Luis Hess, named after Luis Hess, one of the Jewish settlers. Hess taught at the school for 33 years and lived in Sosua until his death in 2010 at the age of 101.
While the children attended school, men worked on farms and women cooked dinner for their families, who ate communal style. Beds were lined with mosquito netting to prevent malaria. As men greatly outnumbered women — Trujillo did not allow single Jewish women to enter the country — intermarriage was common.
Over time, the agriculture venture failed and DORSA instead decided to promote a beef and dairy cooperative, Productos Sosua, which ultimately proved successful.
After finishing high school, Benjamin moved to Pittsburgh to attend college (he’s an engineer who once built and flew his own airplane), got married and started a family. After 17 years in the United States, he decided in 1976 to return to the Dominican Republic, where he became an executive with Productos Sosua. He worked there until he retired in 2004, when the firm was sold to a Mexican company.
“All my life I talked about Sosua as my home,” he said. “I like it here. Everybody knows me.”
A street mural recognizes Sosua’s Jewish history on the main road connecting Sosua with Puerto Plata on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. (Dan Fellner)
Today, Sosua is vastly changed from the sleepy town in which Benjamin was raised. In 1979, an international airport opened in Puerto Plata, just a 15-minute drive to the west. Sosua morphed into a congested tourist destination known for its golden-sand beaches and water sports. It also became a hub of the Dominican sex tourism industry.
Most of Sosua’s Jewish population immigrated to the United States by the early 1980s. Benjamin estimates that only 30-40 Jews remain in Sosua, most of whom are not religiously observant. As a result, the synagogue hasn’t been able to financially sustain a permanent rabbi for more than 20 years. Services are held only on the high holidays, when a rabbi is flown in from Miami.
Benjamin says a group of seven Jews chips in about $2,500 a month to pay for security and other operating expenses.
“It’s very hard to get the Jews here to pay,” he said. “When we bring in the rabbi, we try to charge something. But we don’t get any people if we charge.”
Next to the synagogue is a small museum called the Museo Judio de Sosua, which offers a window into the town’s Jewish roots. Five years ago, the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo donated $80,000 to the museum to preserve and digitize its archives. However, the museum, which is badly in need of repairs, has been closed for the past year.
The Museo Judio de Sosua, which tells the story of the Jewish refugees who found a safe haven in the Dominican Republic during the Holocaust. The museum is closed while the community waits for funding to reopen it. (Dan Fellner)
Benjamin has been in discussions with the Dominican government in hopes it will soon finance a major renovation of the museum that would include an exhibition hall big enough to accommodate 100 people for events. Benjamin says he is optimistic the project, which has a price-tag approaching $1 million, will be green-lighted by the government.
“They are very positive about it because it could become a tourist attraction,” he says, noting that Puerto Plata and nearby Amber Cove have become popular port-stops on Caribbean cruises originating in Florida. “If it comes to fruition, it will be in the next year. Because if they don’t do it by then, the government changes. And the next government never continues what the previous government started.”
Otherwise, there are only a few remnants of Jewish life in Sosua for visitors to see. In Parque Mirador overlooking the Atlantic, there is a white cement-block star of David, built to honor the Jewish refugees. About 70 Jews, including Benjamin’s parents, are buried in a Jewish cemetery about a five-minute drive south of the synagogue.
The main street connecting Sosua with Puerto Plata has a street mural depicting the town’s history that features a large star of David right above a scuba-diver. And two of the most prominent streets in Sosua — Dr. Rosen and David Stern — still bear the names of two of the colony’s Jewish founders.
Dr. Rosen Street in downtown Sosua is named after Joseph Rosen, one of the founders of the Dominican Republic Settlement Association. (Dan Fellner)
There had been an exhibition about Sosua’s Jewish colony at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York but it closed several years ago. All the more reason, Benjamin says, that the Sosua museum reopens as soon as possible so that the story of the Jews who found a Caribbean cocoon to ride out the Holocaust isn’t forgotten.
“Look at what’s happening in the world — there is a rise in antisemitism,” he said. “It’s very important that our history is documented. It will also be a place where Dominican schoolchildren can come and learn about Judaism.”
With the museum closed, the only place in the area to see photos of the Jewish settlers on public display is the departure lounge in Puerto Plata’s airport. Next to a Dominican band serenading travelers with meringue music, there is a display of pictures showing the colonists riding horses, tilling the fields, attending school and praying in La Sinagoga.
“When they came here, the Jews found no antisemitism at all in this country,” said Benjamin. “They were as free as anybody. They had a wonderful life.”
—
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California Democrat Scott Wiener Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’ in Sharp Reversal Following Debate Backlash
California State Sen. Scott Weiner. Photo: Screenshot
California State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat seeking to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the US Congress, announced on Sunday that he believes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza meets the definition of “genocide,” a sharp reversal from a recent debate in which he declined to use the term.
Wiener’s declaration came after a contentious candidate forum last week in San Francisco, during which he declined to answer a direct question about whether he believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. That hesitation was met with jeers from the audience.
In a video posted Sunday on the X social media platform, Wiener, who is Jewish, said he had “stopped short of calling it genocide, but I can’t anymore,” citing the “devastation and catastrophic death toll” in Gaza as justification for using the term. Weiner also accused Israeli officials of making “genocidal” statements while justifying their military operations against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and claimed that Israel schemed to “destroy Gaza and push Palestinians out.”
The state senator also acknowledged the emotional weight the word holds for many Jews, given its origins in describing the Holocaust.
For years, I’ve condemned Netanyahu and his extremist government and the devastation they’ve inflicted on Gaza. It’s why I’ve been clear I won’t support U.S. funding for the destruction of Palestinian communities. I’ve stopped short of calling it genocide, but I can’t anymore. pic.twitter.com/71nIt6K527
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) January 11, 2026
Denying accusations of genocide, Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Wiener’s accusation of genocide marks a complete reversal not only from his recent debate answer but also from a new profile of him published in The Atlantic, in which he denied accusations of genocide lobbed at Israel and decried the weaponization of the war in Gaza as a “purity test.” He compared such ideological mandates to medieval attempts to divide the Jewish community between “good Jews” and “bad Jews.” Weiner also argued that Jewish liberals are being pushed out of progressive spaces if they don’t demonstrate sufficient hatred for Israel.
“If part of your Jewishness is, you know, that you support the homeland of the Jews and the home of one-half of all Jews on the planet, then that makes you a bad Jew,” Weiner said. “If you’re not willing to use the exact language that we want you to use, then you’re a bad Jew.”
The article came out on Sunday, the same day of his social media post accusing Israel of genocide.
Weiner has been a frequent target of anti-Israel demonstrators. In October, a group of agitators confronted the state lawmaker and accused him of supporting “genocide.”
Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan, similarly lamented that accusations of “genocide” against Israel are becoming a “purity test” within Democratic primaries. She argued in a new interview with Detroit Public Radio that there exists a “broadly shared goal among most Michiganders, that this violence needs to stop, that a temporary cease fire needs to become a permanent cease fire, that Palestinians deserve long term peace and security, that Israelis deserve long term peace and security.”
However, the candidate argued, “I also feel like we are getting lost in this conversation, and it feels like a political purity test on a word — a word that, by the way, to people who lost family members in the Holocaust, does mean something very different and very visceral.”
McMorrow, who has previously claimed she agrees that Israel committed a so-called “genocide” in Gaza, suggested that some candidates in the race are “using this as a political weapon and fundraising off of it.” Abdul El-Sayeed, a progressive Democrat in the Senate race, has condemned Israel for committing “genocide” and has called for an arms embargo on the Jewish state.
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Megyn Kelly Gushes Over Nick Fuentes: ‘There Is Value to Be Derived From That Guy’s Messaging’
Megyn Kelly hosts a “prove me wrong” session during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara
Megyn Kelly expressed her sympathies for white nationalist Nick Fuentes and antisemite Candace Owens, two Holocaust deniers who are rising in popularity among millennials and Gen Zers, in a video interview with fellow right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson published last week.
Immediately following the murder of prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, Owens began promoting the conspiracy theory of Israeli involvement, sentiments likewise promoted by Carlson.
“And then came Candace Owens. And she really drives people crazy. She drives them crazy,” Kelly said, provoking snickers from Carlson. “Very angry. I didn’t call her out for Israel possibly being involved with Charlie Kirk. Well, I didn’t call her out because I was totally fine with those questions being raised.”
Kelly then raised her open palm to her face and declared, “And still am!”
Carlson cackled again in response and Kelly continued, insisting, “But I am. I’m sick of this bulls–t. I’m allowed to have questions about what if anyone aligned with Israel or from Israel might have had to do with Charlie’s death.”
Kelly: “I am sick of this ********! I am allowed to have questions about what if, anyone, aligned with Israel or from Israel might have had to do with Charlie’s death.”
She’s gone, folks. Stop giving her the benefit of the doubt.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) January 8, 2026
In October, Florida state Attorney General James Uthmeier announced charges against Nicholas Ray of Spring, Texas for alleged death threats made with a “zionistarescum” X account against Jewish conservatives identified online by Owens as allegedly involved in Kirk’s murder.
There has been no actual evidence showing Israeli complicity in Kirk’s murder, for which Tyler Robinson, 22, has been charged. He was romantically involved with his transgender roommate, and prosecutors have reportedly argued that Kirk’s anti-trans rhetoric was a key factor that allegedly led him to shoot the Turning Point USA founder.
Kelly also praised Fuentes during her conversation with Carlson.
“He’s very interesting and he’s very smart,” Kelly said of Fuentes, who has praised Adolf Hitler. “And on a lot of things there is value to be derived from that guy’s messaging. I’m sorry, but he actually has a lot of things he talks about that you’re like ‘that’s not a bad point about our country.’”
Adopting a mocking affectation, Kelly said, “I won’t condemn and say that Candace Owens is hateful. They want me really, really badly to condemn Candace Owens. And I’m sorry to break it to them but I am responsible for what I say. Not for what anybody else says. I am not Candace Owens’s policeman. And by the way they’re kidding themselves that if just one more voice will say something nasty about Candace she can finally be controlled.”
In response to right-wing X influencer Ian Miles Cheong (who has 1.2 million followers and reportedly posts from Malaysia) sharing a clip of this statement, Kelly raged back: “You’re a pathetic misinformation whore. I was explaining why young white men are listening to Fuentes & made clear that while I believe he makes interesting points about the govt etc I was not speaking about his thoughts on Jews, women, blacks etc. F–k you & your lies.”
In December, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) released a report analyzing online support for Fuentes, suggesting he has received a major boost from inauthentic amplification by anonymous actors in foreign countries such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia. For example, the research revealed that “in a sample of 20 recent posts, 61% of Fuentes’s first-30-minute retweets came from accounts that retweeted multiple of these 20 posts within that same ultra-short window – behavior highly suggestive of coordination or automation.”
Earlier this month, Owens blamed Zionists for inspiring US President Donald Trump to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
On Tuesday, Fuentes wrote on X in reference to Venezuela: “Your oil, our choice. Forever [American flag rmoji],” a reference to his infamous popularization of the phrase “your body, my choice” among his Groyper followers.
Fuentes described his views on Venezuela on Jan. 3, explaining that while he thought the military action “initially seemed like a solid operation to cleanly, bloodlessly, and quickly remove Maduro from power last night” he thought “this new policy of ‘running Venezuela’ with US soldiers sounds like a massive over-commitment. I have zero confidence in nation-building. Big mistake.”
The next day Fuentes continued on X, articulating his foreign policy vision of banditry, fantasizing, “Now that Venezuela has been liberated, we must send every single Venezuelan illegal, refugee, and criminal back home. Take the oil, remigrate the foreigners.”
On Sunday, Fuentes promoted another conspiracy theory, asserting that “the chaos in Iran is totally astroturfed by Israel and the US for regime change. This was always their endgame after over a decade of industrial sabotage, sanctions, political subversion, & espionage. Why do you think Iran wanted nuclear weapons? To prevent this exact scenario.”
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Fundraiser for ICE agent who killed Renee Good includes antisemitic attack on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
(JTA) — Supporters of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot and killed Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis last week are flocking to an online fundraiser to, in its organizer’s words, “Defend the Agent Who Stopped a Deadly Attack on America’s Border Enforcers!”
Included in the fundraiser’s pitch: antisemitic language directed at the city’s Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey.
After stating that Good had engaged “in a blatant act of domestic terrorism aimed at killing or maiming the men protecting our borders from the endless invasion,” the description continued: “But this didn’t happen in a vacuum — it’s the direct result of anti-American traitors like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (who is Jewish) fanning the flames of resistance.”
The description went on to call Frey a “sanctuary city traitor” and states, “His rhetoric empowers violent agitators, turning Minneapolis into a warzone for our heroes enforcing the law and deporting the hordes that weak leaders like him protect.”
The fundraiser was posted Jam. 7 on GiveSendGo, a crowdfunding website popular with right-wing causes, and has raised more than $186,000 of its $200,000 goal as of Monday afternoon. The co-founder of GiveSendGo, Jacob Wells, has promoted the campaign extensively and claims to have corresponded directly with the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross.
“God bless you all! Keep sharing,” Wells wrote on the social network X, receiving positive responses from the actor Dean Cain, among others.
After being circulated online and verified by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the clause “(who is Jewish)” was removed from the description of Frey late Monday.
The campaign’s organizer is named as “Tom Hennessey,” and appears to have launched the fundraiser before Ross himself was identified. The campaign does not name Ross.
An account named “TomHennessey69” on X who has claimed credit for the fundraiser bills himself as a “white independent journalist” and “soap enthusiast.” In addition to a stream of anti-immigration rhetoric, Hennessey has also made several antisemitic posts, including one on Monday that blamed Jews for the recent Hanukkah mass shooting in Australia.
“Notice the pattern? Jews arrive in Australia, flood it with non-Whites. Non-Whites rampage—eventually turning on Jews. Jews then push new anti-semitism laws aka free speech bans, gun control to disarm Whites, and ban White nationalist groups for noticing,” Hennessey wrote, adding, “Australia, not a good look for jewish diaspora, many such cases.” In another reply to his post, Hennessey endorsed a neo-Nazi account’s pro-Hitler message.
Hennessey has also used similar language as the fundraiser’s to describe his own Jewish opponents.
Online, the GiveSendGo link has been promoted by figures including Turning Point USA pundit Jack Posobiec and Minnesota-based right-wing journalist Liz Collin.
It is not the only fundraiser to have been set up by self-proclaimed supporters of Ross since Good’s killing. A separate campaign without antisemitic language launched on GoFundMe, a more mainstream crowdfunding website, has raised more than $467,000 to date since its launch on Friday.
The largest donation to date on the GoFundMe fundraiser, $10,000, came from Bill Ackman, the Jewish activist investor who has become a prominent advocate against antisemitism.
“I am [a] big believer in our legal principal [sic] that one is innocent until proven guilty,” Ackman wrote on X over the weekend, in a post about why he donated. He added that he had “intended to similarly support the gofundme for Renee Good’s family” but that “her gofundme was closed by the time I attempted to provide support.”
Comments online suggest that the two fundraisers for Ross may be linked and may have a direct line to Ross himself.
In a Sunday update, the GoFundMe campaign’s organizer, Clyde Emmons, wrote, “the creater [sic] of the givesendgo fund has direct contact with Johnathan! so I am in contact with him gave him my number and he said he would pass it onto John himself so I can finally add him as the beneficiary so he can get these funds he deserves.”
On X, Collin wrote that she was in contact with both organizers and that the GiveSendGo campaign is “now the preferred method to donate to the ICE agent.”
The fundraisers for Ross were launched partly as a response to a GoFundMe for Good’s family, which raised more than $1.5 million before its organizers closed donations.
“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” that campaign’s organizers wrote.
Comparisons between ICE agents and Nazis or the Gestapo have grown since the agency has stepped up its presence in American cities under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans. Some Jewish communal leaders, including several in Minnesota, have vocally criticized ICE’s actions, with a few linking them to the memory of the Holocaust.
Since Good’s killing, Frey has vocally criticized ICE’s presence in Minneapolis, using an expletive in a press conference as he urged the agents to leave. The fundraiser’s description of the mayor notes this, also blasting Frey for his executive orders.
“These agents are the tip of the spear in reclaiming our country from the illegal invasion—deporting criminals, invaders, and threats that politicians like Frey invited in and shield,” the description states.
It concludes: “Stand tall: Donate today to send a message that we back the men removing illegals and invaders from our soil, no matter the sabotage from mayors who put foreigners over Americans. No apologies, no retreat—Mass Deportations Now!”
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