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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The

',,plember 1 1. 1942

7

Legal Chronicle

Jews and the Dominican Republic

By JULIUS MORITZEN
EDITOR'S NOTE: Julius Moritzen has recentl y returned from the
Dominican Republic. concluding his third trio in two years.
While there he made a study of the Jewish situation from the
time of Columbus to the present. Mr. Moritzen is the author of
several books, including "The Peace Movement of America"
and "Georg Brandes in Life and Letters."

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The history of the discovery
of America records that when
Christopher Columbus set out on
his first voyage westward, he was
accompanied by two members of
the eJwish race; Luis de Torre.4,
the interpreter, and Rodrigo San-
chez, the veedor, or financial su-
pervisor of the fleet. Four cen-
turies and a half have passed
since 1492 when the Jews wet
expelled from Spain. When to-
day Santo Domingo offers a ref-
uge to continental Jews, the vic-
tims of persecution, it repeats the
welcome extended to them from
time to time. However, for many
years the colonial laws of Spain
prohibited the Jews from entering
Santo Domingo and other Span-
ish possessions in the West Indies.
From 1.192 to 1822 the island dis-
covered by Columbus kept its
doors shut tight to foreigners.
It is, of course, a fact that the
early Jews were mostly converts,
like Luis de Santangel, who was
a kind of finance minister to the
crown of Aragon, and who, t is
said, persuaded Queen Isabella to
aid Columbus financially while ad-
vancing part of the money needed
for the first expedition. Notwith-
standing this, whether converts

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at heart or not, the spiritual leg-
acy that these Jews left as the
result of much oppression and
suffering may on a small scale,
perhaps, have aided in creating a
state of mind that later inspired
the American colonists in their
fight for independence.
Salvador de Madariaga, the not-
ed Spanish author, in his history
of Columbus, advances the theory
that the Admiral was himself of
Jewish ancestry. De Madariaga
avers that while Columbus was
an ardent Christian, yet he was
secretly conscious of his Jewish
descent. One thinks immediately
of Disraeli whose imperialism
never permitted him to forget
from whence he descended and
who with superb contempt could
have exclaimed with the great Ad-
miral: "You persecute my people,
my revenge is to give you a new
world."
There is irony in the fact that
Columbus boarded the Santa Maria
the very day the Jews were doom-
ed to leave Spain. As for de Mad-
ariaga's theory regarding Colum-
bus' ancestry, he declares that
as the Admiral was a Genoese,
his home language was not Ital-
ian ; he must have been the de-
scendant of exiles who had pre-
served their ancestral tongue, as
Jews do today in Salonica. What-
ever this may have to do with
the Jewish ancestry of Columbus,
the Spanish author no doubt in-
dulged in journalistic license and
we may dismiss the matter as not
pertinent to the issue in question,
the early settlement of the Jews
in Santo Domingo and other parts
of the Caribbean. Jewish immi-
gration and Jewish business rela-
tions with the new world consti-
tutes a chain embracing not only
the island of "Hispaniola," with
what was then Santo Domingo
and Haiti, but Jamaica, the is-
lands of Barbados, Curacao and
Martinique. Here they devoted
themselves more and more to busi-
ness, although they were instru-
mental, chiefly during the first
decade after their arrival on the
islands, in introducing or improv-
ing the cultivation of sugar cane
and other tropical products.
The Jews flourished in Jamaica
and other West Indian islands
after they left Brazil. That they
did not leave until matters were
made uncomfortable was evidenced
ly the fact that after the Dutch
conquered northern Brazil in 1631,
an enterprhe in which they were
helped secretly by the Jews, they
set the stage for a grat commer-
cial boom. During this period,
which lasted until 1654, they en-
joyed for the first time a fair
amount of religious freedom. They
openly avowed their religious faith
and worshipped in two syna-
gogues.
Five thousand Jews were living
in Recipe, or Pernambuco, the
capital of the Dutch colony. There
they filled the warehouses with
thousands of bags of sugar, which
they exported aboard their own
vessels. On the return trips the
ships were loaded with merchan-
dise of all kinds to meet the mani-
fold needs of the colony, and they
also engaged in real estate trans-
actions. The first stock exchange
established on American soil was
due to the efforts of Brazilian
Jews. When the Protuguese re-
conuered the Dutch-occupied region
of Brazil many of the Jews left,
while others remained and became
ostensible New Christians. Pride
in Jewish ancestry is still alive
in many an aristocratic Brazilian
family, due in part, at least, to
the relatively important role that
colonial Brazilian Jewry played in
the history, society and culture of
the country up to a comparative-
ly recent period.
Leaving Brazil with the Dutch
the Jews returned to Holland in
considerable numbers while the
majority went to the Guianas, the
Barbados, Curacao and Martin-
ique. Perhaps the earliest set-
tlers in Santo Domingo came by
way of the Dutch colony. Many
of the leading families in the
Dominican Republic claim descent
from those Jews who in the eigh-
teenth century settled permanent-
ly in Santa Domingo and who
through their energy and loyalty

to the country of their adoption
became the mainstay of what was
later to be the independent nation
that now is part of the Western
Hemisphere defense. It is unques-
tionable that among the 21 repub-
lics in the Pan-American Union
none more so than the Domincan
Republic realizes the obligation
involved in the effort to defeat
the Axis powers in their brutal
onslaught on civilization.
Teaching the coming of the
Jews to Santo Domingo and down
to more modern times, the Sosua
settlement in the northern part
Of the country is a direct result
of World War II, and in the
second year of its existence may
be said to have passed beyond

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