Jews in Places You Never Thought of

Jews in Places You Never Thought of

Author: Karen Primack

Publisher: KTAV Publishing House, Inc.

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780881256086

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Book Synopsis Jews in Places You Never Thought of by : Karen Primack

Download or read book Jews in Places You Never Thought of written by Karen Primack and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 1998 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


The Jews Should Keep Quiet

The Jews Should Keep Quiet

Author: Rafael Medoff

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2019-01-01

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 0827618301

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Based on recently discovered documents, The Jews Should Keep Quiet reassesses the hows and whys behind the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration's fateful policies during the Holocaust. Rafael Medoff delves into difficult truths: With FDR's consent, the administration deliberately suppressed European immigration far below the limits set by U.S. law. His administration also refused to admit Jewish refugees to the U.S. Virgin Islands, dismissed proposals to use empty Liberty ships returning from Europe to carry refugees, and rejected pleas to drop bombs on the railways leading to Auschwitz, even while American planes were bombing targets only a few miles away--actions that would not have conflicted with the larger goal of winning the war. What motivated FDR? Medoff explores the sensitive question of the president's private sentiments toward Jews. Unmasking strong parallels between Roosevelt's statements regarding Jews and Asians, he connects the administration's policies of excluding Jewish refugees and interning Japanese Americans. The Jews Should Keep Quiet further reveals how FDR's personal relationship with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, American Jewry's foremost leader in the 1930s and 1940s, swayed the U.S. response to the Holocaust. Documenting how Roosevelt and others pressured Wise to stifle American Jewish criticism of FDR's policies, Medoff chronicles how and why the American Jewish community largely fell in line with Wise. Ultimately Medoff weighs the administration's realistic options for rescue action, which, if taken, would have saved many lives.


Book Synopsis The Jews Should Keep Quiet by : Rafael Medoff

Download or read book The Jews Should Keep Quiet written by Rafael Medoff and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on recently discovered documents, The Jews Should Keep Quiet reassesses the hows and whys behind the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration's fateful policies during the Holocaust. Rafael Medoff delves into difficult truths: With FDR's consent, the administration deliberately suppressed European immigration far below the limits set by U.S. law. His administration also refused to admit Jewish refugees to the U.S. Virgin Islands, dismissed proposals to use empty Liberty ships returning from Europe to carry refugees, and rejected pleas to drop bombs on the railways leading to Auschwitz, even while American planes were bombing targets only a few miles away--actions that would not have conflicted with the larger goal of winning the war. What motivated FDR? Medoff explores the sensitive question of the president's private sentiments toward Jews. Unmasking strong parallels between Roosevelt's statements regarding Jews and Asians, he connects the administration's policies of excluding Jewish refugees and interning Japanese Americans. The Jews Should Keep Quiet further reveals how FDR's personal relationship with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, American Jewry's foremost leader in the 1930s and 1940s, swayed the U.S. response to the Holocaust. Documenting how Roosevelt and others pressured Wise to stifle American Jewish criticism of FDR's policies, Medoff chronicles how and why the American Jewish community largely fell in line with Wise. Ultimately Medoff weighs the administration's realistic options for rescue action, which, if taken, would have saved many lives.


People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

Author: Dara Horn

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2021-09-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0393531570

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Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.


Book Synopsis People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by : Dara Horn

Download or read book People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present written by Dara Horn and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.


Where the Jews Aren't

Where the Jews Aren't

Author: Masha Gessen

Publisher: Schocken

Published: 2016-08-23

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0805242465

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From the acclaimed author of The Man Without a Face, the previously untold story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia that reveals the complex, strange, and heart-wrenching truth behind the familiar narrative that begins with pogroms and ends with emigration. In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan.The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there. The state-building ended quickly, in the late 1930s, with arrests and purges instigated by Stalin. But after the Second World War, Birobidzhan received another influx of Jews—those who had been dispossessed by the war. In the late 1940s a second wave of arrests and imprisonments swept through the area, traumatizing Birobidzhan’s Jews into silence and effectively shutting down most of the Jewish cultural enterprises that had been created. Where the Jews Aren’t is a haunting account of the dream of Birobidzhan—and how it became the cracked and crooked mirror in which we can see the true story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia. (Part of the Jewish Encounters series)


Book Synopsis Where the Jews Aren't by : Masha Gessen

Download or read book Where the Jews Aren't written by Masha Gessen and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of The Man Without a Face, the previously untold story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia that reveals the complex, strange, and heart-wrenching truth behind the familiar narrative that begins with pogroms and ends with emigration. In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan.The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there. The state-building ended quickly, in the late 1930s, with arrests and purges instigated by Stalin. But after the Second World War, Birobidzhan received another influx of Jews—those who had been dispossessed by the war. In the late 1940s a second wave of arrests and imprisonments swept through the area, traumatizing Birobidzhan’s Jews into silence and effectively shutting down most of the Jewish cultural enterprises that had been created. Where the Jews Aren’t is a haunting account of the dream of Birobidzhan—and how it became the cracked and crooked mirror in which we can see the true story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia. (Part of the Jewish Encounters series)


The Big Jewish Book for Jews

The Big Jewish Book for Jews

Author: Ellis Weiner

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2010-07-27

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1101457112

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A hilarious compendium of traditional wisdom, recipes, and lore from the authors of the bestselling Yiddish with Dick and Jane. Modern Jews have forgotten cherished traditions and become, sadly, all- too assimilated. It's enough to make you meshugeneh. Today's Jews need to relearn the old ways so that cultural identity means something other than laughing knowingly at Curb Your Enthusiasm- and The Big Jewish Book for Jews is here to help. This wise and wise-cracking fully-illustrated book offers invaluable instruction on everything from how to sacrifice a lamb unto the lord to the rules of Mahjong. Jews of all ages and backgrounds will welcome the opportunity to be the Jewiest Jew of all, and reconnect to ancestors going all the way back to Moses and a time when God was the only GPS a Jew needed.


Book Synopsis The Big Jewish Book for Jews by : Ellis Weiner

Download or read book The Big Jewish Book for Jews written by Ellis Weiner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious compendium of traditional wisdom, recipes, and lore from the authors of the bestselling Yiddish with Dick and Jane. Modern Jews have forgotten cherished traditions and become, sadly, all- too assimilated. It's enough to make you meshugeneh. Today's Jews need to relearn the old ways so that cultural identity means something other than laughing knowingly at Curb Your Enthusiasm- and The Big Jewish Book for Jews is here to help. This wise and wise-cracking fully-illustrated book offers invaluable instruction on everything from how to sacrifice a lamb unto the lord to the rules of Mahjong. Jews of all ages and backgrounds will welcome the opportunity to be the Jewiest Jew of all, and reconnect to ancestors going all the way back to Moses and a time when God was the only GPS a Jew needed.


Scattered Among the Nations

Scattered Among the Nations

Author: Bryan Schwartz

Publisher: WeldonOwn+ORM

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1681881659

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“A beautifully presented book on Jewish diversity around the world . . . opens windows into lives from the hills of Portugal to the plains of Africa.” —The Jerusalem Post With vibrant photographs and intricate accounts Scattered Among the Nations tells the story of the world’s most isolated Jewish communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Former Soviet Union and the margins of Europe. Over two thousand years ago, a shipwreck left seven Jewish couples stranded off India’s Konkan Coast, south of Bombay. Those hardy survivors stayed, built a community, and founded one of the fascinating groups described in this book—the Bene Israel of India’s Maharasthra Province. This story is unique, but it is not unusual. We have all heard the phrase “the lost tribes of Israel,” but never has the truth and wonder of the Diaspora been so lovingly and richly illustrated. To create this amazing chronicle of faith and resilience, the authors visited Jews in thirty countries across five continents, hearing origin stories and family histories that stretch back for millennia. “Beautiful, even breathtaking . . . a Jewish (Inter) National Geographic, wisely reminding us that the strategies for survival of Jews in distant lands may be relevant to our own.” —Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Emanu-El Scholar at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco and author of I’m God; You’re Not “This exquisite book is a gift to the Jewish people, dramatically stretching our understanding of ‘Jewish’ . . . A book to be savored, read and re-read, and transmitted from one generation to the next.” —Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem


Book Synopsis Scattered Among the Nations by : Bryan Schwartz

Download or read book Scattered Among the Nations written by Bryan Schwartz and published by WeldonOwn+ORM. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A beautifully presented book on Jewish diversity around the world . . . opens windows into lives from the hills of Portugal to the plains of Africa.” —The Jerusalem Post With vibrant photographs and intricate accounts Scattered Among the Nations tells the story of the world’s most isolated Jewish communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Former Soviet Union and the margins of Europe. Over two thousand years ago, a shipwreck left seven Jewish couples stranded off India’s Konkan Coast, south of Bombay. Those hardy survivors stayed, built a community, and founded one of the fascinating groups described in this book—the Bene Israel of India’s Maharasthra Province. This story is unique, but it is not unusual. We have all heard the phrase “the lost tribes of Israel,” but never has the truth and wonder of the Diaspora been so lovingly and richly illustrated. To create this amazing chronicle of faith and resilience, the authors visited Jews in thirty countries across five continents, hearing origin stories and family histories that stretch back for millennia. “Beautiful, even breathtaking . . . a Jewish (Inter) National Geographic, wisely reminding us that the strategies for survival of Jews in distant lands may be relevant to our own.” —Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Emanu-El Scholar at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco and author of I’m God; You’re Not “This exquisite book is a gift to the Jewish people, dramatically stretching our understanding of ‘Jewish’ . . . A book to be savored, read and re-read, and transmitted from one generation to the next.” —Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem


Judaising Movements

Judaising Movements

Author: Tudor Parfitt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-12-16

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1136860347

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The history of Judaising movements has been largely ignored by historians of religion. This volume analyzes the interplay between colonialism, a Judaism not traditionally viewed as proselytising but which at certain points was struggling to heed the Prophets and become a light unto the Gentiles' and the attraction for many different peoples of the rooted historicity of Judaism and by the symbolic appropriation of Jewish suffering. This book will look at the role of colonialism in the development of Judaising movements throughout the world, including New Zealand, Japan, India, Burma and Africa. Particular attention will be paid to the Lemba tribe of Southern Africa. A remarkable parallel movement in 1930s Southern Italy will also be dealt with. The history of the converts of San Nicandro is seen in the context of currents of Jewish universalism, messianism and Zionism. Gender issues are also discussed here as the converted women assumed powers they had not hitherto enjoyed.


Book Synopsis Judaising Movements by : Tudor Parfitt

Download or read book Judaising Movements written by Tudor Parfitt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Judaising movements has been largely ignored by historians of religion. This volume analyzes the interplay between colonialism, a Judaism not traditionally viewed as proselytising but which at certain points was struggling to heed the Prophets and become a light unto the Gentiles' and the attraction for many different peoples of the rooted historicity of Judaism and by the symbolic appropriation of Jewish suffering. This book will look at the role of colonialism in the development of Judaising movements throughout the world, including New Zealand, Japan, India, Burma and Africa. Particular attention will be paid to the Lemba tribe of Southern Africa. A remarkable parallel movement in 1930s Southern Italy will also be dealt with. The history of the converts of San Nicandro is seen in the context of currents of Jewish universalism, messianism and Zionism. Gender issues are also discussed here as the converted women assumed powers they had not hitherto enjoyed.


The Invention of the Jewish People

The Invention of the Jewish People

Author: Shlomo Sand

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1788736613

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A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland? Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths. After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.


Book Synopsis The Invention of the Jewish People by : Shlomo Sand

Download or read book The Invention of the Jewish People written by Shlomo Sand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland? Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths. After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.


Like Salt for Bread. The Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Like Salt for Bread. The Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author: Francine Friedman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 968

ISBN-13: 9004471057

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A numerically small Jewish community helped their ethnically embattled neighbors in a neutral, humanitarian way to survive the longest modern siege, Sarajevo, in the early 1990s.


Book Synopsis Like Salt for Bread. The Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina by : Francine Friedman

Download or read book Like Salt for Bread. The Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina written by Francine Friedman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 968 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A numerically small Jewish community helped their ethnically embattled neighbors in a neutral, humanitarian way to survive the longest modern siege, Sarajevo, in the early 1990s.


Tropical Zion

Tropical Zion

Author: Allen Wells

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2009-01-12

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 0822392054

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Seven hundred and fifty Jewish refugees fled Nazi Germany and founded the agricultural settlement of Sosúa in the Dominican Republic, then ruled by one of Latin America’s most repressive dictators, General Rafael Trujillo. In Tropical Zion, Allen Wells, a distinguished historian and the son of a Sosúa settler, tells the compelling story of General Trujillo, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and those fortunate pioneers who founded a successful employee-owned dairy cooperative on the north shore of the island. Why did a dictator admit these desperate refugees when so few nations would accept those fleeing fascism? Eager to mollify international critics after his army had massacred 15,000 unarmed Haitians, Trujillo sent representatives to Évian, France, in July, 1938 for a conference on refugees from Nazism. Proposed by FDR to deflect criticism from his administration’s restrictive immigration policies, the Évian Conference proved an abject failure. The Dominican Republic was the only nation that agreed to open its doors. Obsessed with stemming the tide of Haitian migration across his nation’s border, the opportunistic Trujillo sought to “whiten” the Dominican populace, welcoming Jewish refugees who were themselves subject to racist scorn in Europe. The Roosevelt administration sanctioned the Sosúa colony. Since the United States did not accept Jewish refugees in significant numbers, it encouraged Latin America to do so. That prodding, paired with FDR’s overriding preoccupation with fighting fascism, strengthened U.S. relations with Latin American dictatorships for decades to come. Meanwhile, as Jewish organizations worked to get Jews out of Europe, discussions about the fate of worldwide Jewry exposed fault lines between Zionists and Non-Zionists. Throughout his discussion of these broad dynamics, Wells weaves vivid narratives about the founding of Sosúa, the original settlers and their families, and the life of the unconventional beach-front colony.


Book Synopsis Tropical Zion by : Allen Wells

Download or read book Tropical Zion written by Allen Wells and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-12 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven hundred and fifty Jewish refugees fled Nazi Germany and founded the agricultural settlement of Sosúa in the Dominican Republic, then ruled by one of Latin America’s most repressive dictators, General Rafael Trujillo. In Tropical Zion, Allen Wells, a distinguished historian and the son of a Sosúa settler, tells the compelling story of General Trujillo, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and those fortunate pioneers who founded a successful employee-owned dairy cooperative on the north shore of the island. Why did a dictator admit these desperate refugees when so few nations would accept those fleeing fascism? Eager to mollify international critics after his army had massacred 15,000 unarmed Haitians, Trujillo sent representatives to Évian, France, in July, 1938 for a conference on refugees from Nazism. Proposed by FDR to deflect criticism from his administration’s restrictive immigration policies, the Évian Conference proved an abject failure. The Dominican Republic was the only nation that agreed to open its doors. Obsessed with stemming the tide of Haitian migration across his nation’s border, the opportunistic Trujillo sought to “whiten” the Dominican populace, welcoming Jewish refugees who were themselves subject to racist scorn in Europe. The Roosevelt administration sanctioned the Sosúa colony. Since the United States did not accept Jewish refugees in significant numbers, it encouraged Latin America to do so. That prodding, paired with FDR’s overriding preoccupation with fighting fascism, strengthened U.S. relations with Latin American dictatorships for decades to come. Meanwhile, as Jewish organizations worked to get Jews out of Europe, discussions about the fate of worldwide Jewry exposed fault lines between Zionists and Non-Zionists. Throughout his discussion of these broad dynamics, Wells weaves vivid narratives about the founding of Sosúa, the original settlers and their families, and the life of the unconventional beach-front colony.