Frank, the first part of your statement is not really correct. The original Jewish settlers of Sosua were trained in farming, particularly dairy farming by instructors who came from the kibbutz movements in Israel prior to and after the establishment of that state. More recently Jewish agricultural experts from Israel have assisted DR farmers and the various growers' organisations with innovations in fruit, vegetable, cereal and other branches of food production, harvesting, packaging and marketing. The State of Israel was for many years a major player in all aspects of agriculture and today is one of the leaders in agricultural development and technology, particulalry irrigation and water management in arid regions.
Thanks for the post.According to an article in the Sosúa News QUOTE:
n early 2004, the Mexican company Sigma acquired the dairy and meat factory 'Productus Sosúa.
The company was founded by the Jewish community in 1943. In the beginning the factory processed milk into dairy products like cheese, butter and yoghurt and sold them. In 1945 the factory was expanded with the production of meat products. As the last director and co-owner Herman Strauss could not find a successor, the shareholders decided to sell the company in early 2000. The Mexican company Sigma bought it and thus became the new owner. Soon the production of meat was relocated, and Sigma recently announced that it will stop buying the milk which is delivered daily by 23 farmers in the immediate area of Sosúa. It is about 25,000 liters per day. For farmers, this is a disaster because Sigma is almost the only buyer for their milk. Previously Sigma bargained a reduction of 2 to 3 pesos a liter of milk.
The past year was dramatic. The months-long drought in the summer of 2015 made it very difficult to survive for many farmers. The meadows were withered and farmers were forced to buy fodder. For this, they had to borrow a lot of money. The threat now of Sigma to stop buying their milk will be catastrophic for many farmers bringing them financial doom. UNQUOTE
Hermann Strauss himself passed away in February 2017
You mean Trujillo allowing highly educated and reasonably motivated men getting at chance at breaking many of his monopolies?Jews are not really known to be farmers, if Trujillo would have had them set up merchant and trading companies there would have been a much larger Jewish population in the DR and the country most probably would have been in a better shape now.
Panama has many Jews who own businesses and therefore employ a lot of Panamanians.
Her book is too biased towards to the Haitians. She also ignores a lot of background information (historical) that isn't convenient for the purpose of her book. I like to think she was simply unaware of that when she published her book, but there is a small possibility she knew something about this and simply decided not to include it in the book since it neutralizes the purpose of her book which is: Haitians are innocent victims because Dominicans are bad.This is also covered in great detail in the book "Why The Cocks Fight" by Michele Wucker. Its a pretty good book that covers a lot of the history between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It also covers a lot of detail of the Trujillo years.
According to my DR friends they say its quite factual but as usual that depends on what side of the road you are standing on.
Its currently available on amazon in print or electronic version.