I remember the first time I came to this island, about 3 years ago, and started exploring. I did not know about the history of Sosua. So I stepped down of a guagua de concho from Puerto Plata in front of the Playero super market and crossed over the road (Texaco) to find myself observing two men wearing a kippah. I thought
that was surprising and moved on walking into the night club area of El Batey and surprised myself again by running into two more men who evidently were Jewish. So, I called my 2nd grade cousin in Germany, who also speaks Yiddish and Hebrew and knows it all and asked him if he knew any thing about a Jewish convention or something of the kind going down in a small town on the North Coast of the Dominican Republic
. He laughed himself dizzy and asked me if I was in a town called Sosua... I said that yes and wondered how he'd guessed... but then he explained. Sometimes it's incredible what all one does not know.
However, I must say that since I came to stay here only two years later, I have never again seen ANYBODY on the streets of Sosua wearing a kippah.
... J-D.