Marion Kaplan Discusses Her Book Dominican Haven

The program will commence at 6 P.M. with a guided tour of the exhibition with curator Ilona Moradof at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. At 7 P.M., Professor Kaplan will elaborate on life in Sosua, including how the settlers arrived, built a community, and, in most cases, eventually left for America.

Dr. Kaplan has drawn from Sosuan community records, a variety of archives, and oral histories to produce an informative, accessible, and truly captivating account that explores the lives of Jewish refugees as well as the political agendas that inevitably guided their fate. But, Dominican Haven goes well beyond politics to give readers an intimate look into the lives of individuals, from their oftenharrowing escapes from Europe to the lives they built with the help of their Dominican neighbors in Sosua .

Marion Kaplan is Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University. She is the author of National Jewish Book Award winners The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany (Oxford University Press, 1991) and Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 1998). She has also served on the advisory committees of the Museum of Jewish Heritage for its permanent exhibit as well as Sosua: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic. -- www.mjhnyc.org