Musical Theater Connects Dominicans and Jews
- Posted on:
- March 11, 2010
Jordan Hoepelman, 13, didn’t have anything to do after school, so he answered an audition call for teens with Dominican and Jewish backgrounds who live in Washington Heights.
Jordan, whose father is Dominican, became one of 20 students — 10 Dominican, 10 Jewish — chosen to work with prize-winning director and composer Elizabeth Swados on an original musical theater production, Sosua: Dare to Dance Together, a project of the YM & YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York. The play will open at the Washington Heights Y in May.
What started out for Jordan as a way to overcome boredom has become a powerful lesson about Jewish refugees from the Holocaust and the history of the Dominican Republic.
Sosua tells the little-known story of how the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1938 accepted 800 Jews fleeing Hitler, becoming the only western nation to do so. The play, based on monologues the teens wrote themselves, reveals how the refugees settled in Sosua, an abandoned banana plantation, and how the Dominican people helped them.
“Now I know more about how the Jewish people suffered, and that the Dominicans saved them,” Jordan says. “It’s been the greatest project I’ve ever done. I’m learning new things, making great friends, and working with a great director.”
The teens and Swados meet weekly in the Washington Heights Y auditorium that also doubles as a cafeteria with a kosher kitchen, and a Dominican chef prepares dinner for the teens after rehearsals. Beef stew, brown rice, and platanos were on the menu at a recent rehearsal.
Creating Community Ties
The play is the brainchild of Victoria Neznansky, chief program officer at the Washington Heights Y. She had seen an exhibit about Sosua organized by the Museum of Jewish Heritage and realized the potential of the story to create a greater connection between the Dominican and Jewish communities she works with.
“The three primary immigrant groups arriving in Washington Heights over the years are German Jews, Russian Jews, and Dominicans. All three groups have survived terror and oppression by brutal leaders, suffered tremendous losses and traumas, and did not have an easy time assimilating into a new culture,” Neznansky explains. “This project will bring a sense of meaningful community ties and spirit that is needed to make a more vibrant and cohesive community.”
The production is made possible through the support of the Community Connections Committee, part of the New York Jewry Task Force of UJA-Federation’s Commission on the Jewish People. The committee reflects UJA-Federation’s commitment to respond to community relations concerns, help beneficiary agencies engage in innovative community-based programs, and mobilize the diverse resources of the communal network.
“In Washington Heights, there’s a vibrant Jewish and Dominican population living side by side, but without really interacting or understanding one another,” says Neil Steinberg, Community Connections Committee chair. “Through musical theater, we are funding a vehicle that brings teenagers from the two groups together and meets our founding mission of improving intergroup relations.”
The project appealed to director Liz Swados, who has worked on issue-oriented musical theater with children and teens throughout her Broadway and Off Broadway career.
“I thought it was so beautiful that this Latino country and Jews could come together. It was unlikely and a surprise. It was the worse time of the world and here was a little pocket of humanity, even though it came from a brutal dictator,” notes Swados.
Work with Teens Inspires
She has found her work with these teens inspiring. “They’re wonderful kids with a real sense of responsibility and understanding of the horrors of what the world can do and how to heal it,” she says. “In small groups like this, you can discuss the healing process. It gives me hope.”
At a recent rehearsal, Swados asked the teens to work in teams of two or three people to create a scene about how Dominicans would have perceived Jews arriving in their country in 1938, and how the Jewish refugees viewed Dominicans. The scenes will form the basis of dialogue Swados later integrates into the play.
“Liz is an amazing director,” says Hannah Krutiansksy, 12, a Jewish teen in the play whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors. “Most directors would give us a script. But the way she works, she asks for our input and asks us to write on a certain topic, collaborates with us, and incorporates it into her writing.”
The project has left Hannah with two key impressions.
“What most shocked me was that Trujillo, who took in the Jews, was just as bad as Hitler and did the same things to Haitians that was done to Jews,” she says.
“And I think every culture has things in common with each other. So many times, people only perceive the differences. There should be more mixing between Dominicans and Jews — because there’s so much that can happen when we come together.”