In 1915, during the United States occupation of Haiti, roughly 200 Jews lived in Haiti at the time. During the 20 years period of occupation, many Jews left Haiti for the United States and South America. In 1937, Haiti was responsible for saving about 70 Jewish families (an estimated total of up to 300 lives) during the Holocaust (according to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), by issuing passports and visas to Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Some were Austrian Jews, Polish Jews, German Jews, and a trickle of Romanian Jew and Czech Jewish descent. Haiti played a small, yet critical role in saving Jewish lives during the darkest chapter in the Jewish story Unfortunately, though, it seems that more Jews were unable to acquire visas to Haiti due to the cost. Professor David Bankier, of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that after 1938, "“the cost [of a visa] was outrageous: If you wanted to go to Haiti, you had to pay $5,000.”" Haiti at the time, was still unfairly paying reparations on an exorbitant debt with interest fees to France after the Haitian Revolution that could have hindered their efforts to continue issuing these visas for free. There were others apart from this bunch who never came to Haiti at all, but from Germany they were given Haitian passports by the Haitian government that allowed them to flee Germany and into other countries. Grateful to the Haitian government, many of these European Jews stayed in Haiti until the late 1950s in which many Haitian Jews left, so that their children could marry other Jews and not assimilate, while finding better economic opportunities. The 1957 Jewish population of Haiti was about 200. The mid-20th century was a time where a continued departure of Jews from Haiti for the United States and Panama because of the economic conditions and civil violence in the country. Today, the Jewish community is led by Rabbi Douglas Lapin, a local businessman. The Jewish community is known as the "Consistoire d'Haiti" and has been recognized as the representative of the Jewish community by the Haitian Ministry of Religion (Ministere des Cultes) . Rabbi Lapin has likewise been recognized as the Rabbi in Haiti by the Haitian government. The community is very small and mostly consists of UN, NGO, and diplomatic personnel, although there are a small number of Haitian Jewish families. The community does Kosher chicken slaughtering (shkita) and has occasional gatherings for Jewish festivals such as Succos and Purim.