History of the Jews in Puerto Rico Very few American Jews settled in Puerto Rico after it was ceded by Spain to the United States under the terms of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish–American War. The first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were refugees fleeing German–occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The second influx came in the 1950s, when thousands of Cuban Jews (most of Eastern-European descent) fled after Fidel Castro came to power. The majority immigrated to Miami, Florida, but a sizable portion chose to establish and integrate themselves on the neighboring island because of Puerto Rico's
Puerto Rico State Guard itself a direct descendant of the Spanish Volunteer Regiments created during Spanish Colonial which was later replaced by the US Volunteer Infantry in 1898. With most of the Puerto Rico National Guard being activated and mobilized during World War II, a secondary force was proposed to deal with the area of Puerto Rico. In April 1942, the colonial legislature passed Law 28, which approved the creation of a new militia-based program to fill the role of the soldiers that had left. The legislation specified that the placeholder entity would only serve within the borders of Puerto Rico and would have