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Aruba’s new rabbi comes out of retirement to lead a congregation in ‘paradise’
ORANJESTAD, Aruba (JTA) — One of Alberto Zeilicovich’s first duties as a Conservative rabbi was to officiate the funeral of a 20-year-old congregant, murdered by a drug cartel while enjoying a night out with his friends at a disco.
It was the late 1980s in Medellin, Colombia, and Zeilicovich had entered the pulpit at the height of the Colombian drug wars and the reign of notorious kingpin Pablo Escobar. Two years later, he would bury another member of the congregation murdered by the cartel.
“We felt fear,” Zeilicovich, who goes by Baruch, said about his six years in Medellin. “The president of the congregation told me you cannot walk on Shabbos to the synagogue. ‘You should come with a car.’ I asked, ‘Are you afraid someone is going to kidnap me?’ He said, ‘No, I am afraid somebody will kill you.’”
To give him a break, a congregant sent Zeilicovich on a trip to Aruba and Curacao, islands where, he recalled, he could “unplug a little bit from a situation that was very dangerous.”
That 1990 trip would ultimately result in the other bookend of his career: Zeilicovich recently came out of retirement to begin a three-year contract as the rabbi of Beth Israel Synagogue, a small synagogue on the Dutch island of Aruba in the southern Caribbean Sea. He had visited the island at least once a year for the past 32 years.
Temple Beth Israel, a Conservative-style synagogue in Oranjestad, Aruba, was consecrated in 1962. (Dan Fellner)
“First, the people are very friendly,” he says of Aruba, which has a population of about 100,000 and is officially called a “constituent country” of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “Second, it’s a very safe place. And third, the island is a paradise. Everything is so beautiful.”
The synagogue, located in the island’s capital city of Oranjestad, is not affiliated with any movement of Judaism but operates in the style of the egalitarian Conservative movement. It is just a block from one of Aruba’s signature white-sand beaches and a five-minute drive to Eagle Beach, perhaps its most famous.
While Zeilicovich no longer needs armed security guards to accompany him to synagogue as he did in Medellin, he still brings to the pulpit the difficult life lessons he learned during those tumultuous years in Colombia.
“Being in Medellin made me realize how a rabbi should teach the congregation about what are the most important things in life,” he says. “That shaped me in understanding what the role of a rabbi should be — a facilitator for everybody to be a better Jew, a better person.”
Zeilicovich, who speaks five languages, was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he experienced antisemitism and life under an oppressive military regime. He studied at a rabbinical seminary in Buenos Aires before completing his ordination at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.
Following his six years in Medellin, Zeilicovich moved to a synagogue in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, before rabbinical stints in Puerto Rico, Texas and most recently New Jersey, where he announced his retirement from Temple Beth Sholom in Fair Lawn in late 2020.
Zeilicovich and his wife Graciela had moved to Israel when he got a phone call from Daniel Kripper, a friend and fellow Argentine who was retiring as the rabbi of Aruba’s Beth Israel.
“He called me and said, ‘Baruch, what are you doing in Israel?’ I said I’m going to the beach. He said, ‘Why don’t you come to the beach in Aruba where you can have a congregation again?’ And I said, ‘Why not?’”
According to Richenella Wever, a member of the Beth Israel board, Zeilicovich has been a good fit with the synagogue’s diverse congregation. “His way of thinking, teaching and his ability to connect the Torah with daily life is amazing,” she said.
Jewish life in Aruba dates back to the 16th century, when immigrants arrived from the Netherlands and Portugal. In 1754, Moses Solomon Levie Maduro, who came from a prominent Portuguese Jewish family in Curacao, settled in Aruba, where he founded the Aruba branch of the Dutch West Indies Company. Maduro paved the way for more immigrants but the island’s Jewish population has always remained small. It’s now about 100.
In 1956, the Dutch Kingdom officially recognized the Jewish community of Aruba; Beth Israel was consecrated six years later. The synagogue calls itself a “Conservative egalitarian temple keeping Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions.” In addition to Beth Israel, there is a Chabad chapter on the island that opened in 2013.
With a membership of just 50 local families and a few dozen overseas residents, Beth Israel has limited resources. A Dutch law stipulating that the salaries of clergy in Holland’s overseas territories be paid by the government helps the synagogue remain solvent.
“This is really unique,” says Zeilicovich. “You can be a minister of an evangelical church, a Roman Catholic priest, an imam from a mosque or a rabbi from a synagogue — the government pays the salary.
“When I want to brag about myself, I say I am an employee of the Crown of Holland,” he added with a laugh.
Zeilicovich says the Aruban government has been highly supportive of the Jewish community, even erecting a life-sized bronze statue in 2010 of Anne Frank in Queen Wilhelmina Park in downtown Oranjestad.
A bronze statue of Anne Frank stands in the Queen Wilhelmina Park in downtown Oranjestad, Aruba, at left; at right, a T-shirt for sale in the Beth Israel gift shop in Aruba reads “Bon Bini,” meaning “welcome” in Papiamento, the local language. (Dan Fellner)
“That means they have respect for the Jewish community,” he says. “And they are very sympathetic with us about the Holocaust.”
Zeilicovich says a typical Friday night Shabbat service attracts about 20 people, about one-third of whom are tourists. Some arrive on the many cruise ships that dock just a mile away from the synagogue; others stay at condos or at one of Aruba’s posh resorts.
If there aren’t enough worshippers for a prayer quorum of 10 on Saturday mornings, a Torah study group meets instead. The synagogue’s small sanctuary can hold 60 worshippers, and is normally full for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur each fall.
“We are a friendly, welcoming congregation,” Zeilicovich says. “We are family — mishpocha. When you come here, we try to make you feel that way.”
Indeed, a popular item in the synagogue’s small gift shop is a T-shirt imprinted with the words “Bon Bini Shalom.” Bon Bini means “welcome” in Papiamento, the Portuguese-based Creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean.
Zeilicovich says one of his priorities as the new rabbi is to improve the synagogue’s marketing efforts and revamp its website. He adds that Aruba’s Jewish community often is overshadowed by Curacao, its Dutch neighbor to the east that is home to the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas.
“We are behind in marketing,” he said. “And we understand we are missing a huge opportunity.”
For now, Zeilicovich is enjoying his time in Aruba and can’t help but marvel at how his life has changed since his days as a rabbi in Medellin when just getting from his home to the synagogue was a dangerous ordeal.
“I think about that and look to heaven and say, ‘God, thank you.’”
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How the Haskalah Changed the Way Jews Experienced Judaism
A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The word “Haskalah” conjures up a period of upheaval in 18th century European Jewish life. If you were to ask anybody what the term Haskalah refers to nowadays, in Israel you will be told that “Haskalah Gevoha” means higher education. But once upon a time, Haskalah was a scandalous word to some, and stood for intellectual freedom to others.
It was Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) who was (perhaps unfairly) regarded as the founder of Haskalah — the attempt to combine the Jewish religion and its scholarship with secular cultural and scientific advances.
Mendelssohn was given permission to settle in Berlin, where he came into contact with non-Jewish scholarship. His brilliant philosophical mind soon led to him being accepted into the German cultural elite.
Mendelssohn saw the danger of Jews moving out of the ghetto to assimilate. He believed that by translating the Torah into German, the danger could be averted. He argued that Judaism did not conflict with modern states. It is worth reading his book, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism. In it, he claimed that Jews were not a threat to established societies and religions, and should be granted equality.
Sadly, although he remained completely Orthodox himself, within a generation, all his children married out and abandoned Judaism. At the time, this seemed to negate his position. But his position found support and admirers in much of Central Europe, even in rabbinic circles.
Back in Eastern Europe and Russia, the leaders of the Jewish world saw this trend of accepting and studying secular subjects as a threat to their Jewish life.
When Napoleon attacked Russia, many rabbis sided with the antisemitic tzar against Napoleon, because they feared that if Napoleon brought equality to the Jews, many would abandon Judaism altogether. They also believed that loosened restrictions in Central and Western Europe were leading to assimilation.
This era was described as a “Kulturkampf” (culture war) between the old and the new. And either way, Jews were seen as outsiders. This is why Theodor Herzl believed that Jews would always be alien, and only a Jewish state could keep the Jewish people safe.
Within the Jewish world, the desire for wider knowledge in the realms of medicine, mathematics, and philosophy had always been encouraged by great rabbinic authorities from Maimonides to the Vilna Gaon. But they were not approved for mass consumption.
The movement to open up to the cultural world became known as the Haskalah — with rival camps supporting their own systems of education, language, literature, drama, and ideology. But it often turned into an anti-religious mindset.
At the same time, the Reform movement began in Germany and headed in a different direction. The rivalry between rabbis of different persuasions fractured and altered Jewish communities fundamentally.
In the past, if you wanted to abandon Judaism, your only option was to become a Christian or a Muslim. Now, for the first time, there was a third option — embrace a different strand of Judaism. The cohesion that had been forced on the Jewish people since the Roman exile began to fragment.
Secular Judaism is strong and manifest in Israel. On the other hand, the Haredi world has doubled down on its separatism as the only way to combat the attraction of Western civilization.
Today, there are so many other factions and sects that have developed. And what is called Modern or Open Orthodoxy still adheres to the dream of combining two worlds that generated the Haskalah originally.
The Jewish people face constant challenges from the outside and within. Nothing reflects this more clearly than the history of Haskalah. I can only conclude that this division can be regarded as creative, forcing us to cope with different challenges and to examine our own lives and our own relationship with Judaism.
The author is a writer and rabbi based in New York.
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US Intelligence Raises Doubts About Venezuela Leader’s Cooperation
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez speaks during a press conference, more than a week after the US launched a strike on the country and captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 14, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria
US intelligence reports have raised doubts about whether interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez will cooperate with the Trump administration by formally cutting ties with US adversaries, four people familiar with the reports said in recent days.
US officials have said publicly they want the interim president to sever relations with close international allies like Iran, China, and Russia, including expelling their diplomats and advisers from Venezuela.
But Rodriguez, whose swearing-in ceremony was attended by representatives of those countries early this month, has yet to publicly announce such a move. She became president after the US captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Jan. 3.
The US intelligence reports said it was not clear if she is fully on board with the US strategy in her country, according to the sources, who declined to be identified by name.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled on Jan. 15 to Caracas, where he discussed the country’s political future with Rodriguez. Reuters could not determine if those conversations changed the intelligence agencies’ opinion.
Washington wants to rein in its foes’ influence in the Western hemisphere, including in Venezuela, where Trump seeks to exploit the OPEC nation’s vast oil reserves.
If Rodriguez were to break ties with the US rivals, it would open more opportunity for US investment in Venezuela’s energy sector. But failure to control Rodriguez could undercut Washington’s efforts to direct the country’s interim rulers from afar and avoid a deeper US military role.
The Central Intelligence Agency and the Venezuela government did not respond to requests for comment.
Asked for comment, a senior Trump administration official, who declined to be identified, said US President Donald Trump “continues to exert maximum leverage” over Venezuela‘s leaders and “expects this cooperation to continue.”
ABANDON LONGTIME ALLIES?
The CIA has previously assessed that officials loyal to Maduro, including Rodriguez, were best positioned to govern the country following his ouster.
But critics of Trump’s Venezuela strategy have expressed doubts about the wisdom of keeping Maduro’s loyalists in place as the country’s interim leaders. The concerns about Rodriguez’ reliability were present prior to the US military operation, said two sources.
For Venezuela, the US directive means abandoning its closest allies outside the region. Iran has helped Venezuela repair oil refineries while China has taken oil as repayment for debt. Russia has supplied weaponry, including missiles, to Venezuela‘s military.
Trump has also cited communist-led Cuba as another US foe he wants Venezuela to abandon. Havana has provided security and intelligence support while receiving cut-rate Venezuelan oil.
Since Maduro’s removal, Rodriguez, whose deep ties to the oil sector are crucial to keeping the country stable, has taken steps to stay in favor with Washington including releasing political prisoners and authorizing the sale of 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States.
In a speech on Sunday, Rodriguez said she has had “enough” of US intervention. Still, US officials have also held positive calls with her in recent days, according to two of the sources.
The Trump administration does not see an immediate alternative to working with Rodriguez, given it has publicly backed her so strongly, two of the sources said.
But US officials are developing contacts with senior military and security officials in case they decide to change their approach, a source briefed on Venezuela policy said.
MACHADO CONSIDERED A LONGER-TERM OPTION TO RUN VENEZUELA
The recent intelligence reports also found that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is not currently able to run the country successfully in part because she lacks strong ties to the country’s security services or oil sector, the sources said.
Some observers and Machado’s movement say it won a 2024 election that year by a huge margin, though the state backed a Maduro victory. She remains popular with Venezuelans.
Trump told reporters last week he wanted Machado “involved” in the country’s leadership, without providing details.
One person familiar with the administration’s discussions with Machado said she is well-liked by the White House and is considered a longer-term option for a leadership position in Venezuela.
The separate source briefed on Venezuela policy suggested that for now, Machado could be considered for an advisory role but no firm decision had been made. Representatives for Machado did not respond to a request for comment.
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UN Experts Denounce Switzerland for Sentencing Students Over Anti-Israel Protest Activity
Illustrative: Youths take part in the occupation of a street in front of the building of the Sciences Po University in support of Palestinians in Gaza, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Paris, France, April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
UN human rights experts said on Tuesday they had protested to Switzerland after a group of students were sentenced for trespassing after taking part in anti-Israel sit-ins at a Swiss-funded university during the war in Gaza.
The students who took part in the protests in May 2024 were opposing the Swiss university ETH Zurich’s partnerships with Israeli universities, the UN experts said.
“Peaceful student activism, on and off campus, is part of students‘ rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and must not be criminalized,” the UN experts said, adding that they had written to the Swiss government and the university to raise the issue.
A spokesperson for the Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed it had received the message and said it would respond in due course.
An ETH Zurich spokesperson said it had received the letter. It said that of the 40 people that were reported for trespassing, 11 were ETH members, including nine students and two employees.
“The claim that the two sit-ins were peaceful and aimed at dialogue does not match our perception,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said that the university and the police communicated to the sit-in protesters the potential consequences regarding charges and prosecution for trespassing and gave the demonstrators several deadlines to leave without consequences.
Five students have so far been sentenced for trespassing, resulting in suspended fines of up to 2,700 Swiss francs ($3,516), legal fees of over 2,000 Swiss francs and a criminal conviction on their records which could discourage future prospective employers, the UN experts said.
Ten others who appealed the charges await sentencing and two others were acquitted, they said.
($1 = 0.7679 Swiss francs)