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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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Iran ‘Has No Choice’ but to Move Capital as Water Crisis Deepens, Says President
People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian affirmed on Thursday that the country “has no choice” but to relocate its capital, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain — even as the regime spends billions of dollars rebuilding its military and nuclear infrastructure and backing its terrorist proxies.
In a televised national address, the Iranian leader renewed his call to relocate the capital, asserting that the deepening crisis has “rendered the city uninhabitable.”
Pezeshkian said Iran’s water, land, and infrastructure systems are under such extreme pressure that relocating the capital is now unavoidable, adding that when the move was first proposed, the government lacked even a minimal budget to pursue it.
“The truth is, we have no choice left — relocating the capital is now a necessity,” he said during his speech.
With parts of the city sinking up to 30 centimeters a year and water supplies dwindling, Pezeshkian described Tehran’s current situation as a “catastrophe.”
He urged government ministries and public officials to coordinate their efforts to avert a grim future for the country.
“Protecting the environment is not a game,” the Iranian leader said.
“Ignoring it is signing our own destruction,” he continued, explaining that Tehran can no longer cope with population growth or the city’s expanding construction.
Among the solutions considered to tackle the crisis, one has been importing water from the Gulf of Oman. However, Pezeshkian noted that such an approach is extremely costly, with each cubic meter costing millions to deliver to Tehran.
Earlier this year, the Iranian regime announced it was considering relocating the capital to the Makran coast in the country’s south, a remote region overlooking the Gulf of Oman, in a bid to ease Tehran’s congestion and alleviate its water and energy shortages.
Advocates of this initiative emphasize its strategic benefits, including direct access to the Indian Ocean and significant economic potential through maritime trade, centered on the port of Chabahar, Iran’s crucial gateway to Central Asia.
However, critics argue that the region is still underdeveloped, fraught with security risks, and unprepared to function as a capital, warning that the move could cost tens of billions of dollars — an amount the country cannot bear amid economic turmoil, soaring inflation, and renewed United Nations sanctions.
Notably, the Iranian regime has focused its resources on bolstering its military and nuclear programs rather than addressing the country’s water crisis, a choice that has left citizens’ needs unmet while advancing its agenda against Israel.
The regime has also spent billions of dollars supporting its terrorist proxies across the region and operations abroad, with the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit, funneling funds to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, in defiance of international sanctions.
According to the US Treasury Department, Iran has provided more than $100 million per month to Hezbollah so far this year alone, with $1 billion representing only a portion of Tehran’s overall support for the terrorist group, using a “shadow financial system” to transfer funds to Lebanon.
Iran also provides weapons, training, logistical support, and political backing to the group along with other proxies, including Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, various militias in Iraq and Syria, and other Islamist entities.
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Columbia University Student Groups Promote Targeting of NYC Synagogue, Where Mob Chants Antisemitic Death Threats
Nov. 19, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of Park East Synagogue. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
At least two anti-Israel student groups at Columbia University promoted a riotous demonstration in which hundreds of people amassed outside a prominent New York City synagogue on Wednesday night and clamored for violence against Jews.
“We don’t want no Zionists here!” the group chanted in intervals while waving the Palestinian flag outside the Park East Synagogue in the Upper East Side section of the borough of Manhattan. “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out.”
HAPPENING NOW OUTSIDE PARK EAST SYNAGOGUE
Antisemites have showed up outside Park East synagogue and are chanting for intifada.
The Rabbi of the synagogue is a holocaust survivor who remembers vividly the horrors of Kristallnacht.
Now, he gets to see the same human… pic.twitter.com/fFDtt8nOhV
— Rabbi Poupko (@RabbiPoupko) November 20, 2025
One protester, addressing the crowd, reportedly proclaimed, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events! We need to make them scared.”
The demonstrators were harassing those attending an event by Nefesh B’nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel.
Footage on social media also showed agitators chanting “death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, as well as “globalize the intifada” and “intifada revolution.”
Since the incident, which has garnered viral attention on social media, The Algemeiner has learned that at least two campus groups, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and the school’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, used social media to advertise the protest, which was organized by the anti-Zionist activist organization Pal-Awda.
Responding to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment, Columbia said that it does not recognize or meet with CUAD or any of its affiliated organizations.
“The group that refers to itself as CU Apartheid and Divest is not recognized by Columbia and does not receive any funding or support from the university,” a spokesperson for the school said. “Any organization that promotes violence or encourages disruption of our academic mission is not welcome on our campuses.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Columbia University once struggled to contain CUAD, which in late January committed infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, ADP reportedly distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.
In July, Columbia University president Claire Shipman vowed never to “recognize or meet with” the self-titled group, but CUAD insists on touting its university affiliation.
Other campus groups from different schools also promoted Wednesday’s targeting of Parl East Synagogue, such as City University of New York 4 Palestine (CUNY4Palestine). The riotous protest was held nearly a week after a local imam and graduate student in the CUNY system, Abdullah Mady, disrupted an interfaith event with a prolonged rant in which he called for imposing sharia law on Americans, defended amputating the limbs of misdemeanor level criminals and the wealthy, and denigrated a Jewish co-panelist, Baruch College professor Ilya Bratman.
The Wednesday night demonstration drew reaction from top New York politicians.
“This is [Gov.] Kathy Hochul’s New York,” US Rep. Elise Stefanik, a leading Republican candidate running to unseat Hochul in next year’s gubernatorial election, said on the X social media platform. “When New Yorkers were looking for strong leadership from our governor, instead of standing against antisemitic hate, Hochul chose to endorse a raging antisemite for mayor of NYC putting Jewish families at risk.”
Hochul endorsed New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist who is allied with far-left anti-Zionist groups and has vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit the city. He has also supported boycotts targeting Israel and failed to denounce the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which has been widely interpreted as a call for terrorism against Jews and Israelis worldwife.
The Jewish community has expressed alarm about Mamdani’s rise, expressing fear that New York City, already experiencing a massive surge in antisemitic hate crimes, will become less safe with Mamdani in office.
Elizabeth Pipko, a Jewish civil rights activist and former spokesperson for both the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, lamented how Wednesday night’s demonstration was indicative of a city becoming increasingly hostile for Jews.
“This is my synagogue. My family has proudly belonged to Park East Synagogue since their arrival in America in the 1970s (ironically fleeing from antisemitism and scenes just like this),” Pipko wrote. “It’s also important to note that the entrance being protested in front of here is Park East Day School. Not only is Park East an amazing place where I spent most of my childhood, but it is where children as young as 2 and 3 years old are going to walk in tomorrow morning, to get a Jewish education. A place where they should be allowed to feel safe.”
She added, “My heart breaks for NYC and what it is becoming.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Baby Killer’: Elite Virginia Private School Pays Over $100K to Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas agitators participate in anti-capitalist “Shut it down for Palestine!” protest in Vienna, Virginia, US, on Nov. 24, 2023. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect
Nysmith School for the Gifted in Fairfax County, Virginia, agreed on Tuesday to pay $100,000, plus attorneys’ fees and other costs, to settle a lawsuit which alleged that it expelled three Jewish students for reporting antisemitism, avoiding a potentially lengthy trial.
The harrowing accusations rocked the private institution — which is superlatively acclaimed across the state and charges an annual tuition of more than $46,000 per year — calling into question its commitment to serving all students, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic origin.
One of the victims in the case, an 11-year-old Jane Doe, allegedly endured months of torment related to Israel’s war against Hamas and the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. According to the lawsuit, bullies called her a “baby killer,” proclaimed that Jews should be murdered for launching a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — which included sexually assaulting men and women and murdering the young and elderly — and openly professed that it was her Jewishness that had detonated their explosive, anti-Jewish rage.
Nymith’s headmaster, when briefed on the situation, told the young woman to “toughen up” and declined to discipline the offenders, the complaint said. At the same time, the school began to cancel Jewish history on campus, shutting down an annual week of Holocaust commemoration that would have featured a survivor of the Nazis’ genocide and discussions on antisemitism prevention. The school told the community that the war in Gaza forced its hand to be sensitive to global events, even amid incidents such as a student creating a portrait of Adolf Hitler.
In the end, Nysmith expelled Jane Doe, as well as her two siblings.
Now, in addition paying her family what amounts to nearly $150,000, the school says it will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used by governments across the world, and submit to monitoring by a third-party watchdog for a minimum five-year period. That monitor will oversee the conclusion of Nysmith’s investigation of the bullying allegations and determine whether school officials did not intentionally violate the law.
“Justice has been served for our clients’ family, and the resulting actions underway at Nymith School will help prevent this kind of discrimination from happening to others. These steps are critical as antisemitism in K-12 education continues to rise,” Brandeis Center chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “Through this settlement, we send a clear message, one that demonstrates accountability and willingness to improve.”
He added, “It is our hope that other schools and universities around the country will follow suit. We thank [Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares] for the prompt and energetic work of his office throughout this process.”
Headmaster Ken Nysmith issued a public statement of contrition.
“I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge that there are things I could have done differently in this particular situation, and for that, I am truly sorry,” Nysmith wrote in a letter to parents. “For the 40 yeasts I have been at Nysmith, I have always tried to do my personal best, guided by our commitment to our students, families, and staff. In this instance, I will use this experience to reflect, to learn, and to continue improving as a leader.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington issued a comment on the resolution of the case as well.
“To call the facts of this case an outrage would be an understatement,” the organization said. “As antisemitism continues to surge in the United States, we must all do our part to fight back. Every school should offer an environment that is welcoming, inclusive, and free from hate. This agreement provides a roadmap toward the better future that Jewish families need more than ever, and that all of our children deserve.”
The Brandeis Center, one of America’s leading Jewish civil rights groups, notched another major court victory on Thursday which secured a six-figure settlement for a cohort of plaintiffs who alleged that their union fostered a hostile environment against Jewish and Zionist members during an outbreak of pro-Hamas sentiment set off by the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) allegedly became a “cornucopia of classic modern antisemitism” in late 2023. Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, it passed a virulently anti-Israel resolution which made only a passing reference to Hamas’s atrocities and launched a smear campaign against Jewish members who opposed it. Following that, the union facilitated the filing of disciplinary, “formal charges” against Jewish and Zionist members, attempting to expel them from its ranks.
Per the terms of the agreement, ALAA, the union for New York public defenders, will shell out $315,000 in damages while admitting culpability in the events which precipitated legal action. The ALAA also agreed to institute new training courses on the rights of union members and accept a neutral third party’s oversight of other organizational procedures.
“We are seeing an increasing trend in labor union antisemitism, much as we have seen a similar increase on college campuses. In both cases, there is bitter irony,” Marcus said in a statement. “Colleges are supposed to be islands of reason and tolerance. Labor unions are supposed to be advocates for social justice and workplace equality. To find the oldest hatred in such places is deeply antithetical to their mission.”
He added, “This settlement is a landmark in the fight against antisemitism in this sector. I am gratified by this outcome and resolved to support Jewish workers at any union around the country that is seeing this problem arise. Based on what we’re hearing around the country, there will be more of these cases coming.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.