About Us
The Jewish Community of Aruba, Beth Israel Synagogue is dedicated to encouraging its members and visitors to engage in Jewish traditions, culture, spirituality and tikkun olam. It is a congregation whose members value our long history, while embracing 21st Century Judaism. We are the “home away from home” for visitors and friends from abroad. We take pride in our reputation as a warm and caring congregation. Everyone is welcome!
Jews have been recorded living in Aruba since the 16th century. In 1754, Moses Solomon Levie Maduro settled in Aruba with his wife and six children; the family remained in Aruba until 1816. Maduro came from a prominent Portuguese Jewish family in Curaçao.
In 1942, the community created the Jewish Country Club in Palm Beach. This center was utilized for life-cycle events such as weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs. By 1946, the Jewish Country Club was officially recognized in Aruba as a center for worship, Hebrew school, and social events.
On December 1, 1956, the Dutch Kingdom officially recognized the Jewish community of Aruba. By the 1960s, however, as many young Jews left Aruba for the United States, the Jewish Country Club was closed. But in order to keep Jewish life on the island alive, on November 4, 1962, Beth Israel Synagogue was consecrated in Oranjestad, fusing both Beth Israel Synagogue and the Jewish Community of Aruba (Israelitische Gemeente in Dutch) into one.
Being a founding member of the U.J.C.L. ( Jewish Union of Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean), Beth Israel knows the importance of cooperation between small congregations in the Latin American and Caribbean area, where the Sephardic and Ashkenazic history and traditions blend in an harmonious way.
