Description
Address: Magdalenaweg 37
Phonenumber: +599 9 665 3355
Link: www.jewishcuracao.com
Mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Type: Modern Orthodox - Beit Chabad
Rabbi Refoel and Chani Silver
It started operating in 2005.
** Performs daily religious services, celebrations of Shabbat and commemorations of the high holidays.
HISTORY
In 1932 the Ashkenazi Jews founded a social center (Club Union), and their own sports club. A permanent synagogue did not come until much later, in 1959.
It was called Shaarei Tsedek, Gates of Righteousness and was located in a villa at Scharloo (Scharlooweg 39-41) near the center of Willemstad, close to Punda.
Scharloo was the historic, prestigious neighborhood of the Sephardic Jews.
Until 1959 services were conducted in different locations (in the 1930s, the Ashkenazi Jews rented an upper floor in the former Graham building, next to Cinema Cinelandia.
After some years, the congregation met at the Penstraat, and later at Bargestraat.
For kosher meat, the congregation hired a Shochet, a ritual slaughterer.
In the mid-1980s, the Ashkenazic Congregation sold the synagogue building it had consecrated in 1959. This was because the once prestigious and lucrative area, Scharloo, where it had been located (Scharlooweg 39-41), began to deteriorate, and more and more Ashkenazi Jews were moving east from Punda to the newly built suburban areas adjacent to it.
Following the move, services were held temporarily in a former private home of one of the congregation members located in the residential neighborhood of Mahaai (Lelieweg 1A) and close to most members homes.
From the onset, on the community agenda was to build a new synagogue in the new residential area of Mahaai. The congregation even purchased the intended piece of property for that purpose, but for various reasons, this temporary move lasted far more than originally planned.
It was not until June 10, 2006, that the long-awaited dream finally came true.
Today the community has a very beautiful architectural synagogue, and a very active community.
