Aron Mendes Chumaceiro

Who was Aron Mendes Chumaceiro?

Aron Mendes Chumaceiro was chakam of Curaçao, Dutch West Indies. He received the various rabbinical degrees at the celebrated bet ha-midrash Ets Haim. In 1848 he was awarded the royal gold medal for the best sermon in the Dutch language. When the Sephardic synagogue of Amsterdam proposed to elect him preacher in the vernacular, it met with strenuous opposition, Ladino being the only language, except Hebrew, used in the synagogue. When in 1852 Chumaceiro was elected first ab bet din, he succeeded in overcoming the opposition to Dutch, and soon established a reputation as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the Netherlands. In 1852 he edited the first Dutch Jewish weekly, Het Israelietisch Weekblad. In the same year he was elected head of the bet ha-midrash Ets Haim.

Delegated by the parnasim of his congregation in 1854 to receive the future King Pedro V of Portugal, he conducted the royal visitor and his suite to the bet ha-midrash, where the king, noticing the names of the donors to that institution inscribed on the walls, made the significant remark: "Me faz pareçer que estoy em mea propia terra do Portugal".