Aron Mendes Chumaceiro

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.

On account of his liberal-conservative views Chumaceiro was strongly opposed by the ultra-Orthodox party, and he therefore accepted in 1855 from King William III the appointment of chief rabbi of the colony of Curaçao.

At the solicitation of the special ambassador, O. van Rees, who was sent by the king to adjust the claims of the persecuted Dutch Jews of Coro, Venezuela, he succeeded in settling the complicated disputes to the entire satisfaction of the contending parties.

Chumaceiro visited his birthplace in 1861, when the office of chakam was tendered to him, which he declined, receiving on that occasion a costly testimonial from the Sephardic synagogue.

Chumaceiro had four sons: Besides many sermons and discourses, he published The Evidences of Free-Masonry from Ancient Hebrew Records, 1900, which reached a third edition; La Revelacion, the first Jewish catechism in Spanish; and Verdediging is geen Aanval, a correspondence between a Christian divine and a rabbi on Jesus as the Messiah.