+506 72407140
info@beitshalomcr.org
Donate NowOur history
Beginnings and foundation
The Beit Shalom Community began as a Chavurah in 2017, made up of a small group of 5 families who were looking for spaces for traditional Jewish observance attached to Halacha within a modern, inclusive, diverse and pluralistic framework. Families gathered in homes for Shabbat and holidays, and also for Torah study spaces.
Over the years more and more families came together to participate. For the High Holidays, it was already necessary to rent hotel rooms and rent a Sefer Torah for that period for religious services. In 2019, Mr. Diddier Bocris donated the congregation’s first Sefer Torah and at that time plans began to find a location for a synagogue. These plans were frustrated by the start of the pandemic and the community was forced, like everyone else, to move to a virtual modality that lasted approximately a year and a half. Contrary to what was thought to happen, virtuality greatly strengthened Beit Shalom and allowed the existence of the incipient community to be disseminated and made known.
At the end of 2021, we gradually return to in-person presence, with more people involved and with a new motivation to continue building the project of founding an officially recognized Masorti community in Costa Rica. In February 2022, conversations begin with representatives of the Masortí AmLat board and the community formalization process accelerates. In May 2022, the community was registered with the public registry of Costa Rica, thus giving birth to the Masortí Beit Shalom Jewish Community. That same month the synagogue was inaugurated in the Escazú sector, in San José. Today we have regular Shabbat religious services on Friday and Saturday, classes for children once a week, an introductory course to Judaism approved by the Rabbinical Seminary, and Judaism classes for adults on Thursdays; In addition, the community already has its own cemetery.
Beit Shalom was founded by Dr. Yaakov Rodríguez as its religious leader, trained as a Chazan and with rabbinic studies from the Sephardic Midrash-Shehebar Sephardic Center in Jerusalem and Mr. Avi Garay as a lay leader. Yaakov Rodríguez serves today as the president and spiritual guide of the community accompanied by a team of volunteers who make up the board of directors and the community work teams.
The community is made up of Jews of Ashkenazi and Sephardic origin in a proportion of more or less 50/50, so religious services combine a mixture of both traditions.
Approximately half of the members are of Costa Rican nationality, but there is a very significant number of permanent resident migrants from France, the United States, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Argentina.
English 
Español