Yaakov Baruch (born November 14, 1982) is a leading Rabbi of the Sha'ar Hashamayim Synagogue, located in

Tondano Tondano is the capital of Minahasa Regency, mainly in the district of West Tondano (Kecamatan Tondano Barat), in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The city is located in the highlands on the shores of Lake Tondano near Mount Tondano, and enjoys cool tempe ...

Minahasa Regency Minahasa Regency is a regency in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its capital is Tondano. It covers an area of 1,141.64 km2 and had a population of 310,384 at the 2010 Census; this rose to 347,290 at the 2020 Census. Several cities and regencies r ...

North Sulawesi North Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the Minahasa Peninsula of Sulawesi, south of the Philippines and southeast of Sabah, Malaysia. It borders the Philippine province of Davao Occidental and Soccsks ...

Biography

Yaakov Baruch was born and raised in a different religious family. Since childhood, his parents have instilled religious values in him. His father was a

Minahasan The Minahasans (alternative spelling: Minahassa) are an ethnic group native to the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia, formerly known as North Celebes. The Minahasa people sometimes refer to themselves as Manado people. Although the Minahasan p ...

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and his late mother was a Mongondow

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. Since childhood, he has been accustomed to living in a family of different faiths, upholding the values of tolerance. Yaakov Baruch decided to convert to

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

after his mother's next-door grandmother told him that he had Jewish ancestry. When Yaakov Baruch decided to embrace Judaism, the religion of his ancestors, there was no opposition at all from his parents. "There is no problem, we can accept each other," he told tribunmanado.co.id, in 2018. At that time he was in junior high school. Yaakov Baruch then traced his family tree and found out that he had Jewish ancestry. His great-grandfather from his mother's line was Elias van Beugen who was a

Dutch Jewish The history of the Jews in the Netherlands began largely in the 16th century when they began to settle in Amsterdam and other cities. It has continued to the present. During the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in May 1940, the J ...

immigrant. Apart from being a rabbi, he is also a faculty at

Sam Ratulangi University Sam Ratulangi University ( id, Universitas Sam Ratulangi, abbreviated as ) is a state university in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It was established on September 14, 1965. The current rector is Prof. Dr. Ir. Ellen Joan Kumaat, M.Sc., DEA. H ...

References

1982 births Minahasa people Converts to Judaism from Protestantism Converts to Judaism from Christianity Indonesian former Christians Indonesian religious leaders Indonesian Jews Indonesian rabbis Indo people Indonesian people of Jewish descent Indonesian people of Dutch descent Indonesian people of Dutch-Jewish descent 21st-century Jews 21st-century rabbis Living people {{Rabbi-stub