Rabbi Nachum Aber, 51, leaves behind four children
NEED TO KNOW
- Rabbi Nachum Aber, 51, was murdered during a trip to Colombia
- He was found in an abandoned apartment in Bogotá
- He had been missing since last week
A Brooklyn Rabbi was killed during a trip to Colombia this month.
Rabbi Nachum Aber, 51, was found dead with signs of violence, the Times of Israel reported, citing officials.
According to preliminary reports, Aber, a father of four and member of the Belz Hasidic community, was robbed and killed by a local criminal gang, per Belaaz.
“As a woman of faith and an advocate for religious freedom, I express my deepest sorrow and absolute condemnation regarding the tragic and violent murder of Rabbi Nuchem Yisrael Eber—a foreign national—which recently took place on Colombian soil,” Senator Lorena Rios Cuellar wrote on X.
Cuellar said she was demanding that authorities “conduct a rigorous, transparent, and effective investigation that will lead to the identification, prosecution, and punishment of those responsible with the full weight of the law.”
ZAKA, an Israeli volunteer emergency response organization, was contacted by the family on Monday, April 27 for help arranging for the Rabbi’s body to be released, Yossi Landau, a commander with the South Region in Israel, tells PEOPLE.
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Landau says Aber disappeared on April 21 and was found last week, but wasn’t identified until recently.
“He didn't have any passport,” he says. “They took him to the medical examiner's office, and they did a search and the family got notified that it was him.”
Aber, who worked in real estate and was originally from Canada, was found in an abandoned apartment, says Landau.
"Every location that we have, it's different procedures, different rules and regulations that we have to follow," he says. "And sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's more difficult and Colombia is, we all know because also because this is a homicide, it's even more difficult to release a body. But our goal when we get a phone call is to take whatever information we can get and we try to get in contact with the locals and we start the process."
Landau says they have two missions. "One is to try to avoid autopsy because that's in the Jewish law, we know that autopsy is forbidden. And the second mission is to bring him as soon as possible to burial."
Landau, a paramedic who lives in Israel, says he and his team participate in multiple missions around the world including in Turkey during earthquake and after the terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.
“We are here for the world,” he says.
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