"I feel like a bride for the first time," says Lisbeth Belio, or by her Hebrew name - a beautiful queen. A few hours before her wedding to Ronald (Chaim), her husband of 24 years – and hours after the two immersed in the mikveh with their young son Eliyahu and officially became Jewish – it is clear that the couple is very excited. "I have no words to define my feelings today. Everything we've dreamed of for years has arrived," says Ronald.
The two met in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and had two children. They say that early on they felt the need to convert and join Judaism. "I came to Judaism after many searches for spiritual meaning," Ronald shares. "I remember watching movies with my mother about the Holocaust, and it made a deep impression on me. I realized that these people died for their faith. As a teenager, I searched every religion in my area, and finally realized that there is only one God. My soul has come home."
Lisbeth and Donald, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
Lisbeth and Ronald began to become closer to Judaism and underwent a conversion - which they later discovered was not recognized by the Chief Rabbinate, but in the regime of Hugo Chavez, who at the time ruled the country, it did not change anything for them. "We suffered persecution because we were converted," they say.
According to Lisbeth, she had no doubt that she wanted to be a kosher Jew. "The thing that impressed me the most was when I learned the Shema Yisrael prayer," she says, "and from that moment all doubts left me."
Due to the persecution in their country, Lisbeth and Ronald decided to flee to neighboring Colombia, where they received religious refugee status. Their eldest son Yehezkel had already arrived in Israel, studied at a yeshiva in Kochav Yaakov and then enlisted in the IDF.
"Part of the quorum"
In July 2021, they also immigrated and settled in Jerusalem. They applied at the same time to the conversion department in the Prime Minister's Office and were accepted to the Nativ course. The system, which provides services to Israeli citizens, permanent residents and foreign nationals approved by the Exceptions Committee, assists those interested in converting and accompanies them throughout the entire process.
After completing their Jewish studies, which began last December, the couple showed up last Monday for immersion in a mikveh, the final stage of the conversion process. On the evening of that day, the two remarried in a moving ceremony at the beit midrash where they studied, at a very symbolic time - just a few days before Shavuot, the holiday of converts.
"I dreamed they would get married here. We prayed Mincha and Arabic, and for the first time I listed Chaim (Ronald) as part of the minyan," says Rabbi Mordechai Maaravi, rabbi of the Torah VeChaim Spanish-speaking community in Ra'anana, who runs the Mekor Chaim conversion studio in the city and accompanied the couple.
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