Rabbi Hillel Athias-Robles

Rabbi Hillel Athias-Robles was born in Costa Rica in 1980.   He can trace his family history back to the Spanish Inquisition when his family was forcibly converted to Catholicism, and after a few generations escaped Spain and returned to Judaism in the Dutch colonies of the Caribbean, with many stops along the way.

By the time he was 16 he was living in New Jersey and then, at 17 he made Aliyah to Jerusalem and studied there at the Sephardic Rabbinic Seminary and other leading yeshivot in Israel, where he got his ordination. He was received into the Amsterdam Jewish community in January 2004.    More recently, he worked for the Sephardi community and helped create Young Sephardim, a social networking forum for young Jewish adults encouraged to foster a sense of Jewish identity and what he describes as 'interconnectedness'. Young Sephardim grew to become a mainstay of the young adult scene of Jewish London. Hillel still feels very in touch with his Sephardi roots and culture.

Rabbi Hillel sings the praises of Rabbi Danny Rich who welcomed him into the 'Progressive' fold in the autumn of 2007 and who, he says, 'opened all doors'. He has since partnered our own Rabbi Aaron in a great deal of outreach work in the growing and smaller Liberal congregations including Manchester, Reading, Ipswich and Eastbourne, encouraging and leading services, before being appointed as Assistant Rabbi at NPLS in May 2008.

He places a strong emphasis on social action schemes and will be heavily involved in interfaith work. He was greatly inspired by his grandfather, who helped establish a large nature reserve in Costa Rica, and his mother, who was the founder and director of a social housing project for the poorest areas of Central America in concert with the United Nations and Dutch Government. Hillel also anticipates strengthening our synagogue's environmental consciousness. Added to his interest in human rights, which runs deep, are his concerns for animal welfare. Hillel is a campaigner, certainly not one to sit on the fence. He has been and is involved in a broad range of matters ranging from Darfur to Gay Rights issues, to which he became committed after the difficulties he experienced when coming out. Hillel has studied the Talmud and other Jewish text intensively at outstanding institutions for the past ten years, and considers this an area of his expertise. He takes a keen interest in social anthropology and (in the same breath) comparative religion and mythology, where he finds the exchange of texts a great asset. Hillel has a counselling certificate from Regent's College and wants to continue his studies in the human rights field.