Guma Aguiar Left Tefillin on Ghost Yacht
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Guma Aguiar, a Florida businessman and philanthropist who went missing in June, left his tefillin on his abandoned boat.
All of the life jackets also were accounted for, the Coast Guard reported, according to the Sun-Sentinel, after getting the records through a Freedom of Information Act request. His wedding ring and watch were left at home.
Aguiar, the CEO of Leor Energy who lived in Fort Lauderdale, left his home on June 19. His empty 31-foot boat washed ashore in Fort Lauderdale the following morning.
Aguiar’s wife reportedly had asked for a divorce just before he left the house. Aguiar had a history of ill mental health, according to reports citing family members. The disappearance remains an open missing persons case.
In 2009, Aguiar gave $8 million to the pro-aliyah group Nefesh B’Nefesh and $500,000 to March of the Living, which takes high school-aged Jews to Poland to see Holocaust sites. He also became a fixture of Israeli sports pages when he became the main sponsor of the Israeli Premier League soccer team Beitar Jerusalem.
While Aguiar, who has a Jewish mother, did not grow up with much of a Jewish background, he later returned to Judaism and has made large gifts to Jewish and Israeli causes. He made his fortune when he discovered huge natural gas reserves in Texas.
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