The Brooklyn Orthodox man brutally murdered in Colombia was reeling from the end of his one-month marriage to a teen bride — and was desperately looking for a new love when he was killed.
The body of Nachum Israel Eber was found dismembered inside a bloody wardrobe that was dumped on a street in Bogota on Sunday.
Yosef Matheron, a Colombian man who befriended Eber and helped translate for him, told The Post how Eber had met his 18-year-old wife before the brief union unraveled in January.
Eber, 51, a member of the Boro Park Belz Hasidic community, went to South America to search for a bride after divorcing his first wife five or six years ago. They shared four kids and two grandchildren.
Eber searched far and wide for a new bride, working with matchmakers in New York and Ukraine, before setting his sights on Colombia, his best friend said.
The divorcee was drawn to the country because he knew a rabbi from his community who would travel there and help descendants of Spanish Inquisition exiles convert to Judaism.
“He mentioned that he was exploring the possibility of meeting someone to marry, and eventually he made a match,” Matheron said.
Eber met the much younger woman in Barranquilla and thought she was 20 years old, the pal said.
Matheron said he spent a lot of time with the pair, and he would often accompany them on dates to get ice cream.”They were a religious couple, a very wholesome couple,” he said, “He didn’t drink alcohol, he didn’t use drugs, he was a religious man.”
The two were married in a ceremony in Barranquilla, and a dinner celebrating the union was held in Bogota, he said.
But it turns out his new in-laws lied about their daughter’s age — she was really 18, and was getting cold feet.
“The young woman eventually broke up with him, though mostly because she told him she didn’t feel ready — she felt she was too young and believed she had rushed into taking that step. But it was never something she was forced to do,” Matheron said of the marriage.
He told Eber, who was depressed after the January split, to go home to the Big Apple and recover.
But Eber was determined to stay in Colombia until he found a wife.
“It’s very hard to live alone in our community. Everyone lives with their families and has children in the house,” his friend from Brooklyn said.
Bad luck seemed to follow the “high-strung, nervous” Eber, Matheron said.
“I decided to stop traveling with Nachum, as I had already encountered several security issues. I was being robbed frequently in the places we stayed, though I couldn’t figure out why,” he said.
Eber may have made himself a target for a “paseo millionairo” attack — where robbers stalk a potential victim for days — by doing things foreigners shouldn’t, like walking around with his cell phone in his hand, Matheron theorized.
“I’d tell him: ‘Nachum, this isn’t New York.’ He would start speaking Yiddish, Hebrew, and English right out in the open. He drew attention to himself, because of his distinctive attire and the various languages he spoke,” he said.
The murder victim was described by his friend as a loving father and grandfather who would do anything for his family.
“During COVID he traveled to Cleveland and took care of his sick father for 100 days striaght, that’s the kind of person he was,” his friend said.
Eber’s Brooklyn friend spoke to him April 21, the last day he was seen alive, and said Eber was optimistic.
His body was found Wednesday, and local police are investigating.
“He came to Colombia to find a wife, then, his dreams went cold,” Eber’s Brooklyn friend said.
