When Jewish communities lose their voices

Jews are forced to live in danger in Venezuela. Excerpted from JPost:

A few weeks ago, on the eve of a national referendum through which Venezuela's dictatorial President Hugo Chavez narrowly failed to secure his indefinite re-election, federal police raided the main Jewish social club in Caracas, La Hebraica.

It was a seemingly negligible incident, and one that attracted only the briefest media attention: As hundreds of local Jews were enjoying a wedding party at the nearby Union Israelita Synagogue, the cops broke through the gate and proceeded to search the premises, absurdly, for weapons and explosives. They left, needless to say, empty-handed.

Two years ago, as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency recalled in its report on the raid, the police had done much the same thing at a Jewish school in the capital - entering the premises in a purported search for arms that turned up nothing. In both cases, the unsubtle message was that Venezuela's Jews are being watched carefully by a regime whose leader meets regularly with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who has declared that the "descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ" have "taken possession of all the wealth in the world."

For more on Jewish life in Venezuela, see these articles.

Local Jews Feeling Vulnerable in Chavez's Venezuela

From Local Jews Feeling Vulnerable in Chavez's Venezuela via Daily Alert:

The dangerous antics of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his alliance with Iran, his open hostility toward the U.S. and a number of anti-Semitic incidents have generated widespread concern about the fate of the small Jewish community in this oil-rich South American nation. Venezuela Jewry's heightened sense of vulnerability has resulted above all from two outrageous police assaults, in 2004 and 2007, on Hebraica, the Caracas complex housing the Jewish community center and school, as well as incendiary anti-Semitic reports in major media. Venezuelan Jews are well aware that they enjoy strong support not only from mainstream American Jewish organizations, but also from the U.S. government and important neighbors in South America, notably Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Official anti-Semitism erupts in Venezuela

Via Engage:

Since election of the left-wing populist Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has witnessed a proliferation of virulently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist propaganda, frequently entwined with nakedly anti-Jewish slogans.

Antisemitic ranting is not confined to government circles but is spread throughout the mass media. For example, in the Diario VEA newspaper, as recently as 20 September, the hardcore antisemite Basem Tajeldine raved: "The Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis was directed to eliminate the social basis of Judaism that believed in assimilation with the Europeans, the low class majority of Jews". The ideological affinity and the great ties of collaboration that existed between German Zionism and Nazism is undeniable "Sionazis is the most appropriate term to catalogue (sic) the organisation of the political capitalist Jewish elite of Israel that is responsible for the present Holocaust of the Arab people".

Sammy Eppel, a Caracas-based columnist, addressed the deepening antisemitism in Venezuela in his presentation at a recent conference, in Budapest, of the Tel Aviv University-based Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism. In his lecture, he revealed that he had found no fewer than 195 examples of antisemitic content in the official and pro-government media in a 65-day period ending on 31 August 2006.

A number of images from Sammy Eppel's presentation are available online, here. It is well worth a look. Just click on the images for the slide-show to progress.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Veers into Anti-Semitism

On Christmas eve, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez drifted into anti-Semitism.

"A minority, the descendents of the same ones that crucified Christ...has taken possession of all of the wealth of the world."

Chavez has established an alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has long been the leading state sponsor of terrorism internationally and against Israel. When then Iranian President Mohammed Khatami visited Caracas in March 2005, Chavez voiced his support for Iran's nuclear program.

Why is President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela so dangerous for Jews?

Folks, back in January 2005, I wrote about a raid on the only Jewish day school in Caracas, Venezuela which took place on November 29, 2004. Here's what happened, from JTA:

On that morning, 25 government investigators, some of them armed and hooded, intercepted busloads of kids and turned them away. Pandemonium broke loose as confused parents attempted to leave the school through the narrow driveway.

Other panicked parents, whose kids were already inside the school, tried desperately to gain access. A couple of dozen children were locked inside, the preschoolers in one room and the older children in another. Not knowing whether this was the unfolding of a hostage crisis, anguished parents pleaded for the return of their children. Over the next 30 to 60 minutes, the investigators allowed all the children out. They were unharmed.

The raid, it turns out, took place in connection with the murder of Investigating Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was assassinated in his car by a remote bomb planted in his cellular phone. Anderson was in charge of several politically sensitive cases, namely the prosecution of key members of the opposition to President Hugo Chavez in an attempted coup in 2002.

The prosecutors had received a tip reporting the transfer of weapons and explosives from Club Magnum, a shooting club, to the Jewish school. Club Magnum was not searched.

Folks, the Venezuelan government is mirroring Nazi Germany 1939. While President Chavez's internal security forces raided this Caracas Jewish grade school, he was on an international tour to tighten Middle Eastern alliances and raise the stakes in an arms race with neighboring Columbia. Mr. Chavez flaunted his anti-American credentials in Tehran. "Iran-Venezuela ties are strategic and purposeful and the two countries are not under the influence of any foreign country, while both are opposed to the idea of a unipolar world," the Tehran Times quoted him as saying after a meeting with President Khatami.

Raise your antennae, folks. Be alarmed. Spread the word about how dangerous Chavez really is. Venezuelan Jews need our help. Harry Belafonte needs some help too, but at age 78, the rat bastard in all likelihood won't change his spots.

What is happening in Venezuela?

Folks, hat tip to Gindy, over at Gindy.blogspot.com, who has raised an alarm by asking:

"Can you name a modern non-Muslim country that uses it's police to raid a Jewish school with the specific purpose of terrifying and alienating it's students and community at large?"

The answer: Venezuela.

Folks, the following article shocked me:

From JTA:

None of the 1,500 children at the only Jewish day school in Caracas, Venezuela, will forget drop-off on the morning of Nov. 29 [2004].

On that morning, 25 government investigators, some of them armed and hooded, intercepted busloads of kids and turned them away. Pandemonium broke loose as confused parents attempted to leave the school through the narrow driveway.

Other panicked parents, whose kids were already inside the school, tried desperately to gain access. A couple of dozen children were locked inside, the preschoolers in one room and the older children in another. Not knowing whether this was the unfolding of a hostage crisis, anguished parents pleaded for the return of their children. Over the next 30 to 60 minutes, the investigators allowed all the children out. They were unharmed.

The raid, it turns out, took place in connection with the murder of Investigating Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was assassinated in his car by a remote bomb planted in his cellular phone. Anderson was in charge of several politically sensitive cases, namely the prosecution of key members of the opposition to President Hugo Chavez in an attempted coup in 2002.

The prosecutors had received a tip reporting the transfer of weapons and explosives from Club Magnum, a shooting club, to the Jewish school. Club Magnum was not searched.

Folks, the Venezuelan government is mirroring Nazi Germany 1939. While President Chavez's internal security forces raided this Caracas Jewish grade school, he was on an international tour to tighten Middle Eastern alliances and raise the stakes in an arms race with neighboring Columbia. Mr. Chavez flaunted his anti-American credentials in Tehran. "Iran-Venezuela ties are strategic and purposeful and the two countries are not under the influence of any foreign country, while both are opposed to the idea of a unipolar world," the Tehran Times quoted him as saying after a meeting with President Khatami.

Raise your antennae, folks. Spread the word about Chavez and Venezuela. Venezuelan Jews need our help.

Jewish School Raided in Venezuela