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Thursday November 15, 2007

As Chávez goes authoritarian, Venezuelan Jews fear for future

by larry luxner
jta

Venezuelans heading to the polls in a little less than three weeks will be voting on some rather drastic changes to the nation’s constitution.

The amendments that are expected to pass will abolish presidential term limits, allowing President Hugo Chávez to be re-elected indefinitely and give Chávez’s government total control over Venezuela’s Central Bank, many private schools and other institutions. They also will allow him the power to handpick vice presidents without voter consent.

Protesters in Caracas and other cities already have begun clashing with police in the lead-up to the Dec. 2 referendum, driving the bolivar, Venezuela’s currency, to a black-market low of 6,800 to the dollar.

Venezuela’s 12,000 or so Jews mostly are unhappy with where the oil-rich country is heading, but there seems little they can do about it except leave.

“There’s a crisis here, though I wouldn’t say it’s a special crisis for the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Pynchas Brener of La Union Israelita, a large Orthodox synagogue in Caracas. “I think it’s similar to what all people from the same socioeconomic situation are facing.”

Without criticizing Chávez by name, Brener noted an increase within the last year of “anti-Semitic expressions by people who are close to the government,” as well as on state-owned radio and TV stations.

Yet Brener, who’s been the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Caracas since 1967, emphasized that the Jewish community doesn’t get involved in politics.

“I don’t think people can express what they want nowadays,” he said, indicating phone lines are being tapped. “Of course people are cautious. We’re very concerned with what’s going on. We live here.”

The increasingly grim political situation, the nation’s economic instability and Chávez’s warm embrace of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have driven many Venezuelan Jews to consider their options abroad.

“A lot of people are leaving the country, but not only because they’re Jewish,” said Robert Bottome, publisher of VenEconomy Weekly in Caracas and an outspoken critic of the Chávez government. “It’s because they feel the country is going down the drain. “The opportunities to invest and grow have been severely curtailed by the Chávez regime. And if Chávez aligns himself with Iran, it’s normal that Jews would start worrying about his intentions.”

“Just about everyone you meet who’s middle or upper class is thinking of other options,” said Will Recant, the assistant executive vice president of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which sent a top-level delegation to Caracas two weeks ago to assess the situation.

Nearly a third of the community has left the country over the past three years, and the number of Jews in Venezuela has dropped to 12,000 from about 17,000 in 2004, Recant said.

Many have gone to Israel or the United States. Some have immigrated to Costa Rica, Panama and other Spanish-speaking countries.

In August 2006, the Venezuelan government downgraded its relations with Israel in the wake of Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Chávez recalled his ambassador from Tel Aviv after criticizing Israel for employing “Hitler’s methods” against Lebanese civilians.

Likewise, Israel’s envoy in Caracas, Shlomo Cohen, was recalled by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, but returned a few months later.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” the Washington-based official said, “and the Jewish community continues to be concerned.”

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