Last week, The CJN published the following report on two young Jews who fled Caracas in June to escape anti-Semitism and the growing threat that Jews are being specifically targeted by President Hugo Chavez's increasingly dictatorial regime.
(A Caracas synagogue after being vandalized earlier this year.)
Over the weekend, more news out of Venezuela that the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-loving Chavez is growing ever bolder in his crackdown on the free peoples of Venezuela, after he shut down more than 30 radio stations, silencing critics of his regime.
Many in Venezuela's Jewish community fear he's fomenting the beginnings of what might amount to neo-pogroms in the Central American country. Whatever happens politically and economically to Venezuela as a result of Chavez's actions, one thing's certain: the Jews of Venezuela may never look at their home the same way again.
(The above graffiti in Venezuela reads: "Jews, I shit on your star." I think the rest of the imagery is self-explanatory.)
2 comments:
It's times like these where the Jew needs to do some retrospection and just pick up and leave before it's too late.
'Never forget' is not just some catchy slogan to not forget about the Nazi killing machine or the millions that were murdered. 'Never forget' also includes over six years of anti-semitic buildup which led to the dissonance about legitimizing the mass-murders of our families by their friends, neighbours and countrymen.
Josh,
All very and depressingly true. But after speaking to some people from Venezuela recently, it's a heartwrenching decision. How do you leave the only home you've ever known and accept that you're really in danger from a society that heretofore had always been kind to you?
But yes, the time is ripe for the Venezuelan Jewish community to take serious stock of its situation, it seems.
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