In 1998, the year Hugo Chavez was elected president, there were 22,000 Jews in Venezuela. Today the Jewish population is estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000.
Those numbers tell a story, and it’s not a happy one. The Jews of Venezuela are fleeing to Miami, Madrid and elsewhere because of the anti-Semitism they face at home. In an interview this week in Washington, D.C., the country’s chief rabbi sounds a warning bell: “There’s anxiety in the Jewish community because of what has happened,” says Rabbi Pynchas Bremer, “and of course because of what may happen.”
Mr. Chavez’s vitriol about Jews is well documented and of long standing. In recent years he has referred to Venezuelan Jews as “descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ” and “a minority [that] has taken ownership of all the gold of the planet.” According to Shmuel Herzfeld, a Washington, D.C., rabbi who visited Venezuela in March: “Chavez is isolating the Jews and turning Venezuelans against the Jewish community. . . . The government is transforming a society that has been welcoming and accepting of Jews” in the past. Rabbi Bremer, who has lived in Venezuela for more than 40 years, says that he had never personally encountered anti-Semitism or heard of anti-Semitic incidents until recently.
Jews in Venezuela, bankers and corporate execs here, orthodox clergy in TEC. The Left knows how to sic the growling dogs on its constituents, no?
[i] Snide comment removed by elf. [/i]
One can discern good and evil and the spirits operating in a person, religion or culture by their treatment and attitudes toward *women, children, the unborn*, widows, the poor, elderly, disabled, persecuted, unjustly imprisoned, ***the Jews***, ***Christ and His Church*** and their response to those who differ from, oppose, harm and persecute them.
(One can also tell how a person or politician stands spiritually by their friends, supporters and colleagues. How they vote. How they spend their own and taxpayers money.)
Jesus said, ‘you shall know them by their fruit.’ ‘You do not know what spirit ye are of’ (Luke 9:55) and instructed his followers to love, do good to, pray for, bless and forgive their enemies. That does not mean not to punish lawbreakers justly (not barbarically like shari law) or mean there is no just reason to declare and wage war in order to defend one’s country against atrocities (9-11-01 and terrorist attacks) or fight against evil regimes (Hitler, Japan, Kuwait, Iraq, Afganistan, etc.). War is horrible, but evil and tyranny must be defended against and opposed with force if necessary.
Chavez reveals his spiritual status by his actions…as do others operating in the same spiritual realm. The presiding leader of Brazil just declared his and his nations spiritual status by declaring it illegal to oppose homosexuality.
I had no idea that this was happening and I thank you for for this article. I heard on the news that President Chavez was reaching out to our President and wished to give him a book. If the descriptions of Mr. Chavez are indeed correct then I hope that the book title is not “Mein Kampf”.
Intercessor
The health and prosperity of the Jewish community is an almost unerring indicator of the general soundness of a society. Once Jews feel threatened, leave in large numbers, or see no future for their children, others would be well advised to pay attention.
Intercessor,
Our President sat through a long speech or rather a diatribe against the US by Chavez. Afterwards, his only comment were “yes, we have problems, but I’m glad you are not blaming me for things that happened in the US when I was only 3 years old!” Then he warmly greeted Chavez, and graciously accepted the anti-US book (which was in Spanish), saying, “you know I’m a reader”. The English title is “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” by Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan journalist, of whom Chavez raves saying “he helped me develop my political outlook”.
I can understand meeting with world leaders, it’s part of the job description. But Pres. Obama’s constant fawning over dictators and uncritical acceptance of the criticism of the United States seems to go overboard!
Jim Elliott
Florida
I hope that this won’t be considered a “snide comment”; it isn’t intended as such.
There has been a tremendous surge in pro-Chavez materials of late, the most “noteworthy” of which is the writings of Sean Penn, who has embraced Chavez as being “much more positive for Venezuela than he is negative.†I’d very much like to hear what Mr. Penn and others have to say in response to these facts on the ground, and their interpretation of the reality that Venezualan Jews are now facing. It’s easy to make sweeping statements about a political leader, but having to account for the actions of that same leader can sometimes require facing up to the denial of reality which caused one to support said leader in the first place.
If you think this is hyperbole, just read [url=http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/05/01/establishment-media-ignoring-white-house-threats-chryslers-non-tarp-lend]this[/url]:
[blockquote]Beckmann: Tom, let me make the argument against you in another way. We’ve heard the President say this, “I wouldn’t want to stand on their side.” Ron Gettelfinger says “Everyone else has made concessions. These people won’t; they’re greedy.” Why not take a concession that is being asked of everybody else and is being accepted by everybody else, including other hedge funds that had bought some of these bonds in Chrysler?
Lauria: Well that’s a great question, because let me tell you it’s no fund [sic] standing on this side of the fence opposing the President of the United States. In fact, let me just say, people have asked me who I represent, and that’s a moving target.
I can tell you for sure that I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday. [b]One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House, and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That’s how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.[/b]
Beckmann: Was that Perella Weinberg?
Lauria: That was Perella Weinberg.[/blockquote]
Whom, I assume, is Jewish. Looks like our Maximum Leader and the no-neck gangster running Venezuela into the ground aren’t so different after all.
#8– Your assumption is wrong … in fact, it’s not even applicable. Perella Weinberg is not a person. Perella Weinberg refers to Perella Winberg Partners, a financial services firm with offices in New York, London, Austin, & San Francisco.
I might add that the firm partners are not particularly Jewish. In fact, my primary connection there has identified himself as being of Egyptian origins … and it’s unlikely he intends that as meaning prior Pharaoh’s chariots chasing his people through a parted Red Sea. I’m fairly certain he means as recently as his father.
But as for the Jewish population in the United States … more than 70% identifies as leaning moderate to left. Obama is more than likely far less intimidating to such a group than, for example, the current GOP leadership with its ultra-conservative direction.
If Chavez is not a fascist, then the term has no meaning at all any more. He is not, either, the soft USA version, the Progressive of the early twentieth century. The Progressives admired, openly, both Mussolini and Hitler before the anti-Jewish horror began to be clear. They even admired Soviet communism, because “it worked,” or so they persuaded themselves. Many leftists have praised Chavez because he supposedly is for “the people” and against the U.S. They have closed their eyes to the deterioration in Venezuela and to the repression and to the encouragement of terrorism in Colombia and elsewhere.
Without regard to the religion or ethnicity of the people running Perella Weinberg, the White House’s alleged threats to ruin the reputation of a firm which opposes its plan are not pretty. I have seen a lot of commentary on the situation of small bondholders on the Chrysler deal. In bankruptcy court, their secured debt would be paid first, before unsecured creditors. The administration deal has apparently bypassed that and placed the majority of value (if any) in the hands of the UAW, and whether the bondholders will ever be paid is now in question. I’d like to know by what legal authority this is being done. As the Wall St. Journal points out, this is going to make raising capital through the issuance of bonds a lot harder in the future. What investor is going to believe that the “secured” bonds are actually secured, if the government may intervene and change the rules?
[blockquote]#8– Your assumption is wrong … in fact, it’s not even applicable. Perella Weinberg is not a person. Perella Weinberg refers to Perella Winberg Partners, a financial services firm with offices in New York, London, Austin, & San Francisco. [/blockquote]
I stand corrected on a minor point then. Of course, the core of the argument is the threats and intimidation flowing from the federal government, not a syllable of which you addressed. In that, Obama and his minions are in lockstep with the thuggish Chavez. I also find it darkly amusing that our supposedly “independent” press can be relied on so to parrot the smears, slurs, calumnies and slanders of the Administration against a business engaged in a perfectly legal and moral endeavor.
Retired newspaper man [url=http://islandturtle.blogspot.com/2009/05/white-house-uses-strong-arm-tactics-to.html]Corky Boyd[/url] puts it well, I think:
[blockquote]There is a pattern here. Financial institutions holding billions of Chrysler’s secured debt are being held hostage by the TARP loans they are not permitted to pay back. They are being forced to accept just pennies on the dollar for loans they made in good faith less than two years ago. Just like mob loan sharks, the administration wants them under its thumb so they can extort more and more concessions.
This is an abuse of power that goes beyond Nixon. [/blockquote]
And let us remember that TARP has become very little more than a [url=http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/tarp/]criminal enterprise[/url] run by Tim Geithner.
Albert Jay Nock, call your office!
#11– These threats are — as you note — alleged. Moreover, they are allegations inferred from public comments made by the White House. It’s all out in the open for everyone to hear/read. If wrong was done … it won’t be difficult to determine … as we’re not exactly talking about midnight phone calls.
#12– As for not commenting on the “core” matter (see above). Of course, given your initial ethnic/religious reference … the core of your argument was based on a perceived mutual anti-Semitism as a result of your misguided assumption. It was a comment made out of a desire to connect the dots so to speak.
In any event … this thread was intended to be about Chavez. I’m sure there will be plenty more treads offering opportunity to discuss Obama. And now I leave you to your op-ed against any and everything “left.”
[blockquote]As for not commenting on the “core†matter (see above). Of course, given your initial ethnic/religious reference … the core of your argument was based on a perceived mutual anti-Semitism as a result of your misguided assumption. It was a comment made out of a desire to connect the dots so to speak. [/blockquote]
Er, not really. I’m quite certain our Maximum Leader is an equal-opportunity plunderer of others’ property, including Jews’. I’d bet dollars to donuts that many of the investors (and not just the partners) of PWP are Jewish, and they don’t like having their legal contracts abrogated by those charged with enforcing them any more than a standard-issue goy does.
Indeed, it was a thread about Chavez. But why concern ourselves with the thuggery of that potbellied little satrap when we have much the same thing going on under a supposedly constitutional republic in our back yards?