MONTREAL — Two local rabbis expressed the Canadian Jewish community’s deepening concern over the welfare of the approximately 25,000 Jews in Venezuela in a meeting with that country’s consul general in Montreal.
Rabbis Chaim Steinmetz, left, and Reuben Poupko
Rabbis Chaim Steinmetz and Reuben Poupko spent about one hour with Adolfo Figueroa in his office, in their capacity as co-chairs of the Rabbinic Caucus of the Canada-Israel Committee. They conversed with him through a translator.
“We told him we believe there is a direct line between the ugly rhetoric in the upper echelons of the Venezuelan government and media and the desecration of the synagogue, because that rhetoric is emboldening the anti-Semites,” Rabbi Poupko said afterward, referring to the Jan. 31 vandalism and ransacking of the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Mariperez, near Caracas. They view this incident as the most blatant manifestation of a deteriorating situation for Jews in Venezuela.
The rabbis said President Hugo Chavez’s anti-Israel statements, especially since the Gaza war, are putting Jews at risk. Numerous remarks of this nature have been documented by such Jewish groups as the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
He has also singled out Jews, they said, citing Chavez’s call for the Venezuelan Jewish community to dissociate itself from Israel’s Gaza offensive, which Chavez termed a “holocaust.”
Figueroa handed them a copy of a Feb. 12 press release from Elias Farache, president of the Israeli Association of Venezuela, a central Jewish organization, confirming his satisfaction with and gratitude for the criminal investigation of the synagogue desecration. It included a personal thanks to Chavez and a renunciation of attempts to implicate the government in the crime.
The Montreal rabbis regard the statement with skepticism, given the circumstances the community finds itself in.
The rabbis also voiced their opposition to Venezuela’s severing of diplomatic relations with Israel in late January to protest the Gaza offensive and the suffering of the Palestinians.
Rabbi Poupko said he pointed out the irony in the fact that Venezuela maintains official ties with Iran, “a country that has vowed to destroy Israel” and that Venezuela was silent throughout the eight years Hamas fired rockets into Israel from Gaza.
“I suggested his government’s concern for human rights should encompass Israelis as well,” Rabbi Poupko said.
The meeting was “correct and polite” overall, but Figueroa vigorously defended the strength of his country’s democracy and emphasized that Jews have full rights and enjoy the government’s protection.
He noted that suspects in the synagogue attack were quickly arrested and that Chavez has vowed that such a thing should not happen again.
When the rabbis cited a number of reports that put Venezuelan democracy into question, Figueroa suggested that a conspiracy exists in the western media to besmirch the Chavez government.
“The key point of this meeting is that the Venezuelan consul general will make a report to his government that Jews in Canada are exceedingly concerned about what is happening and that we are watching closely,” Rabbi Steinmetz said.
Figueroa handed the rabbis another press release from VTV, the public Venezuelan television network, dated Feb. 10, quoting Roy Chaderton Matos, Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States. He says that the country’s “state policy is based on respect towards all religious denominations” and that anti-Semitism is not “an important trend.”
He denounced charges that the national government was behind the synagogue attack as an attempt to “destabiliz[e] the democratic process” in the lead-up to the referendum that was held Feb. 15 enabling the president to hold office indefinitely.