After Maduro ouster, Venezuela’s embattled Jews watch cautiously from sidelines

Venezuela’s small Jewish community is largely taking a wait-and-see approach following the ouster of socialist President Nicolas Maduro in a US military raid early Saturday.

Jews in the country’s capital city of Caracas and Venezuelan Jews living outside the country expressed cautious optimism about the prospects of regime change, but remain fearful of retaliation after decades of repression, with Venezuela’s leadership still partially intact and its future largely in limbo.

“Everyone is very happy about the news, but they have to be very cautious,” said Daniel Behar, a Venezuelan expatriate who decamped for Israel 20 years ago as the authoritarian regime consolidated power under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. “There is fear that the entire community might face repercussions later on.”

Maduro, who allied with Iran and embraced anti-Zionist rhetoric, was captured by US forces in a stunning raid on Caracas and surrounding areas in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday. The deposed leader and his wife were whisked to New York to face federal narcotrafficking charges.

As news of Maduro’s capture rippled out, exiled Venezuelans waved flags and celebrated in plazas from Madrid to Santiago. About eight million Venezuelans have fled the grinding poverty and political suppression of their homeland, including most of the Jewish community, which once counted in the tens of thousands.

In Caracas, though, streets were calm in the wake of the stunning raid, and Venezuela’s military said it recognized Delcy Rodriguez — previously Maduro’s vice president — as acting president, urging people to resume normal life.

The Trump administration says it is willing to work with the remainder of Maduro’s government as long as Washington’s goals, particularly opening access to US investment in Venezuela’s enormous crude oil reserves, are met.

A history of violence and threats by government officials to expropriate Jewish schools, restaurants, and other institutions has made community members fearful of rejoicing too soon, according to Behar.

“The community’s chief rabbi has warned many times not to publicly oppose the government,” he said. “There was always a fear that if something happens, people will blame Israel and the Jews.”

The country’s Jewish community was put on edge after Rodríguez charged that the US attack on Maduro had “a Zionist tint.” Gustavo Aristegui, a Spanish diplomat and analyst who has written extensively about Venezuela’s regime, referred to her as “one of the most dangerous members of the current regime.”

“The Jewish population is on standby,” said Samy Yecutieli,  a member of the Security Forum of the Israel-Latin America Chamber of Commerce. “Everyone is staying low-profile. The regime controls everything, and repression could still be very aggressive.”

Yet there is also cautious optimism, Yecutieli said. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is a potential future leader for the country who has expressed support for restoring ties with Israel.

“That would be very good for Israel and for the local Jewish community,” Yecutieli said.

For Donna Benzaquen, a 17-year-old from Caracas studying at Ohr Torah Stone’s Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem, the coming months will be critical as she watches events in her home country unfold.

“I love Venezuela, but I can’t imagine making my future there,” she said. “I just hope things get better for my family and everyone there.”

Shifting tides

Venezuela’s Jewish history dates back at least 200 years, around the time the country achieved independence from Spain in 1821. While it is believed that Conversos — Jews forcibly converted to Christianity — may have arrived centuries earlier, the first record of Jewish communities is found in coastal cities such as Coro and Caracas, where an influx of Sephardic Jews engaged in trade and commerce during the country’s early days.

Later waves of immigration in the 20th century swelled the community’s ranks, and the country reached 25,000 to 45,000 Jews in the years before Chávez came to power in 1999, according to various estimates.

In the years that followed, Venezuelans fled the country in droves as the government openly punished political opponents and nationalized the economy, vaporizing wealth and leading to rampant poverty, a trend that escalated after Maduro replaced Chávez in 2013. As much as 25 percent of the country’s total population is believed to have left in the last two decades, and the Jewish community dwindled to just 4,000 to 6,000, according to the latest estimates.

Under both leaders, the country also allied openly with Iran and became a safe haven for the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, both of which use its vast drug smuggling and money laundering networks to support their terror activities. It also adopted a stridently anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian stance.

“This used to be the richest country in South America, and one of the wealthiest in the world,” said Arie Kacowicz, the Chaim Weizmann Chair in International Relations and professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “The Jewish community was quite wealthy and generally pro-Israel, but 10 years after Chávez came to power, he broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009. Since then, reports of antisemitism have been sporadic.”

Most of the antisemitism that exists in Venezuela today tends to be directed by the political echelon and tied to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, with state media using anti-Zionist rhetoric that blurs into classic antisemitic tropes.

“The revolutionary left-wing government has an intrinsic distrust and hatred for the Jewish community, but they aren’t persecuted for being Jewish,” said Aristegui. “They are persecuted mainly for being against the regime and its relationships with Iran and Hezbollah.”

Behar agreed.

“Antisemitism in Venezuela is not the same as in Europe,” he said. “It’s mostly tied to the Palestinian issue, and it is encouraged by the dictatorship. The people on the streets have bigger problems to worry about.”

Suppressive violence

With political repression in the country rampant, Jews are largely unable to speak freely against the government’s anti-Israel stances or policies that have sapped the community of its resources.

“You have to remember that we are talking about one of the most violent countries in the world,” said Aristegui. “The regime has used a constant threat of violence to repress its people.”

While violent crimes in the country have declined substantially since peaking in the middle of the last decade, the country’s homicide rate is still among the highest in the world. Aristegui said the government takes advantage of that fact to silence its opponents.

“Often, what looks like a mugging in the street, or a home robbery that leads to a whole family being killed, is really a political assassination,” he alleged. “The Jewish community is particularly vulnerable to these attacks, and that’s why you only see them speak out against the regime after they have left the country.”

According to Aristegui, Venezuela also openly hosts terrorist training camps for Hezbollah and runs a massive network dealing in the illegal stimulant Captagon.

“Venezuela is Tehran’s most important ally in Latin America,” Aristegui said. “Its 27-year relationship with Hezbollah and Iran has been very profitable.”

“Hopefully this will all end with the fall of the regime,” he added.