Gene Zitver from Harry’s Place offers this overview of Chavez’s Jewish problem.

For some years now, a nasty strain of anti-Semitism has revealed itself periodically in the words and actions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his government.

Most notoriously Chavez-who has become an icon among elements of the political Left for his populist rhetoric and his denunciations of American “imperialism”-delivered a rambling speech on Christmas Eve 2005 in which he declared:
The world has enough for all. But it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia, a minority took the world’s riches for themselves.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center called Chavez’s remarks anti-Semitic. A number of Chavez’s leftwing supporters vigorously defended him against the charge.

I was troubled by Chavez’s words. But unlike the Wiesenthal Center, I was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Chavez was referring to Jews. (The reference to the “descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here” doesn’t fit any known anti-Semitic trope.) And I did not join them in accusing him of anti-Semitism for making those remarks.
More disturbing to me are a number of other events in Venezuela which have largely been ignored by Chavez’s leftist admirers.

Consider the account by the Jewish Venezuelan filmmaker Jonathan Jakubowicz of reaction to his popular movie “Secuestro Express.” The film, based on the epidemic of kidnappings for ransom in Caracas, dealt with the huge divide between the country’s rich and poor.

Jakubowicz was denounced on the pro-Chavez TV show “The Blade,” presented by Mario Silva and Lina Ron, where the film was accused of being part of a Hollywood-Zionist conspiracy. According to Jakubowicz, Ron wondered how a Jew could know what was going on in the poor neighborhoods, and said it was the responsibility of the Jewish community to control someone like him.

“The day after,” Jakubowicz said, “Chavez said he thought the show was too soft on me.”

But it took the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah to provoke a storm of anti-Zionism– frequently shading into anti-Semitism– from the Chavez regime.

As Marc Perelman reports in The Forward:
…Chavez accused Israelis of behaving like Nazis. He recalled the charge d’affaires of the Venezuelan Embassy in Tel Aviv, and Israel, in turn, called back its ambassador. Although the Israeli diplomat returned to Caracas a month later, and Venezuela sent a low-level envoy to Tel Aviv, the relationship remains fraught.

Then Venezuela’s pro-Chavez and government-affiliated press began publishing articles comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. The veneer occasionally cracked, as when the newsletter of Docencia Participativa, the government-affiliated educational institute, featured the headline “Assassin Jews!” During the war the government even organized a “vigil” against Israel just outside the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Caracas-the outside walls of which are frequently defaced by anti-Semitic and anti-Israel graffiti.

Until recently the country’s main Jewish organization, the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela (CAIV in Spanish) had been inclined to downplay suggestions of government-approved anti-Semitism. In early 2006 the CAIV responded to the Wiesenthal Center’s charges against Chavez by saying, “You have acted on your own, without consulting us, on issues that you don’t know or understand.” But the CAIV also met with Chavez to express concern about anti-Semitic reports in the government media.

In September of that year, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Venezuela, the CAIV expressed “uneasiness and indignation” over his anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli positions. Chavez and Ahmadinejad have called each other “brothers.” (Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah referred in a speech to “our brother Chavez in Venezuela.”)

But it was what happened in December, on the night before Chavez’s unsuccessful referendum on constitution “reform” (which would have allowed him to seek reelection indefinitely), that convinced Venezuela’s Jewish community the dangers could not be minimized any more.

Police raided Venezuela’s main Jewish community center, La Hebraica. They reportedly were looking for weapons and explosives, although nothing was found. It recalled a November 2005 police raid on a Jewish school in Caracas, which also sought non-existent weapons.
“We’re facing the first anti-Jewish government in our history,” Simon Sultan, president of La Hebraica, told the Forward.

And Abraham Levy Benshimol, president of CAIV, said, “It seems that the only interpretation is that this was an intimidation by the government.”

Venezuela’s Jewish population, which stood at about 16,000 when Chavez was elected in 1998, has declined to about 12,000.
“If the exodus continues, we’ll have problems catering to the community, especially the poor, which make up a quarter of our Jews,” Benshimol said.