Jewish Representatives Oppose U.S. House Resolution Supporting Venezuelan Jews

WASHINGTON — Jewish members of the U.S. Congress opposing a resolution
expressing solidarity with the Jewish community in another country is
rare, perhaps unprecedented. But it happened last week in the House of
Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee — at the urging of the Jewish
community of Venezuela.

Several Jewish congressmen came out against a measure criticizing the Venezuelan government’s treatment of its Jewish citizens.

In
explaining their position, the lawmakers cited the view of Venezuelan
Jewish leaders that such legislation — introduced and subsequently
withdrawn by Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) — was ill timed and could be
counterproductive.

“There are times we can do the right thing,
and there are times that our good intentions can do more damage,” said
Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.) at the May 20 mark-up hearing, citing
conversations he had with Venezuelan Jews, international Jewish
organizations and others familiar with the situation.

Klein was
joined by several other Jewish lawmakers — Reps. Shelley Berkley
(D-Nev.), Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) — in
expressing concern about the resolution, which was opposed by the
Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela (CAIV), the
country’s main umbrella group of Jewish organizations.

In a
statement to a Latin American Jewish news service, CAIV Vice President
David Bittan said the timing of the resolution was wrong because the
Venezuelan government has been addressing the Jewish community’s
complaints while noting that the number of anti-Semitic articles in the
Venezuelan media had dropped by 60 percent in recent weeks.

Mack’s
amendment, which was attached to the foreign aid authorization bill,
called on the Venezuelan government to “protect the rights of the
Jewish Venezuelan community, irrespective of their political views.”

The
resolution comes after a series of attacks and other harassment of
Jewish institutions in Venezuela in recent years, including the
desecration of a Caracas synagogue in late January. Eleven men,
including eight police officers, have been charged with the crime.

Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez condemned the Caracas synagogue attack, but
observers have accused him of fomenting an increase in anti-Semitism in
the country with his harsh criticism of Israel regarding the Gaza
invasion and his cozying up to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Though
he pulled the amendment recently, Mack told JTA that he plans on
“actively pursuing every opportunity to further this resolution,” which
he also introduced as stand-alone legislation before the full House in
mid-May.

“I don’t think there’s ever a good time to threaten a
group of people, and that’s exactly what’s happening in Venezuela,”
Mack said. “Be silent and hope it goes away — history shows that does
not work.”

In a phone interview with JTA, Fred Pressner, a past
president of CAIV, emphasized that the biggest problem with the
resolution was its “bad timing.”

“All of our institutions are
protected by the police — we cannot complain about that,” said
Pressner, noting that “the government reacted well” to the earlier
attacks. He added that the Jewish community has recently had some
“informal communications with some top level officials of the
government.”

Things could turn around, he acknowledged, but said at this point such a resolution is unnecessary.

CAIV
representatives met with members of the House committee to convey those
feelings, said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the American Jewish
Committee’s Latino and Latin America Institute. AJC opposed the
resolution, and Siegel Vann said it was important not to second-guess
the local community.

“If the community is telling you something, you cannot say we know better,” she said.

Not everyone agrees.

Adriana
Camisar, assistant director of Latin American affairs for B’nai B’rith
International, said she believes that the Jewish community in Venezuela
is divided on the issue, with some placing more trust in the government
than others. B’nai B’rith did not have a formal position on the
legislation, but Camisar noted that the B’nai B’rith Venezuela office
had “not spoken against the resolution.”

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld,
a pulpit rabbi in Washington who has been a vocal critic of Chavez,
went further, charging that CAIV did not properly represent Jewish
feelings in the country and citing the backing of the resolution by
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Pinchas Brenner, who also met with House
committee members.

The 12,000-person Venezuelan Jewish community is about equally split between Ashkenazim and Sephardim.

Herzfeld,
vice president of AMCHA-the Coalition of Jewish Concerns, traveled to
Venezuela in March and said his feeling was that the “majority” of
those he met with wanted to adopt Brenner’s approach.

Pressner
said Brenner is a friend of his and “his opinion is valuable,” but that
the community had come to a consensus. He also praised Mack for his
“very good intentions.”

“We do need sustained and continued help
and support from all American institutions, congressmen and senators,”
Pressner said. But, he added, it’s “very important to have it well
timed.”