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I grew up in Venezuela. Will Maduro’s ouster bring my Jewish community the security we need?
For Venezuelan Jews — inside the country and across the diaspora — the United States’ shocking removal of President Nicolás Maduro from power marks an inflection point in a long and painful chapter marked by vulnerability, fear and exile.
Venezuela was once home to one of Latin America’s most vibrant Jewish communities. I know this because I was raised there. A generation of Jews, including my own grandparents, found refuge from the Holocaust in Venezuela, at a time when many other countries closed their doors.
Venezuela’s relationship with the Jewish people was not only about providing a refuge for Jews following the Holocaust. It was also diplomatic. In November 1947, Venezuela voted in favor of United Nations resolution 181, which supported the creation of independent Jewish and Arab states in Palestine, leading to the creation of the State of Israel. For the Venezuelan Jewish community, this vote has long stood as a point of pride, and an affirmation of belonging.
For decades, Venezuela and Israel had a natural, mutually beneficial diplomatic relationship. For example, in 1961 the two signed a technical agricultural agreement as part of Venezuela’s push to modernize rural development.
High level visits between government officials between the two countries were common. I vividly remember shaking then-foreign minister Shimon Peres’s hand when he visited the Jewish Day School in Caracas in 1995 as part of a state visit. As a high school student, it was exciting to see firsthand how an Israeli statesman carved time out of his agenda to come see my distant country’s Jewish community. And, looking back, that visit underscored how normal and secure Jewish life once felt in Venezuela, in stark contrast to the fear and isolation that would follow years later.
All this began to change after Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999.
Under Chávez, relations with Israel steadily deteriorated, shaped by Chávez’s ideological commitment to global left-wing movements that, as a legacy of the Cold War, aligned themselves with Arab states and framed opposition to Israel as a core political stance. Diplomatic relations between the two nations were formally severed during the 2009 Israel-Hamas confrontation known as Operation Cast Lead.
That wasn’t just a major foreign policy shift; it also marked the onset of a political climate in which Venezuelan Jews felt increasingly exposed. That vulnerability reached a terrifying peak that same year, when armed assailants desecrated the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Caracas, ransacking sacred spaces; destroying religious objects; and scrawling threats and antisemitic slogans on the walls.
It was not an isolated act of vandalism. It was a message of hostility and intimidation, received as such by a community that already felt abandoned by the state.
In 2010, Chavez amped up his anti-Israel rhetoric in reaction to that year’s confrontation between the IDF and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla by declaring “maldito sea el Estado de Israel” — “cursed be the State of Israel” — on national television. When Maduro rose to power in 2013, following Chavez’ death, he did not reverse this trajectory. He accelerated it.
Under his rule, anti-Zionism repeatedly crossed into open antisemitism — both in language and in effect. Not long ago, while talking about Israel’s war in Gaza, Maduro claimed he had “real Jewish blood … unlike Israeli Jews” whom he described as “foreigners from Poland,” reviving classic tropes about authenticity, belonging and conspiracy that have long been used to delegitimize Jews and Israel.
After the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, Maduro’s regime openly embraced the “genocide” narrative against Israel. His government even compared Israel to Nazi Germany. The consequences of these statements touched Jews across Venezuela. Synagogues and Jewish institutions were often vandalized and defaced with hateful slogans. The targets were not Israeli diplomats — there were none — but Venezuelan Jews.
That distinction matters. Being Jewish has become more difficult in advanced democracies like the U.S. since the Oct. 7 attack. So imagine what it felt like in a country governed by an authoritarian regime that is openly anti-Zionist and routinely fails to distinguish between Jews and Israelis. The family and friends I still have in Venezuela navigate daily life with quiet caution, finding ways to remain Jewish while staying unnoticed, weighing every decision about when to gather, when to speak, and when silence feels safer.
But most of the Jewish community opted to be part of a wave of more than 8 million Venezuelan migrants — about 20% of the country’s population — who decided to seek a new life in other countries.
Will that wave of departures ebb now that Maduro has been forcibly removed from power by the U.S.? The honest answer is: we don’t know. Two decades of institutionalized hostility have left deep scars. And the early signs about the next era are discouraging. In her first televised addresses, new interim president Delcy Rodriguez — Maduro’s former second-in-command — blamed “Zionist” influences for the U.S. military operation. Old reflexes die hard.
And yet, Venezuelans, including Venezuelan Jews, are cautiously optimistic. Not celebratory. Not naïve. But hopeful that this may finally be the beginning of the end of a cruel dictatorship that devastated an entire nation — economically, socially and morally. If free and fair elections follow — still a significant “if”—Venezuela may have a chance to return to democracy, and with it, to its historical commitment to pluralism and coexistence.
That could also bring an opportunity to rethink Venezuela’s relationship with Israel — not only morally, but also strategically.
Israel could be a natural ally in Venezuela’s reconstruction. It is a global leader in water management, agriculture, health technology, cybersecurity, and energy innovation — precisely the areas in which Venezuela faces acute shortages after years of collapse.The building blocks are already there: Even amid today’s diplomatic wreckage, trade still exists at a small scale — evidence that the bridge can be rebuilt when politics allows it.
In fact, opposition leader (and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner) María Corina Machado has already stated that a democratic Venezuela would reopen its embassy in Israel — in Jerusalem, in fact. That is a clear signal that, in the eyes of at least some influential leaders, antisemitism has no place in the country’s future.
For Venezuelan Jews, this moment is not about geopolitics. It is about whether the country they once called home can again be a place where being Jewish is not a liability.
Hope, for now, is cautious. But after so many years of fear, even cautious hope is something new.
The post I grew up in Venezuela. Will Maduro’s ouster bring my Jewish community the security we need? appeared first on The Forward.
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JD Vance continues to minimize right-wing antisemitism as fringe influencers gain ground
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance again downplayed the idea that conservatives should safeguard their ranks against antisemitism, a week after his ally Tucker Carlson hosted yet another antisemitic conspiracy theorist on his web show.
Vance’s latest brief comments, made Tuesday during an interview with conservative radio host and CNN pundit Scott Jennings, came in response to Jennings asking, “Does the conservative movement need to warehouse anybody out there espousing antisemitism in any way?”
“No it doesn’t, Scott,” the vice president replied, toward the end of their interview.
Vance continued by asserting that conservatives, drawing on Christian influences, were welcoming of all backgrounds.
“I think we need to reject all forms of ethnic hatred, whether it’s antisemitism, anti-Black hatred, anti-white hatred,” he said. “And I think that’s one of the great things about the conservative coalition, is that we are, I think, fundamentally rooted in the Christian principles that founded the United States of America.”
He added, “And one of those very important principles is that we judge people as individuals. Every person is made in the image of God. You judge them by what they do, not by what ethnic group they belong to.”
Vance’s comments follow a series of similar remarks by the vice president over the past month as major right-wing groups such as Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation grapple with the growing influence of Nick Fuentes and other openly antisemitic forces. Vance has also indicated his own skepticism in the U.S.-Israel relationship and stated that stopping immigration is the best approach to fighting antisemitism.
One Jewish conservative analyst still employed with Heritage — after a slew of employees left for a competing group — criticized Vance’s latest comments.
“Need a better answer from @JDVance on why the conservative movement should not tolerate antisemitism than what is effectively the equivalent of @TheDemocrats’ ‘…and Islamophobia’ response,” Daniel Flesch, a Heritage policy analyst for the Middle East and North Africa, posted on the social network X.
Flesch referenced his contention that Democratic leaders’ stock answer to addressing antisemitism is that it must be paired with addressing Islamophobia, rather than treated as its own unique problem.
Among Jewish conservatives’ biggest areas of consternation within the party right now: Carlson, the media figure who has platformed Fuentes and other conspiracy theorists while also maintaining close ties with Turning Point, Heritage and Vance himself. This week in Israel’s Knesset, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party denounced Carlson and fellow podcaster Candace Owens by name in an English-language speech.
Last week Carlson continued to fan the flames by hosting Ian Carroll, a conspiracy theorist who has proclaimed “Israel did 9/11”; that “Israel did their best to embellish and enflame the history books” on the Holocaust; and that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was “working on behalf of Israel.”
Carroll has made inroads in the conservative media sphere for a while. He appeared on Joe Rogan’s mega-popular podcast last year and, in 2024, moderated a campaign event for then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., today President Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services. Carroll’s appearance on Carlson’s show came after both Trump and Vance refused to denounce Carlson for his friendly interview with Fuentes last year.
In their Jan. 2 interview, Carroll and Carlson primarily discussed the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. Carroll shared numerous conspiracy theories about the events of that evening, during which the shooter also fired rounds at a jet fuel tank stored at a nearby airport.
“And then there’s things happening at the airport that are strange, that there’s some shooting happening at the airport. So it’s like, is this a gang war between the Italian mob and the Jewish mob? Is this a CIA operation that went wrong?” Carroll muses at one point. “Is this, like, a Mossad operation? Any of those things would need to fit the facts.”
Carroll continued, “In lieu of enough facts, you can try to fit a perpetrator to the facts and invent explanations that will work.”
Later in the interview, Carlson muses about Carroll directly to him, “I’ve never seen anybody come to prominence faster, ever, in our world. And that’s led to a lot of speculation that you’re, like, a CIA officer in disguise.”
Carroll then offers, “Or I’m like, Mossad.”
To which Carlson concludes, “My personal explanation is you’re just an amazing explainer and a diligent researcher, and you’re really interested in what’s true. And those are the three qualities that make a successful person in our world.”
The post JD Vance continues to minimize right-wing antisemitism as fringe influencers gain ground appeared first on The Forward.
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EU-Funded NGO Backed Online Platform Targeting Jewish Businesses in Catalonia
Supporters of Hamas demonstrate outside the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 18. Photo: Reuters/Guillermo Yllanes Gonzalez
The controversial online platform mapping Jewish-owned businesses, schools, and Israeli-linked companies in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain, was promoted by an EU-funded non-governmental organization.
On Tuesday, NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released new information showing that Engineers Without Borders – Catalonia (ESF-C) and Universities with Palestine (UAP) jointly promoted the BarcelonaZ project on social media, identifying themselves as its primary backers.
First reported by the local Jewish outlet Enfoque Judío, the interactive map was launched by an unidentified group claiming to be “journalists, professors, and students” on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCarto.
As a publicly accessible and collaboratively created online platform, the map marked over 150 schools, Jewish-owned businesses — including kosher food shops — and Israeli-linked as well as Spanish and international companies operating in Israel, labeling them as “Zionist.”
“Our goal is to understand how Zionism operates and the forms it takes, with the intention of making visible and denouncing the impact of its investments in our territory,” the project’s website stated.
According to NGO Monitor’s newly released report, ESF-C is a European Union–funded NGO running a Youth Internship Program subsidized by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia, with 40 percent co-financing from the European Social Fund Plus — the EU’s primary program for funding employment, education, and social initiatives.
The EU Financial Transparency System shows that ESF‑C partnered on two EU grants worth about $2.8 million from 2019 to 2023 and received at least $164,000 in funding.
Jewish leaders in Spain have strongly denounced the BarcelonaZ initiative, warning that it fosters further discrimination and hatred against the community amid an increasingly hostile environment in which Jews and Israelis continue to be targeted.
“The mapping and boycotting of Jewish businesses in Catalonia is an echo of some of the darkest chapters in history, including the prelude to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,” the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Director of European Affairs, Shannon Seban, said in a statement.
“The organizers of this initiative put a target on the backs of Spanish Jews, at a time when Jews are being hunted across the globe, as seen so horrifically in Australia just three weeks ago,” she said, referring to the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others.
“Clear incitement to violence of this nature must not be platformed or tolerated by internet companies or government authorities,” Seban continued.
On its website, ESF-C describes its mission as promoting “a fair international society, which does not exclude anyone,” and highlights its commitment to “non-denominationalism and non-partisanship.” Yet, the NGO’s 2024 annual report also asserts that it “cannot ignore the Palestinian resistance, a clear expression of the struggle for freedom of all oppressed peoples.”
In a social media post, the NGO also accused Israel of “genocide” during its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, describing its platform as “a resource designed to inform, raise awareness, and mobilize the educational and student community in Catalonia.”
“The attacks that began on Oct. 7 have involved water and electricity cuts, the boycott of essential water infrastructure, and the contamination of Palestinian water sources,” ESF-C wrote in an Instagram post, without mentioning the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“The violation of these basic rights is a key weapon used by the State of Israel to perpetuate genocide,” the statement read.
NGO Monitor also revealed that UAP is a network of Catalan faculty- and student-led anti-Israel organizations that co-sponsored the BarcelonaZ project.
Last year, UAP organized a “People’s Court” at Complutense University of Madrid on what it called the “Palestinian genocide,” with attendance from several terror-linked NGOs and individuals, including Samidoun, Masar Badil, Al-Haq, and Raji Sourani, NGO Monitor reported.
Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination.
Earlier this week, GoGoCarto announced it had removed the BarcelonaZ project from its website after local groups denounced the initiative as blatantly antisemitic and dangerous.
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Knesset member from Netanyahu’s party decries ‘new enemy’: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens
(JTA) — In an address to the Knesset on Monday, Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz decried what he said was a “new enemy” rising within American politics: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
“We are used to enemies from outside. We fight terror tunnels of Hamas. We fight the ballistic missiles of Iran. But today I look at the West, our greatest ally, and I see a new enemy rising from within,” said Illouz, who is originally from Canada originally, in an English address. “I am speaking of a poison being sold to the American people as patriotism. I’m speaking of the intellectual vandalism of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.”
Illouz’s comments come as the Republican party has been roiled in recent months by debates over the mainstreaming of antisemitic influencers within the GOP.
טאקר קרלסון וקנדיס אוונס הם לא פטריוטים – הם ונדלים אינטלקטואלים. הם טוענים שהם נלחמים בשמאל הקיצוני, אבל הם בדיוק אותו דבר: אותה שנאה למערב, אותו רלטיביזם מוסרי ואותו ניסיון להחריב את המורשת שלנו ואת המערב. pic.twitter.com/ygN70WtGEw
— דן אילוז – Dan Illouz (@dillouz) January 7, 2026
In October, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson hosted far-right antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes on his platform, igniting outrage from Jewish conservatives who warned of the growing reach of antisemitic voices.
Owens has long made antisemitic rhetoric a hallmark of her YouTube channel, which has 5.7 million subscribers. A recent analysis of her content by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that three-quarters of her videos that mentioned Jews were antisemitic.
“They claim to fight the woke left. They are no different than the woke left,” said Illouz. “The radical left tears down the statues of Thomas Jefferson, Tucker Carlson tears down the legacy of Winston Churchill. The radical left says Western civilization is evil, Candace Owens says the roots of our faith are demonic. It is the same sickness.”
Carlson and Owens are among the right-wing influencers who have made opposition to Israel a centerpiece of their output, at a time when support for Israel is declining among conservatives, particularly younger conservatives.
In November, Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister, echoed Illouz’s concerns in an interview with the New York Post, telling the outlet that he was “far more concerned about antisemitism on the right than on the left.” The comments were notable because Chikli is himself a right-wing, anti-“woke” warrior who, in a first for Israel, has stoked relationships with far-right European parties that in some cases have ties to the Nazis.
“One of the worst moments was when a popular conservative broadcaster called one of the most vile Holocaust deniers in America ‘one of the most honest historians.’ That legitimizes hate — it normalizes it,” Chikli told the New York Post, appearing to refer to Carlson’s past praise of the Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper.
Chikli also warned against the rising influence of Fuentes and Cooper among young Americans.
“Antisemitism has become fashionable for Gen Z,” Chikli continued. “They listen to podcasts, not professors. When people like Nick Fuentes or Darryl Cooper are treated as thought leaders, that’s dangerous. These are neo-Nazis.”
The Times of Israel asked Illouz whether he was worried about appearing to interfere with American politics. “Defending the alliance between America and Israel is not interfering,” he said. “I am in touch with many pro-Israel conservatives who know that Candace and Tucker are a threat to America as much as to Israel.”
Top GOP officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have largely dismissed calls from Jewish conservatives, including Ben Shapiro, and others to draw a line against antisemitic influencers.
“Do you think you are the first to try to delegitimize the Jewish people? We are the people of eternity,” said Illouz toward the conclusion of his address, adding that “we will be here long after your YouTube channels are forgotten dust.”
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