Venezuela’s Jewish umbrella body CAIV has presented a new study in which an unusually high
number of antisemitic incidents in the country is recorded for the year 2013.
The analysis focuses on the mainstream media and on social networking sites
such as Twitter.
CAIV President David Bittan, who also serves as vice-president of the
World Jewish Congress, noted that antisemitic expressions had spiked during the
bitterly fought presidential campaign in the spring of 2013 which, following
the death of Hugo Chavez, pitched the latter’s successor Nicolas Maduro against
opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who has Jewish ancestry. Following
Maduro’s victory, they subsided somewhat but remained on a high level.
“During 2013 we witnessed and recorded 4,033 antisemitic expressions
through different media, in social networks, with an important increase in the
months of March, April and May, and a decrease in October, November and
December,” Bittan wrote in the foreword to the in-depth study, which is posted
on the CAIV website in Spanish and English. The CAIV president urged the
government of Venezuela to show more initiative in eradicating antisemitism,
and said that compiling this annual study was one of the raisons d’être of
CAIV. “This task will no longer be needed when the authorities show the
initiative and the will to exert a policy to eradicate Judeophobia, and in our
country’s specific case, there is still time to achieve this provided there is
consensus.
“If the authorities truly became aware of the damage caused to the
country’s reputation by maintaining a passive and accommodating attitude […]
towards these aspects, I am convinced that the situation would be different
here and I even dare to think out aloud and say that more damage is caused to
Venezuela by the peculiar form antisemitism on display in our country than to
the Venezuelan Jewish community.”
