Attacks on Rabbi Pynchas Brener's Synagogue

Rabbi Pynchas Brener was my first Rabbi at Holliswood starting in 1955.

He's in trouble:

CHAVEZ STEPS UP ATTACKS ON JEWS

From the beginning of his rule in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez has stridently criticized Israel. In recent months, Chavez has found a more vulnerable target: the Jewish population inside Venezuela.

...Reports indicate that the Mayor of Miranda’s capital city incited an angry group of Chavez supporters to paint Nazi swastikas on the home of an anti-Chavez Jewish politician, Governor Henrique Capriles Radonski. “We are showing Capriles that …people are opposed to his continuous attacks against the initiatives and socialist projects of president Chávez,” explained Los Teques Mayor Alirio Mendoza...


...To add to the growing number of anti-Semitic acts committed in the country, the Tiferet Israel Synagogue in Caracas was the subject of another act of vandalism on June 16th. In an email to NewMajority, Rabbi Pynchas Brener, the Chief Rabbi of Caracas, reported that the outer walls of the temple were covered in anti-Semitic graffiti. Photos provided to NewMajority show graffiti that includes a crossed out Star of David, swastikas, a hammer and sickle, pro-Palestinian rhetoric, and repeated references to Jews as fascists.

Venezuela and Its Jews

As I have posted before, Rabbi Pynchas Brener was my Rabbi between 1955 and 1967 in Holliswood, Queens and we have been in touch, most recently having met in Jerusalem last year over the Pesach holiday.

So, I found sections of AMCHA's Rabbi Avi Weiss' diary quite interesting:

A DIARY OF RABBI AVI WEISS’ TRIP TO VENEZUELA

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

As our plane lands in Caracas I go over in my mind the reasons for our coming here. Our goal is to express solidarity with our sisters and brothers; to learn facts on the ground; and to speak with community leaders, rabbis and clergy of other faiths with the goal of helping to map out future policy.

...Just the idea that Jews are being attacked in Venezuela emotionally upsets me to the core. I pray my students come to understand that this kind of trip is part of what it means to serve in the rabbinate, that the best speech is not what we say but what we do, and that rabbis should not leave advocacy to Jewish defense agencies. Their work is important, but rabbis see these issues from a religious, spiritual perspective, giving its politics different meaning.

On the ride from the airport to the home of our host, Rabbi Pynchas Brener, we saw abject poverty. Little houses, shanties, one on top of the other, one up against the other, all built into the hillsides. Here live the poor, people with so little. I wondered, how is it possible for people to live this way, and yet, for a large percentage of the world, this is the normal way of life.

...Today, the Jewish community is a target of a vicious campaign instigated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who compared Israel’s entry into Gaza to Nazi aggression. In fact, on the cover of the most recent edition of PDVSA, the monthly magazine of the Venezuelan state oil company, there is a picture of a concentration camp with a watchtower and barbed wire. Flying over the camp is an Israeli flag. And the caption blazoned across the picture reads, “NUEVA ADMINISTRACION” (under new management).

Our first stop was the home of Rabbi Brener. Rabbi Brener is the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi community, where he has served for the past forty years. He studied at Yeshiva University where he was ordained, and his first pulpit was in the US for twelve years, so his English is fluent. A man of great stature, Rabbi Brener has been deeply influenced by the culture of America, and the spirit of Israel. It is a culture and spirit of hadar Yisrael, Jewish pride. He, amongst all the rabbis in Venezuela, as wonderful as they are, knows how to stand tall and strong in the face of adversity. Having spent a Shabbat in Riverdale and spoken at our synagogue just recently, I’ve developed a special kinship and respect and love for the man.

Rabbi Brener lives in a comfortable area not far from his synagogue, Union Israelita de Caracas. Living on an upper floor, one can look out from his terrace and see that even Caracas has Godly beauty. Waiting for us as we entered his home was, Rabbi Brener’s wife, Henny whom I also knew from her visit with her husband to Riverdale.

Not only were the Breners there, but the penei, the leaders of the community as well. The Breners had arranged that we meet some of the leadership. Henny had prepared an elegant lunch. I thought of the many trips I had taken around the world speaking out for Jewry. On most of these trips, we ate salami and canned beans. This trip would be different. For the first time, an establishment figure (Rabbi Brener), and an activist to boot, had arranged every detail.

...In the lobby of the synagogue were large, blown up pictures of the desecration. Silver from the Torah on the floor; Jewish books ripped apart. I have little doubt that the Torah scrolls themselves were thrown to the ground, but that may have been too painful to display in pictures. On the walls were scrawled anti-Semitic slogans – “fuera, muerte a todos” and “Israel malditos, muerte” – “get out, death to you all” and “damned Jews, death to you.”

...That evening we were joined for dinner in Rabbi Brener’s synagogue by other community rabbis. Here I saw what I have believed for years – rabbis have the unique opportunity and honor to lead and shepherd their communities not only in good times, but through the bad times too.

After dinner we met with the Venezuelan equivalent of the Presidents Conference, CAIV, the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela. I have never been invited to speak at the Presidents Conference here in America, but in Venezuela, I and the other rabbis were their treasured guests. Clearly, we met them because Rabbi Brener had carefully prepared and facilitated the gathering.

...The long day was finally over. I was overwhelmed by two feelings. This is a community under siege, living in deep fear, but in the same breath, it is also a community exhibiting great courage.

Fear is everywhere. I saw it in the eyes of young people, yeshiva students and leadership. All they want is a fundamental freedom. The freedom from fear.

And yet, there was courage too, starting from the top, from Rabbi Brener himself. Here was a community that told President Chavez, we will not be bullied into casting Israel off. Israel is part of our destiny, and being Jewish is part of our very essence.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

We davened this morning at the Ma’or Hatorah School...As the trip unfolded, I slowly began to realize that Venezuelan Jewry was not some kind of “hole in the wall” community to be pitied. The synagogues we visited yesterday are large, reaching thousands of people, and the Me’or Hatorah school we visited this morning reaches about one hundred charedi families. Its annual budget is two million dollars. That’s not simple to raise year after year, and yet, its leadership has succeeded in raising these monies.

Rabbi Brener arranged for us to see Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino at his home in Alta Florida. The Cardinal is also the Archbishop of Caracas. A man who appeared to be in his fifties, he greeted us warmly.

But as soon as we sat down, the Cardinal excused himself, explaining that he was carrying his cell phone and fearful that our conversation would be overheard through it, he excused himself to place the cellphone in another room.

Rabbi Herzfeld told the cardinal that in his meeting with the Charge d’Affairs of Venezuela in Washington, he was told that the Venezuelan government believed that the church was behind the attacks against the Jewish community. The cardinal was incredulous. He told us that a year ago, a grenade was thrown at the residence of the Papal Nuncio. He also told us that Chavez had personally attacked him in the most vile way in the media. And he told us that immediately after the synagogue attacks, he had reached out to Rabbi Brener and the Jewish community to express his solidarity.

...God has a peculiar sense of humor. For years I had been a great critic of the church, ranging from Pope John Paul’s embrace of Waldheim to the presence of a convent at Auschwitz. But here I sat with my colleagues, opposite Cardinal Urosa, in the spirit of brotherhood...
The best was left for last, acharon acharon chaviv. Our last stop was the magnificent Hebraica / Community School. The entire complex is once again surrounded by high walls.

Hebraica is the equivalent of an American JCC or Y. Only Jews can be members. 75% of the community is affiliated with Hebraica. Across the road within the same complex is the Community School. The school attracts students of all backgrounds, making a conscious effort to embrace young men and women on all levels of observance and background. Many of the boys do not wear kippot. Still, the food is kosher and the general religious tone is orthodox, but an orthodoxy that is uncompromising in its openness and non-judgementalism. I felt right at home.

...In my talk to the older students, I shared with them the emotions of rallies held on their behalf in New York. With Rabbi Brener as translator, I shared three terms – ahavat Yisrael, gvurat yisrael, and hadar yisrael.

Ahavat yisrael or achdut yisrael is the unity of Israel, the solidarity and oneness we feel for each other. In the midst of these challenging times, we were here to lovingly declare, “you’re not alone.”

Gvurat Yisrael is the strength of Israel, the ability to overcome.

And then, there is hadar yisrael. Precisely when Chavez and others in the world would have Jews walk around bent over, weak, embarrassed to be Jewish, is the time to walk tall and strong with hadar, with Jewish pride.

...The time had come to leave. I turned to Rabbi Brener, who reminds me in certain ways of my father (I can offer no greater compliment) and asked him for a blessing. He placed his hands on my head, offered a blessing. We embraced and parted.

...My mind wandered as the faces of Venezuelan Jews, my brothers and sisters, leaders and students, older and younger flashed before me. Each was no longer a number, but a person we had come to know.

I thought of the fear they live with; of students who must be chaperoned everywhere, of a lay-leader who couldn’t carry his card identifying him as the leader of Hebraica.

And I thought of their courage. Of the Beit Shmuel students dancing in the open courtyard, of a lay leadership that said no to Chavez when he demanded they disassociate with Israel.

And I thought of our responsibility. The thirty hours we spent in Venezuela gave me a glimpse of what it is to live in a dictatorship led by a bully. Our imperative is to speak out for our brethren.

Not only is Chavez a threat to Jews, but with Hezbollah and Hamas pouring into Venezuela to help secure the country, Venezuela could become – as one Venezuela Jewish leader told me, a springboard for the next 9/11 attack against the United States (God forbid).

Yes, we have a responsibility to speak out loudly and clearly in front of Venezuelan embassies and consulates throughout the world, and in the halls of Congress. To send the simple message to Chavez – we hold you accountable; and the voice of moral conscience will follow you everywhere.

As our plane took off and I looked over the Venezuelan terrain, I thought of what was for me the most powerful moment of our trip. It took place as we were looking out at the large athletic fields of the Hebraica JCC. There in the distance flew the Venezuelan flag, and aside it, the Israeli flag.

“They’ve tried to split us from Israel,” the head of Hebraica told us, “but never, never will we give in to that demand. That flag will remain flying there forever.”

That's My Rabbi

Rabbi Pinchas Natan David Brener, mentioned in the article below, was my first Rav, Rabbi. He first taught me the next levels of Torah study, above the simple Hebrew School classes that I had attended since the age of 6. Gemara, rudimentary Halacha and Jewish Philosophy. He got me in to Yeshivat Chofetz Chaim in Forest Hills, Queens, just after my Bar Mitzva even though I was, shall we say, far behind the other boys. He was one of the Rabbis who married my wife Batya and myself. He and his wonderful Rebbitzen, Hennie, have always been close although the years and the distances remain, at times, many and great.

Venezuela’s Jews Find Their Voice as Chavez Ramps Up Harassment

Venezuela's president has earned the ire of his country's Jewish community

Caracas, Venezuela — When two dozen heavily armed policemen came to search the Hebraica community center in the Venezuelan capital one night last month, the Jewish community here finally snapped.

The government officers who entered the sprawling, country club-like complex were ostensibly looking for a stash of weapons and for evidence of “subversive activity.” They found neither. In the subsequent days, the Venezuelan Jewish community’s umbrella organization, the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela, fired off a statement denouncing the raid as an “unjustifiable act” aimed at creating tensions between the community and the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez.

This would not be remarkable in the United States, where Jewish groups routinely state their views with little trepidation. But their counterparts abroad have tended to be less confrontational, especially in countries with small communities and a volatile political environment. In Venezuela this has been the case until recently, despite a long series of problems that includes an earlier raid on the Hebraica center, antisemitism on state-controlled media and anti-Israel pronouncements by Chavez. The calculated quiet ended with last year’s December 1 raid.

“We’re facing the first anti-Jewish government in our history,” Simon Sultan, president of Hebraica, told the Forward in an interview in his office, located in a tony Caracas neighborhood.

The December operation took place on the night preceding a crucial referendum on proposed constitutional reform that would have granted Chavez broad powers and the possibility to run indefinitely. The reform was rejected by a thin margin.

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

Venezuela’s Jewish community numbered about 16,000 until Chavez was elected in 1998, and has since declined to around 12,000. The community comprises émigrés who began arriving in the mid-19th century from both North Africa and Eastern Europe, with the majority arriving during and after World War II. Evenly made up of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, the community has thrived in the oil-rich country. Benshimol said that it has maintained “good relations with the Venezuelan government since the end of military dictatorship in 1958.”

CAIV’s president also said that the ties continued when Chavez came to power and initially met with CAIV leaders. What has happened since then is a long and complicated story of domestic and international power politics.

One of the first points of tension was the April 2002 coup attempt against Chavez. Michael Penfold-Becerra, a political scientist at Caracas’s institute of superior administrative studies, said that among some government officials, suspicions against Jews were fueled by the alleged support of prominent rabbi Pinchas Brenner for the authors of the short-lived coup, as well as by the perception that Israelis and Jews were active in the arms business.

The first raid, in 2004, heightened the tensions, especially since it took place early in the day when hundreds of children were on their way to school.

The tensions escalated again during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, when 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...

...But the atmosphere has worsened lately, first and foremost because of Chavez’s increasingly inflammatory talk about Israel and its supporters. A television program called “The Razor,” broadcast on a state-owned channel, has featured lengthy rants about the presence of Mossad agents allegedly in the country working to unseat the Chavez regime with the support of the United States and opposition forces in Venezuela. The host of the show has also questioned the loyalty of leading Jewish figures to their home country. Despite repeated complaints by CAIV, the authorities have taken no action.

...The deteriorating atmosphere has prompted a sizable exodus of Jews from Venezuela. While precise numbers are hard to come by, the number of children attending the school at the Hebraica center has dropped some 37% in the past decade, while membership at the club has slipped 30%.

Most of the departed have moved to South Florida, Spain and Israel — although some of them continue to commute to Venezuela to tend to their business...In the end, though, it was not the immigration but the raid that convinced the community to speak up. The operation was led by the equivalent of the FBI, whereas the more recent raid was done by officers from a police force under the control of the Interior Ministry and, as such, closely tied to the presidency. While there is no evidence that Chavez himself ordered the latest raid, the all-powerful Interior Ministry is one of his strongest levers.

...Asked about the possibility that the bulk of the community might choose to go to Miami, Madrid or Tel Aviv for good, Benshimol paused. “We want to live here, but we want to live in dignified conditions,” he said.

President Bush is Coming: Remember Nixon?

Remember Nixon's 1958 trip to Venezuela?

No?

A reminder:-

Over the rigid shoulders of a line of Venezuelan soldiers at Maiquetía Airport, streams of spittle arced through humid sunlight, splattered on the neatly pressed grey suit of the Vice President of the U.S. and on the red wool suit of his wife. But worse was in store: less than an hour later Dick and Pat Nixon brushed close to injury and possibly death in violence-torn streets of Caracas, last stop on their eight-nation visit to South America.

The mood of the airport crowd was set an hour before the Nixons' silver-and-white Air Force DC-6B touched down. A pack of 200 students, skillfully whipped up by older men, hoisted bed sheets painted with the slogans of international Communism, blew rubber Bronx-cheer whistles and shouted, "Get out, Nixon!" When the good-will guests walked smiling down the plane's steps, The Star-Spangled Banner and a 21-gun salute were drowned in an ugly howl of hatred.

A Shower of Glass. The spitting began as the Nixons walked along the troop-lined red carpet toward their limousines. The band made a futile attempt to quiet the crowd by playing the Venezuelan national anthem; Pat Nixon shamed a hooting, teen-aged girl into silence by reaching over the guards' bayonets to take her hand. As the Nixons got into separate cars for the ten-mile superhighway trip up the coastal range to the capital, demonstrators tried to blind the drivers by draping banners over the windshields. Only when the mob was left behind did the Nixons take out handkerchiefs to wipe the saliva from their faces and clothes.



In the thick traffic of the working-class suburb of Catia, the caravan slowed to a crawl, then halted. Several hundred rioters came running. They ripped the U.S. and Venezuelan flags from Nixon's car, pounded the doors with clubs, pipes, brass artillery-shell cases. Grapefruit-sized stones smashed against the safety glass until slivers began flying through the inside of the car. A shower of glass struck Nixon, one piece lodging in his temple near his right eye (it was easily removed).

Outside, the handful of escort police hung back. Brutally manhandled by vengeful mobs after the overthrow of Dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez last January, they seemed afraid to tackle bloodthirsty civilians again. One U.S. Secret Service man threw himself across the back window of Nixon's car to protect it from stones and clubs. Others pulled at a stubborn student lying under the car's front wheels. The howling mob tried to overturn the car.

After twelve minutes' bitter combat, the limousine bucked ahead, bound for the tomb of Simón Bolívar, where Nixon was scheduled to lay a wreath. A block from the tomb the car suddenly veered off into a side street. Glancing through a shattered side window, Nixon could see a mob of 3,000 rioters, mostly high school students, waiting for him. (Days later, policemen found 400 Molotov cocktails cached in the basement of a nearby house.) The limousine sped off to the safety of the U.S. embassy residence.



An emergency phone call to Washington told President Eisenhower of the Nixons' plight. Deeply concerned, the President ordered a military rescue operation (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). But before the troops were on the way, Venezuela's five-man junta had ringed the residence with 400 soldiers. Mobs were still roaming the streets, and the Nixons were virtual prisoners in the residence.

Welcome, President Bush, to Israel.