Wednesday, September 27, 2006

This cant be

Can you believe this I will have to take my Kipah off

I have Jewish friends in Caracas wondering if they should remove their kippot skullcaps when they go out in the street," said Victor Amram, of Boca Raton. "Never in our lives did we imagine Jews would think that way in Venezuela."Amram, 60, was head of the Zionist Federation of Venezuela in 1998 and 1999. He was also second in command in the Policia Tecnica Judicial, Venezuela's investigative law enforcement agency. In May 1999, his Chavez-appointed boss accused him of "Jewifying" the agency's store, which sold clothes and furniture, by stocking it with merchandise from vendors who happened to be Jewish, Amram said.Amram already had planned to leave Venezuela because of its civil instability and corruption. He retired later that year and in 2000 moved to Florida, where he owns a security company.
Roughly 25 percent of Venezuela's 30,000 Jews have left for South Florida since Chavez was elected in 1998, according to the American Jewish Committee. Most fled a rising tide of crime, kidnappings and economic uncertainty, including government encroachments on private property, that sparked a general exodus of middle-class Venezuelans.

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