Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Venezuela
Venezuela: its Zionist-affiliated Jewish community, Israeli arms before Chávez, the 2009 rupture, the opposition's alliance with Likud, and the consular reopening after Maduro's capture
Venezuela has a Jewish community of about 6,000, which has shrunk sharply since the 1990s.[1] President Hugo Chávez broke off relations with "Israel" in January 2009 over the Gaza war.[2] The opposition leader María Corina Machado's party signed an alliance with Likud in 2020, and she promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem.[3][4] After the United States captured President Nicolás Maduro on 3 January 2026, the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez agreed in August 2026 to resume consular relations.[2]
Jewish community and religious life
History
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) says there were conversos in Caracas and Maracaibo in the mid-16th century, that Jews from Curaçao helped Simón Bolívar, and that the 1821 constitution affirmed religious freedom. Jews from Curaçao settled in Coro around 1827 and Moroccan Jews in Barcelona in 1844. North African and then Eastern and Central European Jews arrived after the First World War, and immigration grew after the fall of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958. The WJC says that "some Venezuelan Jewish volunteers went to Israel to help fight" in the 1967 war.[1]
The community today
Estimates of the community's size and decline differ:
- The WJC gives about 6,000 (2020), and cites Sergio DellaPergola's estimate of about 7,300 for 2012.[1]
- BBC News Mundo cites an estimate of about 22,000 in 1999, when Chávez came to power, and says the figure has since roughly halved.[2]
- An opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post says the community fell from about 25,000 to about 5,000.[5]
- Confederación de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela (CAIV): the WJC's Venezuelan affiliate and the community's umbrella body. Its international coordinating director, Saul Levine, is a WJC vice-president. Its affiliates include the Sephardi Asociación Israelita de Venezuela (AIV), the Ashkenazi Unión Israelita de Caracas, the Zionist Federation, B'nai B'rith and the Venezuelan Federation of Jewish Women. It runs youth programmes that train leaders in "Zionist and other Jewish-related endeavors", and publishes the weekly Nuevo Mundo Israelita.[1]
- How far is it Zionist? Strongly. Its youth leadership training includes Zionist education, and the Zionist Federation is one of its affiliates.[1]
- Zionist Federation of Venezuela: according to the WJC, it represents "all the country's Zionist organizations".[1]
- How far is it Zionist? Fully, by definition.
- Asociación Israelita de Venezuela: its chief rabbi, Isaac Cohen, gave the foreign minister, Félix Plasencia, a letter in August 2026 calling for diplomatic and consular relations with "Israel" to be restored.[2]
- Others: WIZO, the Hebraica sports and cultural centre in Caracas, the Herzl-Bialik school, and about 16 synagogues, all Orthodox.[1]
How far is it Zionist? The community's central bodies are tied to Zionist organisations, and its leaders lobbied for the restoration of relations with "Israel".
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Venezuela. The WJC lists an Or Jabad school in Caracas.[1]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
- The Israeli foreign ministry dates Venezuela's recognition to January 1950 and records that it severed relations in January 2009.[6] Al-Monitor says Venezuela recognised "Israel" "shortly after the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948", and that relations deepened until a visit to Caracas by the foreign minister Shimon Peres in 1995.[7]
- In January 2009 Chávez expelled the Israeli ambassador in protest at the Gaza offensive. On 27 April 2009 the foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, established diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority.[1] BBC News Mundo says Chávez aligned Venezuela with the Iranian-led "axis of resistance".[2]
- After the US capture of Maduro on 3 January 2026 and an earthquake on 24 June 2026, "Israel" sent rescue teams and engineers, and Rodríguez thanked them in late July. On 11 August 2026 the two governments announced a mechanism for consular services. The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, spoke of "la reanudación de las relaciones consulares" ("the resumption of consular relations"), while the Venezuelan statement did not.[2] According to Al-Monitor, Israeli diplomatic sources said the two countries were not yet on a path towards full relations.[7]
- In April 2026 Venezuela's interim authorities extradited Ali Zaki Hage Jalil, whom the US embassy in Panama calls a "suspected Hizballah terrorist", to Panama to stand trial for the 1994 bombing of an Alas Chiricanas aircraft, which killed 12 members of Panama's Jewish community among others.[8]
Arms
SIPRI records 13 Israeli arms deals with Venezuela between 1974 and 2003, all before or early in the Chávez period: RBY-1 armoured personnel carriers (1974), Arava transport aircraft, several for the National Guard (1978–87), LAR-160 rocket launchers (1982), 250 MAPATS anti-tank missiles (1990), tanker conversions of two Boeing 707s, Litening pods and Lizard guided bombs for F-16s (1997), Barak-1 surface-to-air missiles bought through a Dutch company (ordered in 1999 and delivered in 2005–06), radars for two frigates, and 54 Python-4 missiles for F-16s in a $7.5 million deal (2003).[9]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics lists Venezuela separately. In 2025 "Israel" imported goods worth $0.8 million from Venezuela (2024: $1.9 million) and exported goods worth $1.9 million to it (2024: $1.4 million).[10]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics counts immigrants born in Venezuela as follows:
- 297 in 1961–71;
- 245 in 1972–79;
- 180 in 1980s;
- 318 in 1990s;
- 1,496 in 2000–2020;
- 77 in 2021;
- 65 in 2022;
- 39 in 2023.[11]
Political interference
Machado and Likud
On 21 July 2020 Machado, as national co-ordinator of Vente Venezuela, and Eli Vered Hazan, director of foreign affairs of Likud, signed an "Inter-Party Agreement" to "forge an alliance between our two parties" covering "political, ideological, and social matters, as well as advancing cooperation on issues related to strategy, geopolitics and security", in order to "create an operational partnership".[3] Vente called it "un paso histórico y muy importante" ("a historic and very important step") and a message about its strategic allies against threats such as Iran.[12] In a video recalled in December 2024 by the Organización Cristianos en Política, Machado said: "nuestro gobierno mudará nuestra embajada en Israel a Jerusalén. Eso será parte de nuestro apoyo al Estado de Israel" ("our government will move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. That will be part of our support for the State of Israel").[4]
UN voting
Venezuela did not vote on the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution in September 2025.[13]
Jeffrey Epstein
- The Venezuelan-Spanish businessman Francisco D'Agostino, whose extradition Venezuela has sought on money-laundering charges, visited Epstein's island, Little Saint James, and advised him to invest in the state oil company PDVSA. From 2012 Epstein bought at least $4.5 million of PDVSA bonds. In October 2012 D'Agostino offered to introduce him to Baldo Sansó, a PDVSA financial adviser and brother-in-law of the PDVSA president Rafael Ramírez, and told him in December 2012 that Chávez seemed likely to have "unos seis meses de vida o menos" ("about six months to live or less"). D'Agostino did not respond to OCCRP's requests for comment.[14]
- El Nacional reports that Epstein wrote to D'Agostino two days after Chávez's last speech in December 2012: "Yo diría que Chávez tiene, como mucho, unos 100 días. ¿Qué se puede hacer bajo este nuevo escenario?" ("I'd say Chávez has 100 days at most. What can be done under this new scenario?"). [15]
- In an email of 22 October 2012, D'Agostino proposed nine Venezuelans for Epstein to meet on a possible visit to Caracas, among them Sansó, the opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup (D'Agostino's brother-in-law) and Alejandro Betancourt of Derwick Associates. In February 2026 the pro-government deputy Iris Varela asked the National Assembly to summon the nine. She said their appearance in the documents did not amount to a conviction.[16]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Colombia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Argentina
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 World Jewish Congress, Community in Venezuela worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Venezuela e Israel dan un primer paso de acercamiento tras 17 años de ruptura BBC News Mundo, 11 August 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Likud and Vente Venezuela, Inter-Party Agreement (PDF), 21 July 2020.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 María Corina Machado promete reanudar relaciones con Israel Diario Las Américas, 27 December 2024.
- ↑ Nicole Mischel, After 17 years, Israel and Venezuela begin rebuilding ties through humanitarian aid – comment The Jerusalem Post, 12 August 2026 (opinion).
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Why Venezuela is moving closer to Israel but stopping short of full ties Al-Monitor, 15 August 2026.
- ↑ US Embassy in Panama, U.S.-Panama-Venezuela Partnership Secures Extradition of Suspect in 1994 Panama Aircraft Terrorist Attack pa.usembassy.gov, 20 April 2026.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024.
- ↑ Vente Venezuela, Vente Venezuela firma acuerdo de cooperación con el partido Likud de Israel ventevenezuela.org, 23 July 2020.
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Los bonos petroleros venezolanos de Epstein OCCRP, February 2026.
- ↑ Archivos desclasificados de Jeffrey Epstein revelan nexos con Francisco D'Agostino y planes de negocios en Venezuela El Nacional, 2 February 2026.
- ↑ Iris Varela exige investigar a nueve venezolanos nombrados en correos desclasificados del caso Epstein Efecto Cocuyo, 27 February 2026.