Ordie
03-05-2009, 12:59 AM
Posted on Wed, Mar. 04, 2009
Controversy continues over treatment of Jews in Venezuela
BY PHIL GUNSON
Accusations that leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is stirring up anti-semitism in the country have taken a bizarre twist with a controversy over the staging of the musical Fiddler on the Roof, which is set in a Jewish community in czarist Russia.
The furor, which centers on the refusal of a partly government-funded orchestra to take part in the performance, coincides by chance with a visit to Caracas by a delegation from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
The musical's artistic director, Michele Housman, said the chairman of the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Symphony Orchestra wanted to avoid ``offending the government, because [the work] deals with Jewish themes, and it is the state that gives them a subsidy.''
In an increasingly heated media exchange, orchestra chairman Manuel Torres denied the charge, leading Housman to reiterate it and confirm that the theater company had received a phone call to that effect from Torres himself.
On Thursday the world-renowned Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra is due to stage a special concert, dedicated to the Jewish community. The performance will include music from the soundtrack of the film Schindler's List, which deals with the Nazi Holocaust. The concert is being seen as a bid to dissociate the youth orchestra system -- sometimes mistakenly linked with the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Orchestra -- from the latter's actions.
The seven-member AJC delegation, which includes leading representatives of the Jewish communities in Argentina and Colombia, visited Caracas this week on a fact-finding mission and ''to show solidarity with the Jewish community after what it has experienced in recent months,'' said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Committee's Latino and Latin American Institute.
Among the delegates are Mimi Alperin, chair of the AJC's board of governors, and Bernita M. King, president of the Greater Miami and Broward chapter.
In January, the main synagogue in Caracas was desecrated by an armed gang that painted anti-semitic slogans on the walls. More recently, a grenade was thrown at another synagogue. There have also been anti-semitic articles in pro-Chávez publications, and anti-semitic graffiti on synagogue walls.
Accusations that the government is fomenting such behavior are firmly denied by ministers, and by the president himself. But the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in January, over Israel's invasion of Gaza, and the government's open identification with Hamas, have exacerbated an already tense situation.
``The Jewish community often acts as the canary in the mine,''Mimi Alperin told The Miami Herald.
''It starts with the Jews many times,'' said Dina Siegel Vann. ``But it doesn't end with the Jews.''
The delegation's members said Venezuela had been free of anti-semitism until now, but that the community was now more worried than ever before. ''We believe this type of situation is not only bad for Venezuela, it's bad for the hemisphere,'' she added. ``Countries in the region have to speak out, whenever there is discrimination against any community.''
Source:http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/932801.html
Controversy continues over treatment of Jews in Venezuela
BY PHIL GUNSON
Accusations that leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is stirring up anti-semitism in the country have taken a bizarre twist with a controversy over the staging of the musical Fiddler on the Roof, which is set in a Jewish community in czarist Russia.
The furor, which centers on the refusal of a partly government-funded orchestra to take part in the performance, coincides by chance with a visit to Caracas by a delegation from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
The musical's artistic director, Michele Housman, said the chairman of the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Symphony Orchestra wanted to avoid ``offending the government, because [the work] deals with Jewish themes, and it is the state that gives them a subsidy.''
In an increasingly heated media exchange, orchestra chairman Manuel Torres denied the charge, leading Housman to reiterate it and confirm that the theater company had received a phone call to that effect from Torres himself.
On Thursday the world-renowned Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra is due to stage a special concert, dedicated to the Jewish community. The performance will include music from the soundtrack of the film Schindler's List, which deals with the Nazi Holocaust. The concert is being seen as a bid to dissociate the youth orchestra system -- sometimes mistakenly linked with the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Orchestra -- from the latter's actions.
The seven-member AJC delegation, which includes leading representatives of the Jewish communities in Argentina and Colombia, visited Caracas this week on a fact-finding mission and ''to show solidarity with the Jewish community after what it has experienced in recent months,'' said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Committee's Latino and Latin American Institute.
Among the delegates are Mimi Alperin, chair of the AJC's board of governors, and Bernita M. King, president of the Greater Miami and Broward chapter.
In January, the main synagogue in Caracas was desecrated by an armed gang that painted anti-semitic slogans on the walls. More recently, a grenade was thrown at another synagogue. There have also been anti-semitic articles in pro-Chávez publications, and anti-semitic graffiti on synagogue walls.
Accusations that the government is fomenting such behavior are firmly denied by ministers, and by the president himself. But the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in January, over Israel's invasion of Gaza, and the government's open identification with Hamas, have exacerbated an already tense situation.
``The Jewish community often acts as the canary in the mine,''Mimi Alperin told The Miami Herald.
''It starts with the Jews many times,'' said Dina Siegel Vann. ``But it doesn't end with the Jews.''
The delegation's members said Venezuela had been free of anti-semitism until now, but that the community was now more worried than ever before. ''We believe this type of situation is not only bad for Venezuela, it's bad for the hemisphere,'' she added. ``Countries in the region have to speak out, whenever there is discrimination against any community.''
Source:http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/932801.html