A Jewish Agency emissary has been arrested and charged with helping non-Jews pose as Jews so that they could immigrate to Israel. In response, Likud party MK Yuli Edelstein says the Jewish Agency must find ways to encourage Aliyah and support its emissaries other than the "quota" system that currently exists.

The arrested man, a 68-year-old resident of Raanana who was the Jewish Agency's representative in Venezuela, was taken into custody at Ben Gurion International Airport by the Immigration Police.  He is suspected of having brought some 200 people into Israel as new olim [immigrants] under the Automatic Citizenship for Jews law - even though he knew that their conversion to Judaism was fictitious.  The police say he admitted to having done this in order to receive recognition from the Jewish Agency as a "top employee."

MK Edelstein, who himself immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union, criticized the Jewish Agency's policies for encouraging the sham.  "The Jewish Agency must find new ways to show appreciation to its emissaries," Edelstein said, "without encouraging a certain 'quota' in finding and bringing Jews to Israel.  Aliyah is critical for Israel, but only inasmuch as it contributes to the strengthening of Zionism - and that is why we cannot rely just on numbers and quotas."

"We have been witness of late," Edelstein said, "to an increasing stream of new immigrants who have no connection at all to Judaism and Zionism - and this hurts the loyalty of the Jewish agency as well as the entire Zionist enterprise.  We must find new ways to encourage Aliyah."

The Jewish Agency oversaw the immigration to Israel of an estimated one million people from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, of whom an estimated 300,000 were not Jewish.

From Venezuela to Israel

The sham Venezuelan immigrants were all treated to the basket of benefits worth thousands of shekels that every new immigrant receives. Some of them still live today in Ramle, while others have left the country. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have sought refuge in the United States, Europe and other western countries since the rise to power of the dictator-like Hugo Chavez in 2001.



A spokesman for the Jewish Agency said, "We have always been committed to guaranteeing a legal Aliyah process.  We are therefore helping the police in its investigation, and we have even flown one of our emissaries back to Israel for the purpose.  We hope that the suspicions will prove to be false and that the emissary will soon be back at work." 

Agency sources say it is not true that emissaries are pressured to bring back olim "at any cost."

Jewish and Non-Jewish Exodus

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Venezuela's Jewish and non-Jewish communities have been in upheaval since the 2001 election of socialist Hugo Chavez as president, especially since Chavez's re-election in 2004. Since assuming office, Chavez has nationalized several industries, including at least one major oil producer, seized near-dictatorial powers and the country has seen spiraling crime and inflation rates. The result has been a middle class exodus from the country, with hundreds of thousands of citizens seeking refuge in the United States, Europe and other western countries. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

For the country's Jewish community, which numbers approximately 15,000 people, Chavez's close relations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and several anti-Semitic elements inside Venezuela have raised questions about the community's future in the country.

 

Community leaders have sought to minimize anti-Semitic statements by Chavez saying they were taken "out of context," but several Jewish community buildings and synagogues have been targeted by anti-Semitic attacks in recent months.

 

Hamas leader and arch-terrorist Khaled Mashaal met a year ago with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro in Teheran. Mashaal and Maduro agreed that Venezuela and the Palestinian Authority, at that time led by Hamas, would open direct diplomatic ties. Maduro said that the PA would be allowed to open an embassy in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Venezuela was one of the first countries to accept Hamas as a legitimate governing body.