My prayer is for your community ...that G-d will protect you !

He stood up to the bully Chavez. Hazak uBaruch.

Rabbi Ferman's refusal to be a stooge for Hugo Chavez stands in contrast with Chabad's history of providing cover for the murderous Argentinians. At a time when it was obvious to everyone that the Argentine campaign was targeting Jews, The Argentine Chabad defended the Argentinian military.

Puhleezz!! Rabbi Ferman has alot of chutzpah and I would say mazaltov to him. But I gotta believe that now we need to pray for his longevity on this earth. That really must have made Chavez mad.

we could all lern a little courage from our Chabad brethern--the history of standing up to tyrants goes back to the beginning of Chabad history--and reflects the tradtion of Esther and our our prophets.

The Bishop of Munster stood up to Hitler, and Hitler backed down. The same will happen with Chavez, a ridiculous Hitler wanna-be. The courageous Rabbi did the right thing by saying NO to a bully. Let us pray that the rest of the civilized world follows his great example by crushing the fascist aspirations of both Chavez and his fellow troglodyte Ahmadinejad.

Now he'll say that you had something to hide.

One by one, country by country, the InGathering begines anew. Welcome Venezuelans!

THIS GUY is CRAZY HE ENCOURAGE THE ALIA to MIAMI , PANAMA , ISRAEL THE JEWISH COMUNITY WILL DISAPPEAR in VENEZUELA RABBI FERMAN IS a BRAVE,

nearly ! since their last Rabbi; at least.

I only wish that the Jews of Brandeis University showed as much courage when a Southern bigot showed up to their backyard as Rabbi Ferman showed to the tinpot dictator from Venezuela.

"The Simon Wiesenthal Center has accused him of anti-Semitism after in one of his speeches he accused the Jews of crucifying Jesus and of holding the entire world's capital". The Wiesenthal Center should have been ashamed to criticise Chavez without checking what he actually said... this reflects badly on them. But this author doesn't even have the excuse of the slander being new and unchecked, it's been thoroughly exploded by now. Here's a translation of what Chavez actually said: "The world has an offer for everybody but it turned out that a few minorities--the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here and also those who in a certain way crucified him in Santa Marta, there in Colombia--they took possession of the riches of the world, a minority took possession of the planet’s gold, the silver, the minerals, the water, the good lands, the oil, and they have concentrated all the riches in the hands of a few; less than 10 percent of the world population owns more than half of the riches of the world." Actually Chavez was decrying the rich throughout history, NOT the Jews. To pretend this is an anti-Semitic slur, you have to pretend that Chavez is accusing the Jews of expelling Simon Bolivar from Venezuela, which is nonsense. They slander Chavez because they have no answer to him calling Israel out for aggression and apartheid.

Chavez was not decrying for the rich He was blamming people who are JEWISH for holding the Worlds riches and crucified Christ BOTH of those are used to scapegoat Jews for THIER problems and are also Anti-semitic People tend to blend Anti-semitism with Anti-Zionism When they are saying "Zionists" control the world's riches they mean the Jews When they say the "Zionists" are nazis They mean the JEWS " They slander Chavez because they have no answer to him calling Israel out for aggression and apartheid. " they didn't slander out him beacuse of israel They slander him beacuse of anti-Semitic remarks

Dear TE WHANGANUI A TARA: do you really think that we are so fool to not to understand what Chaves really meant ? Every antisemitic child understands that immediately! do us a favour.....

Just to clarify your ynet usual bigotery thereare 45% ashke Nazi...m 45% sfaradim 5% conversos 4% maranos and 1% you the stupid jerk who makes that separation until our next detruction idiot.

Mr. Cheeseman, what part of "the descendants of those who crucified Christ, " don't you understand? Chavez is a populist -- which does NOT mean someone truly concerned for the people -- and he is willing to use any cheap rhetoric to blame "the outsider" for his regime's problems. In the quote you presented he is clearly blaming Jews AND the rich, but subtely conflating the rich with Jews, not instead of us.

It was foolish of the rabbi to snub a gesture of friendship from Chavez, who has never, ever expressed animosity toward Jews. Read #14 for a sane interpretation of Chavez' words, which have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. As a matter of fact, anti-Semitism has never been an issue in Venezuela, and it should not now, unless provoked by the likes of the Wiesenthal Center, whose self-appointed job is to sniff out little Eichmanns under every bed.

Moshe, moshe, ata gadol...... Other so called community leaders shall learn from you.....

lets see...he has a axe to grind with 1.the rich of his country 2..israelis over palistinian problem 3. Christian missionaries in his country 4.USA over its opposition to Iran nucs which are earmarked for removal of israel as a nation... I would not be terribly suprised if he had a axe to grind with the jews in his country if it served his purpose of nationalizing his nations riches....

Somebody need to tell to Chavez that Chabad ist'not Naturei Karta.

Ben Wolf, Chavez thought he was talking about the rich. He thinks the rich crucified Jesus and drove Bolivar out of Venezuela, and, in a sense, crucified Bolivar in Colombia. For Chavez, Jesus was a "socialist" who was done to death by the possessors of property, the rich. Naturally you know his own mind better than he and can see he is "clearly" blaming the Jews. You see what you want to see because it's "clear" to you that Chavez, an opponent of Zionism, has to be anti-semitic. But he isn't. The author of the article goes further than your smug self-delusion and tells a direct lie, viz, that Chavez blamed the Jews for crucifying Jesus. As you can see from the quote, he just didn't. By the way, in the Christian story it was the Romans who crucified Jesus, not Jews. The author further dishonestly claims that Chavez "accused [the Jews] of holding all the world's capital". Again, he just didn't. Hate-mongering based on lies while it may strengthen the opposition of Zionists to Chavez will do so by confirming ignorance and prejudice, not through accurate knowledge of the man and his beliefs. That's never a good idea.

What an incredible stupid idiot. If you want to endanger 25,300 Jews, it is a very good idea to deliberately anger an antisemitic dictator, isn't it? The Jews in Venezuela are really in the position to insult the antisemitic dictator, eh? WHAT A STUPID IDIOT, this little crazy Chabadnik. I'm nearly hitting my head against the wall, crying about the idiocy of this stupid freak claiming the title 'rabbi' and endangering tens of thousands of Jews.

This rabbi has shown some Jewish backbone and pride!! He's not like the ghetto Jew of old, afraid to lift his head or speak out!! Or the Jew from the alleyways of Baghdad of old behaving like a good dhimmi! This rabbi has instilled pride in all of us, especially it being so close to Purim!!

Although it is difficult to estimate the precise Jewish population of Venezuela, an estimate can be calculated based on the number of Jewish students at the Jewish Day school in Caracas, since >90% of Venezuelan Jews live in Caracas, and > 90% of Jewish students in Caracas attend the Jewish school. Approximately 40% of Venezuelan Jews have emigrated from the country, according to the Jewish day school's alumni web site.; most have done so in the last 20 years, so the population has shrunk a lot. The figure printed in this article is wrong; the Venezuelan Jewish population is, at best, currently, 10,000.

When the final solution was proposed in germany ... much of the same retoric was raised to those non jews of germany and the world... it was sold and couched in terms that could be viewed in multiple ways. but inflamatory enough to cause those that had preconcieved issues with Jews to jump on the band wagon which as we saw in germany resulted in the death of 6 million jews and countless others that supported the jews... I think chavez is smart enough to steer clear of such insinuations ... but in a nation that has a lot of poor I think he feels he can gain a lot of political support for nationalizing various industries by using such vauge insinuations ..... this is a guy that was granted near dictitorial powers to recreate the social structure of his country...... a vary scary thing ...those that buy into his reasoning need to watch thier backs...!

I expect the same thing was said of Mordecai in ancient persia when he would not bow to the request of Haman... is it so hard to learn from this purim story?

seek the support of the Jews when their popularity starts to drop. The Jewish communities worlwide ARE NOT laundromats for the hypocrites' dirt.

" like the Jew from the alleyways of Baghdad of old behaving like a good dhimmi" What a load of rubbish you write time and time again. Did you ever speak to any Baghdadi Jews? your notion of them cowering in the alleys in a "dhimmi" aspect, shows that you have been brainwashed by reading too much Bat Ye'or.