According to the Latin American Jewish Congress, Venezuela's Jewish community had an estimated 22,000 people when Chávez took office in 1999.
[8] In the early 2000s, emigration of Venezuelan Jews to
Israel grew steadily.
[9] The
Algemeiner Journal stated that this emigration from Venezuela occurred due to "the country’s economic crisis ... as well as the anti-Semitic rhetoric that has marked the left-wing regime’s support for Iran, Syria, and Palestinian Islamist organizations like
Hamas" and that "first Chavez and now Maduro have found political uses for anti-Jewish rhetoric".
[10]
By 2007, amid concerns of rising allegations of
antisemitism[4][11][12][13][14], emigration saw Venezuela's 20,000 Jewish population drop by 20%
[15] to 45%
[8]. For instance The Latin American Jewish Congress estimated that in 2007, only between 12,000 and 13,000 Jews still resided in Venezuela.
[8] By November 2010, more than 50% of Jewish Venezuelans had left the country since Chavez came to power, with some of those remaining behind complaining of "official antisemitism".
[16] By early 2013, only 9,000 Jews lived in Venezuela and in early 2015, it was reported that under 7,000 lived in the country.
[10]