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Venezuelans hold up their ID cards during an anti-Semetic protest.

By Fabiola Sanchez
Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela-- As President Hugo Chavez intensifies his anti-Israel campaign, some Venezuelans have taken action by threatening Jews in the street and vandalizing the largest synagogue in Caracas--where they stole a database of names and addresses.
Now many Venezuelan Jews fear the worst is yet to come.
Chavez has personally taken care not to criticize Israelis or Jews while accusing Israel's government of genocide against the Palestinians. He vehemently denies inciting religious intolerance, let alone violence.
But Venezuela's Jewish leaders, the Organization of American States, and the U.S. State Department say Chavez's harsh criticismhas inspired a growing list of hate crimes, including an invasion of Caracas' largest synagogue on Jan. 30.
About 15 people overpowered two security guards at the Tiferet Israel Synagogue, shattered religious objects, and spray-painted "Jews, get out" on the walls. Most worrisome, according to Elias Farahche, president of the Venezuelan-Israelite Association, was their theft of a computer database containing many names and addresses of Jews in Venezuela.
Police are now posted outside the synagogue, and prosecutors said Friday that the security guards "could be involved." Venezuela's attorney general ordered them to court on Feb. 13--two days before Venezuelans vote in a referendum that could enable Chavez to extend his rule indefinitely.
One week before the invasion, a Chavista columnist named Emilio Silva posted a call to action on Apporea, a pro-government website, describing Jews as "squalid"--a term Chavez often uses to describe his opponents as weak--and exhorting Venezuelans to confront them as anti-government conspirators.
"Publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street, shopping center, or park," he wrote, "shouting slogans in favor of Palestine and against that abortion: Israel."
Silva called for protests at the synagogue, a boycott of Jewish-owned businessesm seizures of Jewish-owned property, the closing of Jewish schools, and a nationwide effort to "denounce publicly, with names and last names the members of powerful Jewish groups present in Venezuela."
Apporea later replaced the column with an apology that describes Silva's posting as anti-Semetic and exhorts Chavistas to shore more discipline by criticizing the Israeli government rather than its people or Jews in general.
Silva, a 35-year-old mathematics professor at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, got the message. He told the Associated Press Friday that he couldn't comment on the "controversial subject," and that his "position is to condemn any act that goes against the integrity of ant faith or conviction."