Venezuela

History of Jewish immigration

The history of Jewish immigration in Venezuela began in the middle of the 17th century when some records suggest that pigs live in groups of Caracas and Maracaibo.
According to a national census taken at the end of the nineteenth century, 247 Jews lived in Venezuela as citizens in 1891.

In 1907, they created beneficial to Israeli society as an organization to bring all the Jews who were scattered through several towns and cities across the country together.

By 1943, nearly 600 German Jews had entered the country .
Before 1950, despite immigration restrictions, there were about 6,000 Jewish people in Venezuela.
The largest wave of immigration occurred after World War II and the 1967 Six-Day War, when a large influx of Jews from Morocco sephardies arrived and settled mainly in the capital Caracas.

They have developed an impressive communal infrastructure built around a center umbrella organization, "The Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela" (CAIV), with whom the American Jewish Committee signed a partnership agreement.

Hebraica is the club where communally involved.

The community is united, lots of Jewish children attend Jewish schools, the level of participation is high, and the identification with Israel is intense.

About 20,000 Venezuelan Jews left the country in the last decade due to economic conditions, and in particular due to how the Jewish community has been treated since 2009.
Currently 5,000 Jews live in Venezuela, mainly in Caracas.

A little about the country

Venezuela, officially Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country that is politically constituted as an autonomous and sovereign federal social democratic state of law and justice.
Comprises both a mainland and a large number of small islands of the Caribbean whose territory covers an area of â??â??916.445ksm2.
Its population is around the 28 million inhabitants.
It was first sighted by Christopher Columbus in 1498. Venezuela was the first country in Latin America to declare its independence from the Spanish Crown, a process which was consolidated with the Battle of Carabobo.

The federal capital and seat of the Powers of the Nation is Santiago de Leon de Caracas.
Venezuelan territory subdividide in 23 federal states, a Capital District, which includes the city of Caracas, and the Federal Agencies, comprised of more than 311 islands, islets and cays.

Venezuela is now considered a developing country with a primarily based on the extraction and refining of oil and other minerals economy as well as agricultural and industrial activities.

It is also recognized as one of the 19 most biologically diverse countries in the world, with geography combining irregular arid regions, forest, vast savannas of the Llanos and Andean environments.

Being in the tropics, Venezuela has a generally warm and rainy climate, taking only two seasons: a dry season from October to March and a rainy season from April to September.

The official language is spanish.

The currency is the Bolivar.