Desecration and profanation of the Tiferet Israel synagogue, community records carried away

The Tiferet Israel synagogue is the principal Sephardic place of worship in Caracas, seat of a community formed in the twentieth century by Jews who came from Morocco, Syria, and Europe. A commando unit enters at night, ransacks the sanctuary, desecrates the Torah scrolls, and takes the community's membership files.

The theft of the files — membership lists, addresses, registration records — was the most alarming act for the families, who saw in it the creation of a directory of targets. The attack occurs at the end of an official campaign hostile to Israel, in a climate where community leaders had been raising the alarm for months about the deterioration of their security in Venezuela; it hastens the departure of a portion of the families toward Miami and Israel.