JTA — It was the moment Samy Yecutieli had been anticipating for years, though he didn’t expect it to happen quite like this.

Born and raised in Caracas, the security expert and now real estate agent followed last week’s dramatic news of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro’s abduction by American forces and subsequent court appearance in New York from his home in the Tel Aviv suburb of Kfar Saba.

Now, he is watching as US President Donald Trump vows an extended presence in the oil-rich South American nation, even as Trump has signaled support for Maduro’s deputies, who are reportedly cracking down on expressions of support for Maduro’s ouster.

“Obviously, it’s the beginning of the end of the Chávez era — but the job has not been finished,” Yecutieli told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday. “The ministers of defense and interior are still there. These people have to be eradicated from their jobs to start the process of rebuilding the country.”

Yecutieli, 60, moved to Israel eight years ago with his wife and three children. He’s among an estimated 20,000 Venezuelan Jews who fled their oil-exporting country after Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, came to power in 1998 and began slowly bankrupting what was once Latin America’s most prosperous economy while also adopting antisemitic rhetoric that has persisted since.

At one time, Venezuela was home to some 25,000 Jews. Today, no more than 4,000 remain — about the same number as those who moved to South Florida. A similar number moved to Israel, while the remainder — not knowing English or Hebrew — opted for Spanish-speaking countries, principally Colombia, Panama, Mexico and Spain.

They were among an estimated 8 million Venezuelans, nearly one-third of the population, who have emigrated, constituting the largest refugee exodus in modern history — even bigger than from war-torn Syria. More than 200,000 ended up in Florida alone; so many “venezolanos” reside in Weston, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, that the city is often nicknamed “Westonzuela.”

Sammy Eppel, 78, lives in Aventura, an upper-class enclave of condominiums and townhouses along the Intracoastal Waterway north of Miami.

“Maduro was the head of an international criminal organization that not only did bad things to Jews, but to all Venezuelans,” said Eppel, who hasn’t seen his Caracas home in over 10 years. “This regime tried very hard to turn the Venezuelans into antisemites. It’s a failed state and they needed somebody to blame, and Jews were an easy target. But they didn’t succeed.”

Venezuela — where Jews have lived for at least 200 years — was among the world’s first countries to recognize........

© The Times of Israel