Over the past decade, as Venezuela’s national emergency has dragged on, 70 percent of the Jews of Caracas have left. For the 6,000 or fewer who have stayed, life is precarious. They are vigilant about security, cautious about where they go in the city and when. Speaking to three young men in Hebraica, Caracas’s Jewish community center, I am struck by how chillingly relaxed they are. “All three of us have been kidnapped,” one of them tells me. “They grab you, ram your car, or put a gun on you, and then keep you in one of those safe houses for a few hours while your family pays up. I know it sounds crazy, but it becomes less dramatic once you’ve lived with the threat for long enough. We call it the Caracas Kidnap Express.”
Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, "Jewish Review of Books"
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