Sergio Widder, of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, says he asked the OAS to send a mission to Venezuela.

He spoke Monday at an OAS meeting in Honduras.

In January, attackers ransacked a synagogue in Caracas. Prosecutors charged 11 people in the attack. The next month, assailants threw an explosive at a Jewish community center in the city.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez severed relations with Israel to protest its military offensive on the Gaza Strip. But he has condemned the attacks on the local Jewish community. He says he opposes Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, not the Jewish people.