B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
DECEMBER 16, 2021
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The Week In News Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry reacted to the tragedy on Tuesday morning, tweeting: “I learned, with desolation and emotion, the sad news of the explosion, last night, in CapHaitien, of a tanker truck transporting gasoline, and which caused, according to a partial report, about forty dead, dozens injured, as well as extensive material damage.” Local officials say rescue efforts are ongoing and that the death toll is expected to rise. Henry later declared three days of national mourning in the wake of the explosion.
Americans Still Jailed in Venezuela The family of an American citizen jailed in Venezuela together with five other executives from Citgo for the past few years told reporters they were “surprised but grateful” for a top Biden official’s visit to Venezuela last
week. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens spoke on Friday to the former executives’ families about the “wellness check.” Carlos Añez, whose father Jorge Toledo is detained, said that Carstens “said he was impressed at how strong they maintained themselves throughout these four years. I think it’s a very important step.”
In a phone call with his family following the visit, Toledo said he was in “complete shock” when he saw Carstens. Añez added, “My dad’s spirits were lifted a little bit by the visit, which is great because he had been quite down for a while.” Nine Americans are currently be-
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ing held in Venezuela: the six former Citgo executives, who have been jailed since 2017 on corruption charges; two former U.S. Special Forces soldiers who were sentenced to 20 years for participating in a failed beach attack aimed at overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro; and a retired Marine who was arrested and charged with terrorism in September 2020 for allegedly having an arsenal in his car. Carstens’ trip was the first by a senior U.S. government official to the South American country in two years. A State Department spokesperson said, “We can confirm that the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens traveled to Caracas for discussions about the welfare and safety of U.S. nationals in Venezuela.”
Tel Aviv Neighborhood Evacuated Residents of Givat Amal Bet, a neighborhood in Tel Aviv, have been evacuated from their homes to allow high-rises to be built at the site instead. The neighborhood was once a tight-knit enclave of approximately 120 working-class families, but since 2014 has been destroyed and its residents evicted bit by bit to allow for the construction of six luxury towers. On November 15, 2021, the last 32 of the neighborhood’s families were evicted from their homes.
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Former resident Chani Smucha, 59, whose parents, siblings, and siblings’ families were recently evicted from the neighborhood, told the Times of Israel, “They never invested in this area. We
made our own post office boxes. They never even installed a park bench for an old person to sit on.” After the first 80 families were evicted in 2014, authorities refused to clean up the piles of debris and refuse. “The trash was left where it was so people would suffer and leave,” Smucha explained. Founded in 1947 by a group of immigrants who had been asked by David Ben Gurion to settle the area, the neighborhood’s residents included mostly the original settlers and their descendants. After the war, the neighborhood’s residents sought to purchase the land, but they were ignored, and the State instead sold the land to developers in 1961. In 1992, a deal was reached to evacuate the western portion of the neighborhood, Givat Amal Alef, to allow the construction of three towers. The rights to Givat Amal Bet changed hands until 2005, after which a legal battle ensued. In April, a court ruling ordered the developer to pay three million shekel for each of the 11 plots which had been occupied in 1961. The sum was to be divided among the remaining families. But residents say the money – which amounts to 1-2 million shekel per family – is not enough to purchase suitable housing in the area. “We have the compensation, but we’re still deciding what to do with it — to rent, to buy?” Smucha asked. “With this kind of amount, what can we do? Where will I take [my parents] — to Dimona, to Beersheba? Where will I take them? These are people who’ve lived in Tel Aviv their whole lives.” The sum has also been reduced by legal fees and deductions for overstaying their time on the land. Residents were only told they would be forcibly evicted on November 14, one day before it occurred, they said. According to Smucha, on November 15, approximately 1,000 police officers arrived to evict the 32 families. Some families left on their own, but others were removed in what two residents said was a “violent” fashion. She emphasized, “We were in shock over the amount of police. We didn’t understand why all of this was necessary. Good people, salt of the earth. Not criminals, not squatters, not causing trouble.”
