The Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Boston has issued an appeal to greater Boston area residents to join the Jewish people of Guatemala in a project to rebuild the city of Sanarate which was devastated by earthquakes last February. Albert Schlossberg, Council president, who issued the appeal, said the 200 Jewish families of Sanarate have already begun collecting funds in the “Bricks of Guatemala” program which they hope will be supported by all the Jewish people in the world.
Guatemala, traditionally a friend of Israel, suffered one of its worst natural disasters in the February earthquakes. A poor country to start with, Guatemala experienced tremendous material and economic losses. Twenty-three thousand people lost their lives, hundreds of thousands were wounded and nearly one and a half million people, out of a population of five million, were left homeless.
According to Enrique Engel, president of the “Bricks for Guatemala” program, the situation is desperate now, but will become much worse this month when the six-month tropical rainy season ends. Sanarate will be rebuilt in the name of all Jewish people. The project, which consists of building a minimum of 800 homes, would be a most important one for Jewish communal groups and synagogues to participate in Schlossberg stated.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
