Jaffa for sale

"Keter Plastic" (or the "Keter Group") is one of the world's leading plastic consumers' products manufacturers. Almost completely privately owned, little information is available in the public domain.

"Keter" was (is?) one of the main sponsors of the HaPoel Tel Aviv soccer team. I don't know a thing about soccer, but HaPoel and Bloomfield and Jaffa go together and i do not have to listen to the news to know the outcome of a game: i can hear the shouting and screaming from my home in Ajami, which is not exactly close to "Bloomfield".

"Keter" was started by Sami Sagol's (one of the current owners) father as a small plastic facory in Jaffa, between the flea market , the Siksik Mosque and Jerusalem Boulevard, many years ago.

One of those places providing employment under fair conditions to many of Jaffa's people, from all backgrounds.

Over time the Jaffa premises became too small and new factories were opened all over the country and then the world.

However, so i was told, Sami could not face the idea of sending the workers, who had served his father so well, home, and kept the Jaffa premises open for many years. There was something special between the owner of the huge international plastic conglomerate and the employees of the "old place" that went beyond "employer - employees'" relations.

Over time the employees became old and the factory stopped operating. The store was kept open.

Last week the factory premises were sold for some 27 million $ to developers.

There is something sad about loosing a place of employment. It's even sadder, when that loss adds directly to the current gentrification process in Jaffa.

And what will happen to do "Siksik Mosque located on those premises? It used to belong, and perhaps still does, to the Siksik Waqf, a family run charity. They never sold the mosque.