They say that the seven cannot understand hunger, and I still believe that I can discuss here the playgrounds of "down and up". It's very simple: children from disadvantaged neighborhoods also deserve to enjoy "high-end" playgrounds, just like children whose parents live on the Carmel and in the estate.
I believe that the strength of a society is measured by the strength of its weakest link, when the strong must take care of the weak, also because the weak also, and also because it is in the interest of both: when the weak becomes stronger and becomes a useful citizen in society, everyone will benefit.
The disparities between the amusement parks in Haifa are outrageous. Especially due to being a working mother, I went with my daughters to playgrounds all over the city, while mothers on El-Helikk Street or the Carmeli Division, or those who also work in the afternoon or don't own a car, the playground with the broken swing is all they have to offer Not to mention that we, the mothers with the car, also go to paid playgrounds, the beach, museums and more, and the children in Neve Yosef, for example, have the small playground near the house (and the community center at the entrance to the neighborhood).
Playgrounds in disadvantaged neighborhoods
I tried to come with an open mind. Maybe the gaps have narrowed in recent years, "it's not nice to come with a negative attitude", I thought to myself, but the gaps were crying out to the heavens, judge for yourself.
The playground in Neve Paz (next to Gabrieli school)

When I arrived at this playground, I felt as if someone had arranged the garden especially for me. The highlight was the broken swing. I was in 10 playgrounds, one swing was torn - in Neve Paz. There are many gardens in which, if one swing were torn, it is likely that it would hardly be felt, as in the garden in Bezio, or in the garden of the castles on Ramat Alamogi. There are so many facilities there, whether there is a swing or less a swing, it doesn't really matter anymore. In the garden in Neve Paz there are a total of two swings, with one broken - it is very noticeable.
Before I started going through the playgrounds, I made a decision not to get dirty. 3 years as a crime reporter taught me that teenagers like to sit on Friday nights in playgrounds, drink and smoke, and surprisingly, they leave behind the bottles and cigarette butts. But there were gardens where it was simply impossible to ignore the neglect and dirt.
Shear Aliya playground, Bar Rav Street, Hai David

This playground is located between Bodenheimer and Bar Rav Hai David streets, on the border between Shaar Aliya and Sprintzak. The garden is located meters from a square that for a year was in the middle of renovation, and people would pass by it and it was, apparently, normal in their eyes, that in the heart of a residential neighborhood, in the third largest city in Israel, workers leave a square in the middle of work and go. I couldn't understand it and did several articles about the miserable square in the miserable neighborhood, until the one who was the deputy mayor at the time, David Etzioni, took it upon himself to see to the completion of the renovation of the square.
When I was in this tiny playground, I said to myself that I don't know Sheprincek and the Gate of Aliya very well and maybe even, a few meters away, there is a huge playground... I do know that on the same street, Bar Rav Hai David, there is a "house to grow up well", which has a beautiful courtyard, and not far from there is Leo Buck's community center - "Beit Ruth". At the same time, this playground is really minimal, and even this minimal - old and neglected. And if that is not enough (and it should be enough), This garden was last inspected 5 years ago, the date is brilliantly emblazoned on a sign, as if it were some kind of honor. The garden should have been inspected again in 2016 and many more times since then, but, as mentioned, it didn't happen. I wonder if this could have happened in a playground in Carmel, or within a minute Moked 106 would have already been flooded with calls...
The playground in Neve Yosef

This was the first playground I shot at. I wanted to start from the disadvantaged neighborhoods. You said a disadvantaged neighborhood in Haifa - Neve Yosef said. A neighborhood with a weakened population, which needs the playground like air to breathe. This playground was reasonable, at least the facilities are intact. Not a particularly expensive public garden, big, but nice overall, with shade and nice games.
Neve David playground

The playground in Neve David is fine as far as the games are concerned, but when you enter the garden you cannot ignore that the entrance is completely sprayed with inscriptions and paintings. If you pass the entrance, you can see the games, but you can't ignore the fact that last night someone had a party here, and of course they didn't bother to look after themselves.

Playgrounds in strong neighborhoods
The boys' kindergarten in Neve Shanan

Until the age of 15 I lived on Hanita Street in Neve Shanan, and naturally I went to take pictures in the playground where I would rock my little brother. Of course, the boys' kindergarten did not look like this when I was a child, but both then and today this kindergarten is very inviting. The place is clean and has many games and despite the early hour there were already parents and children there.
Neve Shanan is a huge neighborhood, and of course it has many playgrounds. I chose this one, I hope the ones I didn't take are as successful as it. The children of Neve Shanan also have Beit Abba Khushi on Abba Hillel Silver Street, with a variety of classes.
The playground in Almogi neighborhood

When I was a young mother, I would meet my friends with the children in this kindergarten. We would bring a thermos with coffee, a cake baked yesterday and we would sit and talk about everything. At 17:30 an ice cream truck would arrive. We would go for the children and buy for ourselves as compensation. From time to time we would get up with the children, who would pull us to rock them on the swings, watch them slide, or worse - look for toilets in nature. We would always talk about some crazy start-up, like we once came up with the idea of selling coffee in playgrounds, then we discovered Gan Shmuel and Nir Shuver, and realized that someone had already thought of it before.
In my eyes, this garden is simply stunning, "the garden of the castles" we used to call it, it has only a small drawback, that it is very close to a main road and not closed enough, therefore you must not take your eyes off the children even for a second. Today there is the garden at the President's level, which may offer more than this garden, but I still think it is a unique, unique and nostalgic playground.
Another amazing advantage is that there are plenty of benches in this garden, so that we can have fun drinking our coffee while we look at the children, it's a shame that not all playgrounds have that.

The playground in the Ziv center

This playground broke me. If you get on a swing in an empty playground and no one sees you swing, did you swing or not? A philosophical question.
This garden is much more than a playground. There are facilities here that are suitable for really big children, teenagers who are less likely to find themselves in a normal playground. This kindergarten has very special facilities, alongside the usual facilities for small children. It also has accessible services, and in general, it seems to me that it is such a perfect garden, that it cannot be improved even if you try.

The four girls kindergarten in Almogi neighborhood

This garden was established in memory of the four girls who were killed in a car accident while on a trip to Bolivia in 2008. Despite the early hour I arrived, there was already someone exercising. A beautiful and elaborate garden that commemorates a shocking tragedy in a very dignified way.

Very true!!! It's really a disgrace that there are no playgrounds, I live on France Road, there is a huge area that belongs to the municipality near the center for the elderly and a Dovdvan kindergarten and the area has been completely desolate for years, there is the Eli Cohen Garden right next door, a well-kept and beautiful garden but lifeless, if there was a playground, every The area used to look different, a few years ago there were 2 gardens in the area, but the municipality destroyed them over time, and did not build another in their place, there is not one playground for children in the entire area!!!
It's just terrible that no one cares about the children of the neighborhood
All the gardens in distressed neighborhoods are rightly not maintained and not new! Why invest in those gardens? So that drugged, drug addicts, tattooed idiots and prostitutes will corrupt the gardens? Isn't it a waste of taxpayers' money? That the residents fought crime in their neighborhood.
You should visit the amusement park on Yitzhak Sade Street, Anilwitz Junction.
A huge area, with huge potential... and what's in it? 2 swings…. And another swing on a spring... And 3 more small ones on a spring 🙁
Very sad.
And this kindergarten is adjacent to 2 elementary schools and at least 3 kindergartens... children could so enjoy an invested playground!!!
It is enough to visit the garden on Shoham Street, an estate neighborhood, to understand that this is not true, even in a good neighborhood with extremely high property tax payments, a garden neglected for years, safety problems and no one cares. They come to take a look a week before elections, make promises and then disappear. The last inspection at the kindergarten was in April 2020 and they have not yet returned.. Lawlessness!
Why didn't you visit my Shabbat Salah Garden on Wolfson Street, Panath Moriah?
There was a run-down playground on Boroviks Street that the municipality took down and hasn't returned for years
A disgrace! There is no service for the resident
Hello, congratulations on the initiative. It's a shame you forgot more and less "wealthy" neighborhoods such as eastern and western Kiryat Haim which are Haifa's backyard. The destroyed Axial Garden, the Pelugut Street Gardens and the Degania Gardens, even when a few of them are destroyed. Shame…..to pay property tax like in Almogi and live like in lower Nablus.
Eyal Bosmet is not a school designed to serve the children of the neighborhood, but a regional technological school, so please be precise...
It's a shame you didn't visit Yitzhak Modai Garden on Tabenkin Street or Nissenbaum Garden in Neve Shanan...
The concept of disadvantaged neighborhoods should disappear completely. The time has come for us to talk about neighborhoods that are renewed and not weakened. There is nothing that weakens Noah David. It is a neighborhood that receives tremendous attention in terms of infrastructure and recently received a new school that is not found in most Haifa neighborhoods.
A school in the Benue David High School cost NIS 28 million. In addition, 4 central streets were renovated from the ground up.
I want to see another neighborhood in Haifa where NIS 28 million was invested in a new public building...
There is a limit to the cries of the dispossessed Cossack - instead of labeling yourselves as a "weakened" neighborhood, it's time for you to stop whining.
Neighborhoods with many immigrants, Ethiopian immigrants, elderly people - these are not necessarily distressed neighborhoods. As soon as you made them "weakened" you actually created a stigma
Does your heart ache? At 18 Kiryat Eliyahu Achava Street, a playground was taken down a few years ago because a neighbor who signed was adults who didn't know what they were signing and to this day the place is deserted and dirty
Very disappointing that you didn't make it to Kiryat Haim. Playgrounds?????
You made me laugh. We have several lots that are not in good condition, neglected and shabby.
Well done for the article! As a father who spent a lot of time with the children in playgrounds (a long time ago...), I hope it will move someone in the municipality
Unfortunately, I've been saying for years that the children of Neve David are disadvantaged, both in the playgrounds and in the urban kindergartens, buildings 50 years ago, single beds, unfortunately, nothing helps.