Bat Galim Pool - Haifa's hot attraction
The Bat Galim pool was built next to the casino building in the neighborhood. Together, they both constituted the greatest center of attraction at the time in the city of Haifa.
The Bat Galim pool was the first Olympic pool built in Israel, and in its heyday it hosted official competitions such as the Maccabiah swimming competitions, the national championships in swimming, diving and water polo.
Up to 1972
The building and the pool operated until 1972. The pool water was brought from the sea, and after being filtered and cleaned, it was used to fill it, so that the Bat Galim pool was a saltwater pool.
The highest jumping tower in Israel
In the pool was the highest jumping tower in Israel, which was 3 levels.
On both sides of it were placed tribunes made of wooden benches soaked in moisture and salt from the nearby sea.
Families would sit and sunbathe and eat sandwiches and fruit brought from home. It was possible to see the swimmers in the water and the jumpers from the jumping towers during the competitions.
It was also a recreation site for "dates" and couples meeting, some of whom fell in love with it and also started families.
meet and hang out
The pool and the casino building were the heart and center of social entertainment in the Bat Galim neighborhood and the city of Haifa in general. The proximity to the bathing beach, to the casino that offered a restaurant and banquet hall and to the Bat Galim promenade that was built in those years, and to other attractions that operated nearby, such as the Techelet cinema and the fishing club that hosted artists from around the world, shaped the Bat Galim neighborhood in the 50s and 60s as a center of attraction I socialized and branded it as a prestigious neighborhood in Haifa, where they would go down from the Carmel to hang out and meet all the who's who of the city.
Before the establishment of a neighborhood on the site of the former naval base in Stella Maris, which in the 60s and XNUMXs was the naval headquarters
Buildings and bunkers remain, some of which must be preserved
Who handles and/or gave his opinion on the issue just before the demolition?
With the current failed city engineer I see him than turning the entire pool area and possibly the casino into another parking lot.
This is how he destroyed Haifa for three terms already. That's how they submitted a plan instead of the BHD that a quarter of its net area is roads.
The Bat Galim pool was a center of attraction for young people. There were always the more chosen girls that all the boys were milling around. And there were the simple ones who sat and saw and perhaps also envied quite a bit. I was the home of the simple and always looked at the women I admired who also dressed more beautifully with necklines and lots of clothes. I was among those who did not wear particularly nice clothes and therefore always on the edge of the seats. The days passed the memories remained. And it's always good to remember. How we used to be light and jump and walk easily compared to today's difficulty walking and being confined at home. At least there used to be nice days.
The water was sea water and the walls were white limestone. Not something exclusive. The pool was scary for kids. Only serious swimmers and champion jumpers dared to enter. For those who wanted a quiet Shabbat with their family, this was not the Bat Galim Pool but the Bialik Pool. Which has become more henna over the years. And learn to swim only in the Hapoel pool with Abram Klein or the Maccabi pool with the Israeli champion in the handsome iron shot putter.
It's just a shame that instead of the Bat Galim pool becoming a focal point for a pilgrimage to swim in chlorine-free sea water, it was sealed and erased from Bat Galim's landscape. I am calling on the influential people in the city to renew the Bat Galim pool for the benefit of the city's residents.
In the 1950s, the water in Barakah began to become polluted due to the development of the ports of the Navy and Haifa, so the contractor Baruch Rivkind from Petah Tikva was invited to drill a well in the pool area next to the springboard and a pump was installed that pumped groundwater from the depth of the well into the pool and thus the water returned to be fresh and clean for the enjoyment of the users
lies and falsehood. The water in the Bat Galim pool was always dirty, not clear and very scary.
Tel Aviv ended the nuisance of the abandoned dolphinarium and Haifa should do a similar action of exchanging space with the owner and establish another bathing beach there with restaurants in the casino
Bat Galim used to be a democratic neighborhood, but today Bat Galim looks like a distressed neighborhood
Very neglected and the municipality really did not do much to develop this beautiful neighborhood
They invested more in Carmel and other floors on Bat Gim in fact they passed over
The pool was great and swimming lessons were held there on behalf of the schools. It's a shame that the pool area is left ruined and neglected instead of rebuilding it for the benefit of all the residents of the area.
Haifa developed at an incredible pace as long as Abba Khushi was the mayor, followed by Pliman who rightly wanted to annex the Kiryats to Haifa and thought even bigger and saw Haifa becoming a metropolitan city from Kiryat Yam to the Carmel Castle. The problem is that he didn't implement a large part of the ideas, we might have been in a much better place.
They were followed by narrow-minded businessmen who mainly wanted to be photographed at the ceremonies. Gural and Yahav were twins in their lack of action and narrow and small thinking. Here is a neighborhood there is a neighborhood. No strategy and no goals. Without thinking about a big international city, an airport, a free hand we gave each polluting factory the main thing to cut ribbons in ceremonies.
In general, since Abba Khushi and Pliman Haifa have been in constant retreat until the current fall.
Abandonment of tens of thousands of residents, especially young people. According to natural growth alone, Haifa was supposed to reach 2000 inhabitants in 300. We didn't get there in 2020 either, and if you don't stop the incompetence of a failed leadership and the abandonment of the city by Jerusalem, then we won't get there
to 300 thousand also in 2040.
And there are successors to these failed mayors. All the young men run away from Haifa.
There were some legends about this tower among children who were afraid to jump from it
A wonderful painting and a wonderful article. Thank you.
I remember the pool. I swam in it. I never jumped off the tower!!! The tribunes stole a watch that I received at a Bat Mitzvah.
Both good and bad memories.
I was also moved to read and remember the pool, where I used to go as a child with my older brother who was later killed in the Yom Kippur War... It was a wonderful experience with the sea water and the special atmosphere of the place... When I read and saw the painting, I could feel, remember every detail and be moved... Thank you