An exciting nostalgic journey between the paths of past and present • Bat Galim celebrates a century - tastings from the exhibition

Beit Galim festival musicians are pleasant with their playing to the visitors of the nostalgic exhibition ► Watch

First steps in the wonderful neighborhood

When I was six years old or so, my parents signed me up for swimming lessons during the summer holidays Aviva וHaim Schneider on the Pacific coast. The section of the sea assigned for study was fenced off with a thick rope, and chains made of kel-ker floats were zipped around our waists and helped us float on the surface of the water. As a complacent Neve girl, this was my first introduction to Bat Galim.

Years later, during the summer holidays, various art stands were set up along the Bat Galim Promenade. Inspired by the priestess of handicrafts at that time, Batia Uziel, I set up a stand with one of my friends where we sold earrings and necklaces we made by ourselves which were successful among girls our age. The natural setting enchanted me: the waves of the sea crashing against the rocks, the smell of seaweed and the wonderful sunsets.  

Over the years I continued to visit the beloved neighborhood that kisses the sea. In 2017, when my entrepreneurial daughter, who has vision and courage, worked on renovating what used to be "Tsila's Kiosk" and established the wonderful Milhouse Cafe on the boulevard, I found myself returning to Bat Galim more often. There is nothing like a tour of the neighborhood streets after a fine coffee and a great sandwich, breathing in the atmosphere of the place, listening to the voices, chatting with passers-by and of course, hunting fascinating moments with the camera lens.

Brigade housing

As someone who is deeply connected to nostalgia and history, I was naturally drawn to the houses of yesteryear. I found myself repeatedly walking the streets of the Brigade housing complex, an architectural complex with a unique structure surrounded by well-kept landscaping that was established after World War II for the volunteers of the Jewish settlement who served in the British Army.

The complex, which was built on an area where one of the British army camps was located, was designed by the architect of the city of Haifa at the time, Adolf Reding, and included 290 small apartments, most of them 30-40 square meters in size. Since the demand was greater than the supply, as 500 veterans registered for the project, a lottery was held at the city hall with the participation of the Haifa public. Tartz, "Price for a tenant", 1947.  

Wandering through the alleys of the housing produced intriguing atmospheric shots every time: the tiny balconies, on one a cute dog peeks out, on the other a surfboard is laid out to dry and on the clothesline hanging swimsuits and towels, the other is crammed to exhaustion with equipment that the tiny apartment had trouble containing. The old house number signs, the mailboxes that are full to the point of exhaustion, the names of the alleys that commemorate the era, and there are no end of cats...

The residents of the complex, who at first looked suspiciously at the researcher photographer, got used to my presence and some of them were even available to their apartment: a new immigrant who was hired as a security guard on the train, a psychology student, and more. I photographed Elias Hashibon in August 2019 when he was offering me coffee from his balcony on Ha'il Street. A month later, when I presented his photo at an exhibition, I learned from his neighbors that he had passed away. Along with the sadness, there remains a collection of photos that perpetuate his memory. 

tell the story

From the conversations with the residents of the brigade housing I learned that many of them do not know why it is called that. That's how I got the idea to create a performance that would tell the story of the housing, and the rest is history... After months of research, I got in touch with 12 families of British Army veterans who had the privilege of being among the first 290 families to live in the compound, and through them I chose to present the story.

I asked the representative of the family, the son or daughter of the British army man, for a photo of the father in uniform. After a lot of trouble I had the photos. I increased them and invited the representatives of the families to a meeting at the brigade housing. Now, I asked each of them to hold the enlarged picture of the father in the doorway of the house where they lived and...click.   

About a year later, the unique project was presented at the Beit Galim festival. With the help of my friend the graphic artist Yariv Yohai (who was endlessly patient with my requests), photos of the representatives of the families were shown alongside details about the service of the father (and in the case of the Tzur family, both the father and the mother) together with an overview of the "incarnation of the brigade housing" from a perusal of the newspapers of the time. Later, a collage of photos representing the special nature of the housing complex was added, which I collected from the albums of the children of the housing complex who grew up in the 40s and 50s of the last century, and as mentioned, photos of some of the residents on their balconies.  

I was happy to see that the exhibition attracted many visitors who found it interesting and caused nostalgic memories to be brought up near the exhibits. As someone who likes to feel and be moved, and since at that time I was already deeply captivated by the magic of Bat Galimi, I decided to expand the canvas. Since then and every year I added another segment to the exhibition based on interviews I had with some of my children and neighborhood boys in the past alongside materials I collected.  

From here we will jump straight to the exhibition presented at the end of last week at the community center as part of the 14th Beit Galim festival produced by the Haifa municipality, the community center and a team of volunteers from the neighborhood. For three days, the Bat Galim neighborhood was crowded with many visitors and travelers who came from all over the country and enjoyed the abundance of events.     

The exhibition is expanding in honor of Bat Galim's centenary

This year, to mark the centenary of Bat Galim, I added to the exhibition the stories of four Bat Galimiot families that I interviewed for the project: Smilovich, Sarah Cohen, rejuvenation וUzi will say וMiki and Ypa Herzig.   

We also prepared four panels of designed collages in which were combined about 150 photos taken in the 30s to the 70s in the mythical pool of Bat Galim, in the casino hall and outside, on the beach and on the boardwalk. Some of the photos were collected by me from family and other albums, from rummaging through archives, libraries and private collections. The historical photos of the pool and the casino soon aroused great interest among the visitors along with great hope to return Atara to its former glory and rebuild the pool in an area that has been abandoned for decades.

In addition to all of this, visitors were shown a link using a bar-code (QR) to watch four short authentic videos filmed at various competitions and events in the mythical pool, courtesy of the Israeli Film Archive. In the exhibition I made sure to record the origin of each of the photos, and this is an opportunity to thank everyone again for allowing their use in the exhibition.        

The result is an exhibition that stimulates the glands of nostalgia and longing and miraculously brings out the charm and the special essence of the neighborhood, which from the beginning was characterized by a diverse human composition and a community atmosphere. I was excited to see the many visitors reading the stories of the families with great interest, looking at the pictures for a long time with a smile on their faces, elated by the moments of nostalgia. From time to time a voice is heard: "Here I am"! Wow, here are my parents!

Brothers Avi and Bat Sheva nee Bret reminisce about their childhood daughter Galimit ► Watch

Yossi (Erbetman) Arbel is excited to see his family's photos in the nostalgic exhibition ► Watch

Along with the old Galim daughters, I was happy to meet the members of the younger generation at the exhibition, who also showed an interest in getting to know the neighborhood's past heritage.

Shai Oz, who grew up in Bat Galim, is moved by the nostalgic exhibition ► Watch

Exciting encounters among the nostalgic photos

Along with the performances, there were once again exciting nostalgic meetings between people who had not seen each other for many years. for example, Yossi Tamir וJacob and Yemen, natives of Haifa who currently live in the central region, came to visit the exhibition with their wives. They read with great interest the life story of Mickey Herzig, the revered sports teacher at the Urban High School, who grew up in Bat Galim. Suddenly Yossi recognized Miki standing nearby, whom they hadn't seen for decades, which gave rise to another exciting encounter...

You Miriam Schuster Bloch I interviewed several years ago and even scanned some of her youth photos. She came with her family to Bat Galim in 1935, when she was 4 years old and lived there until a few years ago. Today, when she lives in Tivon, Miriam came to the exhibition accompanied by her children, she was very excited to meet friends from the past and to see the photos of her family members included in the project.   

Shmulik Cohen The 92-year-old, son of Esther וShaltiel Cohen asked, was born in Thessaloniki and settled with his family in the Bat Galim neighborhood in 1939. In my conversations with him, he told me about his exploits as a naughty Bat Galimi boy and a host of exciting memories. Shmulik was among the brave jumpers from the jumping tower at the Olympic pool in Bat Galim and I included some of his photos in the exhibition he came to visit with some of his family members.  

When the international embroidery artist Batya Shani She also came to visit the exhibition, I introduced her Shmulik Cohen. her daughters and brothers Nathan found out (originally, Gold) They lived in Bat Galim as children, from 1956. Batya and her husband renovated the "Green House" on 9 Yonatan Street where they grew up. borrowed A few years ago and he combined old and new in an aesthetically and respectful way and his brother Natan returned to live there. In the exact same house, next door, lived Shmulik Cohen, from 1939 to 1952. Another exciting meeting like no other.

Bat sheva (Baby) Rosenthal Rice, born in 1946, operating room nurse and nurse in charge at the Rambam Breast Health Institute, came to the exhibition with her husband, Prof. Daniel Rice, one of the top orthopedic surgeons in Israel, and could not hide her excitement when she discovered among the collages her photos and photos of her family members. Batsheva's father, Isaac Brett, ran a shop for gifts and household goods in Bat Galim where all the residents of the neighborhood used to buy gifts for weddings. In the place where the store was located, a shop for selling and repairing watches now operates.     

rejuvenation וUzi will say, who still live in Bat Galim to this day, were also excited to see the exhibit that tells their story and later returned to the exhibit once more with some of their family members. Edna is the daughter of David Milgrom, chairman of the Bat Galim neighborhood committee and a member of the "Hagana" organization and of Hana to home Montchersh who ran one of the first kindergartens in Bat Galim. In her adulthood, Edna continued her mother's educational path and educated many of Bat Galim's children as a teacher and educator at the school she attended. I documented the life story of Edna and Uzi Nagid about two months ago and you are invited to read it.

That's it for tastings from the exciting exhibition and I've verified, of course, plenty of other ideas. If there is interest in expanding the project and financing it, I would be happy to expand the canvas and present the exhibition in a suitable place so that you can come back and be excited past magic.