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'Bat Yam' () is a city in Israel, on the central coastal strip, just south of Tel Aviv, and part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area, in the Tel Aviv District.
The key feature of Bat Yam is its beautiful beach on the Mediterranean Sea, attracting tourists every summer.

Contents

History

Leaders

Twin cities

External links

History

Bat Yam was established in 1926 as Bayit VaGan (Hebrew: בית וגן, House and Garden), and was geared toward Orthodox Jews. During the 1929 Palestine riots, Bayit VaGan came under attacks by Arab gangs from neighbouring Jaffa and was evacuated by British Authorities, then was reestablished in 1930. In 1936 it was given the status of local council.
Bayit VaGan's name was changed in 1938 to Bat Yam. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War reached its borders, and Bat Yam was under heavy fire from Jaffa, until Jaffa surrendered on May 13, 1948.
In the first decades of Israel's independence Bat Yam grew due to mass immigration, becoming a local council in 1949 and a city in 1958. It experienced a rapid growth again in early 1990s, as many immigrants from former Soviet Union chose Bat Yam as their new residence because of its proximity to industrial centres of the country, combined with relatively low real estate prices. According to Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the city population as of June 2005 is some 130,000 people.

Leaders

Type	Name	Years
Head of council	Mintz Ben Zion	1936-1937
Head of council	Israel Ben Zion	1937-1939
Head of council	Israel Rabinovich-Teomim	1939-1943
Head of council	Eliav Levai	1943-1950
Head of council	David Ben Ari	1950-1958
Mayor	David Ben Ari	1958-1963
Mayor	Menahem Rothschild	1963-1973
Mayor	Yitzhak Walker	1973-1977
Mayor	David Mesika	1977-1978
Mayor	Menahem Rothschild	1978-1983
Mayor	Ehud Kanmon	1983-1993
Mayor	Yehoshua Sagi	1993-2003
Mayor	Shlomo Lahiani	2003-date

Twin cities

★ Kragujevac

★ Neukölln, Berlin

★ Livorno

★ Antalya

External links

★ Official website