Bat Yam - is a city located on Israel's
Mediterranean Sea coast, on the central coastal strip, just
south of Tel Aviv. Part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area, in
the Tel Aviv District, the city is home to 130,000 people. Bat
Yam was established in 1926 as Bayit VaGan. During the 1929
Palestine riots, the town was attacked by Arab gangs from Jaffa
and was evacuated by British Authorities. In 1930, it was
re-settled. In 1936, it was granted local council status and
renamed Bat Yam. By 1945, 2,000 Jews were living in Bat Yam.
According to the Jewish National Fund, in 1947 it had a
population of 4,000. Following the United Nations vote in favour
of a partition plan on November 29, 1947 and the subsequent
outbreak of violence, Bat Yam came under heavy attack from
Jaffa, until Jaffa surrendered on May 13, 1948. In the years
following Israel's independence, Bat Yam grew dramatically due
to mass immigration and gained city status in 1958. A small
Hasidic enclave of Bobover Hasidim, known as Kiryat Bobov, was
established in 1959. The city gained a sizeable community of
Jews from Turkey (est. 23% of the population). Bat Yam again
experienced a period of rapid growth in the early 1990s with the
mass immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union. |