In the municipal pool you could walk on the water, fly for a moment, forget the desert beyond • But the popular pastime was once neglected and more expensive, and became an American luxury symbol, on the way to another stage in the disintegration of society

True peripheral is easy to identify . You ask for directions, and he will point out what was and is gone. "Keep going straight, until you get to where the old shekel was, turn right to where there used to be diamond halls, and that's a stamp next to it." Past to exist only if it has become an official monument, enclosed and fenced with a sign.

Photo: David Peretz 

In Tel Aviv, every third building bears a "Here lives" sign. And in their quiet way, the people of the periphery protest against the protesters the past that is not considered important. A popular movement against the frantic momentum of urban establishments determined to prove that change is the name of the game, and an old peripheral landscape - destroyed. 

But it's August, and too hot for change. I'm looking for Ofakim's municipal pool. This is no longer an urban pool, they say, it's a country club, here too everything is upgrading to American, and still the present is adjustable according to the past that was. "But if you're looking for where there were stab wounds, you need to get out of town and drive to the pool in the spaces," says Nissim Messes, a graduate of the Ben-Gurion Program for a Restrained Life in Ofakim. 

"The pool in the spaces was the pool of Shabbat. We went to it full. Me and the friends, doing all the way on foot, heat of death ... you are going to be pampered on the lawns. And not only that, but also to be in another company. Still, they would come and go there all The guys from the surrounding seats. There were fewer beatings. Less... In terms of then. 

In 1982, a kibbutznik from Menara spoke in a news article that reviewed the relations between the residents of Kiryat Shmona and the kibbutzim. The kibbutznik conducted the interview while immersing himself in the pool. Prime Minister Menachem Begin was shocked: "You saw this man in a kibbutz sitting like this in a swimming pool, as if you saw an American millionaire, and he speaks with a great deal of contempt. I sat in the same pool ?! I have no such arrangement at all!" But the general public heard - "the millionaire kibbutzniks with the swimming pools".

Begin spoke of divisive and blatant injustice between those who received and those who did not. The kibbutzniks in the pool were marked in front of the people of the development towns who are roasting in the heat of the Israeli summer. It later turned out that the kibbutznik, a Holocaust survivor, had apologized for the incident, but the noise of the stone thrown into the pool masked any possibility of listening. A high fence stretched between water and water, between land and land, one Israel and two Israel began to run in close proximity, the battle for the premiere began. 

But what do we have to do with ancient news from the strange years? Are water disputes between kibbutzim and residents of development towns still relevant today? Ask the members of the "Liberating (Nahal) Hasi" Facebook group from Beit She'an, who are fighting for their right to enter and immerse themselves in the water of the stream that passes through Kibbutz Nir David. 

Begin did well with his constituents. "Until Begin came to power, we lived in a country where some received everything, and others received nothing," says Shimon Schiffer in the "Begin Days" series. In his sensitivity, Begin realized that the Israeli summer dream is a tummy tuck by the pool, as in America. Urban and neighborhood pools proliferated throughout cities far and far from the sea. Everyone who grew up in the cities of the untold book remembers them as a pattern of his childhood landscape. 

In the days when flying abroad cost like a small plane, the municipal pool was the closest thing to a perfect Israeli vacation. Pack a plastic market basket, parchment-greased sandwiches, some summer fruits, and there will always be a red and dripping watermelon. Lying on the grass in the shade of high lime walls, the belly lifeguard shouts at everyone "do not jump into the water" but every time he speaks with a passing aspiration, jumps also jump. Head, legs, somersaults, cravings. In the municipal pool you can walk on the water, fly for a moment, it It was the closest thing to pure and perfect urban fun, in a hot and tough Israeli summer, soaking in a little water to forget the desert beyond. 

Photo: David Peretz 

Solve: "For a restrained child, the pool in the spaces always felt like the greener, much more, grass of the neighbors. It's the grass that will never be yours. We desperately wanted that, because it was cozy there. Nor would you run into any thugs coming to aventa on the pieces of The city, with noise, ringing and violence. With us in Ofakim it was always lively, along with the fun part it was also dangerous, all the people of Ofakim, the beauties and the merchants, and all those who fantasized about the careers of football stars, came there. Spaces was the sane pool. That all restrained come to her.

"Then it became like the regular home pool with all the familiar noise and ringing ... More and more restrained families would come to it in clans, open a table on the big lawns. And no one really liked Ofakim's pool, because it was just neglected there, and then they came too. The Blagnists. "

On Saturday, the boys quarreled in a pool of spaces. In the vibrating video, as in a murderous tic tac-toe video, plastic chairs are thrown in a mad dance, but the background music is different. "That's how it is when you drink, there's nothing to do," says an almost amused adult. "Dad, I'm scared," the little girl laments. The unnecessary dance of summer ended in stabbings. Two boys are injured, a 16-year-old girl who was hospitalized in Soroka in fair condition. Once upon a time women were not stabbed, today - America, who brings a knife to the pool? "I have never seen anything like this in my life," the pool operator was quoted as saying. 

Ms: "Not sure I can answer what caused it to erupt, I think everyone is in some kind of extreme state lately. It's strong. It shortens the length of the short fuse anyway of all tense citizens.

"For men this is a challenging time. There is no money, no self-worth. There is no self-worth and there is a sense of hopelessness - violence begins. Sacrifice is sacrificed. Maybe the stabbing story is related to a woman. Maybe it's just a hot guy who threw one word too many in his direction. The whole business.The woman immediately leaves him.What is left for him to lose? He falls for an available victim.

"People are much more violent now - there, here and everywhere. They're on the border. And still have to remember that the case in the spaces is quite rare. In the end it's just a pleasant nowhere I once liked. Because it's nowhere just 500 meters subdued. But always felt like another city. A pleasant place with a whirlpool that suddenly received a dramatic title. "

Landscapes are quickly erased in this country, including the urban pools. Sometimes I travel with my daughters around the city and remember - here was the municipal pool of neighborhood C, and it was the pool of neighborhood D. "What fun!" The little one shouts, "When are we going to them?" And the big one already replies, "You need a time machine to get to them! Do you not see that there are no more pools, and there are only buildings? "

Photo: From the video

Urban pools have been neglected, depleted, privatized and made more expensive. The popular pastime once became an American luxury symbol. Now everyone wants to be an American millionaire sitting in a private, cast or folding pool, in his backyard, under his vine and neighbor. Another stage in disintegration from a company connected to individuals in escape pools.