Yad Le Banim park, Memorial park in Petah Tikva, Israel
Yad Le Banim is a park in Petah Tikva featuring walking paths alongside a pond where fish and ducks swim among maintained green spaces and trees. The grounds include children's playgrounds, exercise equipment, picnic areas, a dog zone, and a small zoo.
The park was inaugurated in early May 1954 on about 30 dunams, a year after the April 1953 opening of the adjacent Yad LaBanim house, when 50 dunams were announced. It was designed by architects Lipa Yahalom and Dan Tzur. In 1963 the First Ones Boulevard was dedicated next to it in the presence of David Ben-Gurion, and in 2019 the park underwent a comprehensive upgrade of paths, playground equipment and accessibility.
The park's name, Yad LaBanim ("Memorial to the Sons"), comes from the Yad LaBanim house opened in April 1953, after which the garden was inaugurated in early May 1954 on about 30 dunams. Behind that house stands the memorial compound for Petah Tikva residents killed in the 1921 riots, among them Avshalom Gissin, Chaim Tzvi Grinshtein, Natan Rapaport and Zeev Orlov.
The park sits in a residential area with parking shared with the zoo. A fountain complex opened on 15 September 2015 with about 15 jets, a drainage floor and benches, and it is lit at night. The zoo charges admission, while the taxidermy museum is included in the zoo ticket.
The park holds a captured Syrian T-62 tank, kept as a memorial to the crew of a tank nicknamed "the exchanger" who destroyed many Syrian tanks, including this one, before being killed in the First Lebanon War. Nearby stand a model of an armed half-track and a Holocaust death train.
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