Beer Sheva - Kaleidoscopic Mix At City Bus Station

Text & photos: Lydia Aisenberg

If you are looking for an almost instant "this is Israel" experience, then just sit awhile on one of the passenger, non-too comfortable seats set up at the Negev city of Beer Sheva's bustling central bus station.

Situated very close to the equally busy, but far better organized Israel Railways southern terminal, the bus station is much like any other major metro center. There are passengers waiting for their bus to pull in at a clearly numbered bay, door to the parking apron springing open when bus pulls in, passengers filing through to alight their four-wheeled, high-horse power chariot as they set gratefully, off and away to near or far destinations.

So what is so special, different about this particular bus station, one might ask?

Well, in the first 10 minutes as this writer sits, gratefully sipping a cup of coffee after a long train journey from the north, scores of jostling people pass by, presenting an absolutely mesmerizing ever-changing picture of Israelis either on the move or queueing up at one of the seemingly never-ending food and drink stalls lining the bus stations walls.

The vast majority of people milling around the station are relatively young. Most are laden down with bags ranging from drab, dusty olive-green army-issue kitbags to large, medium and small colorful suitcases on wheels, backpacks and grips full of study material or just bags of shopping after a day out and visit to a nearby mall.

So far nothing too out of the ordinary one might say – but …

Of the literally hundreds of people on the move at noon that particular mid-week day, the highest percentage are Israeli soldiers, male and female – not surprising when one knows just how many IDF military bases there are in and around the city and elsewhere deeper in the Negev.

Most of the female soldiers are pushing or pulling colorful suitcases on wheels whilst the men, and some very youthful looking lads amongst them indeed, are all schlepping heavy, extremely cumbersome army issue kitbags or had enormous olive green and extremely dusty backpacks strapped to their backs, not to mention of course, cumbersome machine guns slung over a shoulder as well.

As Beer Sheva is home to a massive university student population, a large number of youthful, jeans, baggy pants and t-shirt clad students are also milling around. Somewhat standing out against the blue jeaned, olive-green clad majority at the terminal are a not small number of Bedouin women and young girls from the surrounding Negev townships in groups of three or more, some clad in black hijabs, burkas and nearly all carrying shopping bags sporting the names of well-known clothing manufacturers.

A small group of young Black Hebrew Israelites from the Negev town of Dimona are horsing around by one of the eateries and another group of young Israelis of Ethiopian background – lugging gigantic backpacks and rolled up sleeping bags following a week of camping in the Negev on some sort of pre-army training course – offload with loud groans and line up to order pizzas.

One of the youngsters, somewhat standing out from the rest as he is wearing a distinctive, red MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN baseball hat, slaps one of his mates on the back and loudly yells out: "Welcome to Gan Eden, my friends". The baseball hat is perched on his head back to front, the text therefore, looking over his shoulder and not forward, leading one to wonder for a moment whether there might be some sort of message here, somewhat like looking back to the future maybe?

One could hardly call a bustling, noisy and non-too clean one might add, over-crowded bus station the Garden of Eden or Paradise by any means, but after a week of being in the middle of nowhere in the arid Negev prairie, having to run, climb and crawl up and down rocks, eat corned beef from a tin, who knows, anyone might see it that way as well.

Although I have been living in Israel for almost six decades, my visits to Beer Sheva have been relatively few and far between, in the main limited to visits to one of the surrounding Bedouin villages or towns for meetings and seminars with educators or organizations involved in promoting peace and reconciliation between Jewish and Arab Israelis.

As I live in an off-the-beaten-track region of the Lower Galilee, this week was the first time, apart from one short journey many years ago, of travelling by train in Israel. So, why Beer Sheva?

Since the Covid period, travelling around Israel for this writer and non-driver, a youthful almost 80-year-old, has been somewhat limited, but now, for the first time ever the holder of a free travel pass for all trains and buses, the world, well, at least the small world of Israel, let's not exaggerate – is at one's feet. This curious, energetic and thank goodness healthy Senior on Steroids will now be out and about seeking new adventures by bus and train and hopefully sharing the experience or rediscovering, or discovering for the first time, people, places and historical events, in this troubled but amazing country along the way.