I tried to like Be’er Sheva. I tried so hard. But the city did not make it easy. As a textbook example of Israeli Brutalism, its architecture was every bit as charming as the name suggests. Apparently the Brutalist movement ‘sought truth and authenticity devoid of frills’ and I guess it achieved its aims. There was not a frill in sight, and the authentic truth it revealed unfortunately seemed to be that concrete is really, really ugly. Everywhere I looked were square, unforgiving blocks that stared back at me, hard and confrontational. The older blocks, built hastily in the 1950s for the first wave of Jewish immigration, had now started to crumble with neglect. Weeds withered in the cracked concrete and balcony railings corroded with rust. The desert which lay beneath did little to disguise the ugliness. Toothless gaps between construction sites revealed only dust and sand and rock. A gasp of greenery came in the form of huge, unkempt cacti, daring me to come closer to their hostile spines. Nothing softened the hard edges. It really was Brutal.
Still, the lack of finesse was perhaps a reflection of the Israeli character famous for its straightforward, no-nonsense attitude and abrasive bluntness. These social characteristics also seemed to have intensified into a textbook example in the city. Although I had previously met and mixed with Israelis in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the culture in Be’er Sheva felt different. Many of the Jews in the country’s main cities had some European heritage, but further south that influence was noticeably absent. Very few people looked like me and English speakers were rare. Alongside the standard Hebrew, shop and restaurant signs appeared in Russian and other, entirely unfamiliar scripts. After a terrifyingly aggressive lecture in broken English from an Orthodox taxi driver about my lack of Hebrew, my vague feeling of being unwelcome became as concrete as my surroundings.
It was not a tourist town. I visited all the places of interest within the first week. Beyond this, my guide book resorted to listing shopping malls and gas stations as other possible places in which to soak up the unique culture of the city. In the absence of standard tourist attractions, I resigned myself to seeking stimulation by observing the local way of life. However, even that seemed difficult. Where was everyone? By day, the streets were deserted in the fierce heat apart from a small cluster of old men who gathered daily at concrete tables to play slow games of cards and backgammon in the shadow of the apartment blocks. The dusty parks were quiet, pavements empty. Just one glaringly white woman strode through the streets, sweating and hopelessly scanning her surroundings for signs of life.
As darkness descended and the air-cooled, humans gradually emerged from their concrete nests. Each night I watched from my window as skinny children played football between the dusty towerblocks, their voices bouncing off the concrete. Older women, wrapped in brightly patterned robes, gathered on the steps and perched on broken walls to chat to their neighbours. Youths congregated to share video clips on their phones and watch their friends perform dizzying handbrake turns in beat-up cars, sending clouds of dust and exhaust fumes into the sultry night.
Convinced it was simply a matter of altering my body clock, one evening I ventured into the Old City – described as the heart of the town’s nightlife. But despite the fact it was 10pm and the start of the weekend, it too was strangely empty. Dimly-lit, deserted streets revealed isolated bars and restaurants with only a handful of customers. I could only guess that in the previous countries of Be’er Sheva’s inhabitants, nightlife as I knew it was a non-existent concept.
But even if I couldn’t actually see many of the city’s residents, I could certainly hear them. Like the extremes of the climate, Be’er Sheva’s volume controls seemed to know only zero and earsplitting. And I think the zero was broken. For days, the entire city reverberated to the thumping bass of the Ben Gurion University end-of-term pool party. This was augmented by intermittent blasts of upbeat Hebrew songs used as bells at surrounding schools, the local pastime of blaring music from any and every available source, the drilling and clanging of the ubiquitous construction sites, and the constant roar of traffic on the city’s criss-crossed, congested motorways. However, the brashness of the soundtrack merely mirrored the harsh, hard character of the concrete city. The churning mixture of constant noise, stifling heat, boredom and frustration soon became almost nauseating. I could find no relief in this punishing place that pushed everything to its extreme.
Extracted from Victoria Fifield’s perceptive book about her post-graduate project exploring the issues faced by Israel’s Bedouin. Honest and vivid, it has to be the best travel book I’ve seen this year. Read more and buy a copy here.
