Wastewater must be treated beyond conventional methods used today in Israel in order to eliminate Covid-19, report scientists from Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in Beersheba, Israel. The researchers have found that parts of the coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 survives after sewage purification in treatments plants. They isolated RNA samples of the virus post-treatment and the finding worries […]
In September 2012, the Israeli desert city of Beersheva became the second municipality in Israel to staff the newly created post of community gardens coordinator. The multidisciplinary position was born through fruitful cooperation between two of the city’s municipality departments – environmental and welfare, following a strategic process aimed at reinforcing local community and environmental elements […]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiYWXEuktO0[/youtube] Legendary American environmentalist Bill McKibben is paying the region a visit in early September. On Monday, September 7th McKibben will speak at 9.30 AM in Beer Sheva, in Israel’s Negev. Exact location TBA. Born in 1960, McKibben founded the 350.org campaign to address the climate crisis. He published his first book as a serial […]
One of the most pressing needs in countries with little open space is to make urban life desirable enough that city folk won’t want to flee to the suburbs. But in Beer Sheva, a strange phenomenon is underfoot – suburbanization inside the city that drags commerce away from the historic district. A story I wrote […]
In Constructing a Sense of Place: Architecture and the Zionist Discourse (Ashgate, 2004), architect and planner Haim Yacobi has compiled a fascinating collection of essays on how the Israeli landscape was born. The book begins with the 1934 Levant Fair, for which the flying camel logo (right) was developed to represent the growing Jewish community […]
According to Lebanon’s Daily Star, the war-ravaged southern town of Bint Jbeil is remaking itself as a suburban summer getaway for expatriates who left over the last three decades of strife. Suburban living has made deep imprints across the Middle East, particularly in the shopping malls that have sprouted up in the West Bank and […]
As a geography Master’s student at Beer Sheva’s Ben-Gurion University, this semester I took a class in environmental law and policy with Alon Tal (we profiled him here). Our final project was to work on a green plan for Rahat, an Israeli Bedouin city that suffers from serious issues of garbage control, shade, green spaces […]
Beer Sheva, the long-suffering capital of Israel’s Negev desert, just broke ground on the biggest shopping mall in Israel. Like the other seven malls of Beer Sheva, this $180.5 million complex will continue to suck business out of the dilapidated but walkable Old City. Unlike the others, this one claims to be green. Architect rendering, […]
If you’re in the South today and haven’t yet seen An Inconvenient Truth, the Watermelon series of six “Green and Red” lectures at Beer Sheva‘s Ashan Hazman cafe/bookshop kicks off with a movie screening and discussion (in Hebrew) at 7 p.m. For the last few months, Ashan Hazman (The smoke of time) has gradually become […]
If you are planning to be in Beer Sheva next week, make it Thursday and drop by the Earth’s Promise community garden for a festival of Ethiopian culture. Earth’s Promise founder Isaac Hametz started the garden about a year ago as a way to help newly arrived immigrants adapt to life in Beer Sheva. The […]
If you’ve been wondering about the skyscrapers threatening to carve up Tel Aviv, or about the atrociously planned residential towers of Beer Sheva (see right), or even if you just want to hear about urban planning in general, then check out Tel Aviv University’s free upcoming conference, “Cities of Tomorrow,” held June 9-12. This year’s […]
As mentioned earlier this week on Green Prophet, Beer Sheva’s new mayor Rubik Danilovich has big plans for this city of 200,000 on the northern edge of Israel’s Negev desert. He hopes to rebrand Beer Sheva through hiring a major architect to introduce common planning language, street furniture and greenery. (Above: One of Beer Sheva’s trademark […]
While in the center of the country, the concern is to improve food quality, public transportation and vehicle efficiency, in the periphery Israel’s decision-makers worry about building a satisfying enough environment to attract and keep young people who otherwise flee to Tel Aviv. This reality was clear at a conference this morning on industry in […]