Overview

Curated by Michal Shaffier (miikomail@gmail.com)

Be’er Sheva, the city of Avraham Avinu is considered the capital of the Negev. With almost 200,000 residents, Be’er Sheva is one of the largest cities in Israel.  For a city this size, Be’er Sheva’s residents are surprisingly friendly and extremely welcoming to newcomers. Housing is affordable and the weather is warm and dry. Be’er Sheva is organized into sections named mostly by letters of the alef bet.  The city is family friendly with many parks and hosts frequent free cultural activities.  About a quarter of the city’s residents are religious and the city’s cultural events are planned with that in mind.

Public transportation within Be’er Sheva is pretty great. A lot of people find public transportation to be a complete travel solution. The city has many well maintained bike paths as well so riding bikes is also a preferred travel solution.

Chabad in Be’er Sheva has a complete infrastructure.  From preschool through high school, libraries, shuls and mikvaos.

Shuls

There are eight Chabad Shuls spread throughout Be’er Sheva.

The main Chabad shul is on Lubavitch St. and is run by Rabbi Zalman Gurelik. It’s an entire building with offices, ongoing classes and an active library.

The Chabad shul in Tet is run by Rabbi Heber. It’s a warm, small Chabad House that caters mostly to newly observant families in the Tet neighborhood. Rabbi Heber also organizes the Torah classes at the main Chabad shul.

Beit Mashiach is a Meshichist shul that borders the neighborhoods of Hey and Yud Alef. It is run by Rabbi Avraham HaCohen.

The Chabad shul of the Neve Ze’ev neighborhood is run by Rabbi Nitzan Chalak. Rabbi Chalak is also the principle of the boys pre-school, school and the yeshiva katana.

The Chabad shul of Neve Lon is led by Rabbi Moshe Ariel HaCohen Rot.

Rabbi Shmuel Nechimovsky runs the Chabad House of Neve Noi

Rabbi Moshe  Kravitsky runs the Chabad House of Nachal Bikaa.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Slavin runs the Chabad House in Ramot.

There is a growing group of Lubavitcher English speaking families who run classes and farbrengens etc for English speakers in Be’er Sheva. Current info is available on the Facebook page Be’er Sheva Chabad House.

Schools

Most of the Chabad preschoolers (girls and boys) are educated at one location in the Daled neighborhood. The classes are separated by age and sex. There are kids from all backgrounds in the classes which reflects the general welcoming nature of Be’er Sheva. The classes are taught by a ganenet and once a week a melamed comes in to teach alef bet.

There is one preschool class at the boys elementary school. It’s a mixed age class of four and five year old boys. It’s taught by a melamed and a ganenet working together.

The boys elementary school is in the Neve Ze’ev neighborhood. It houses one preschool class (for 4 and 5 year old boys) and grades one through seven. The principal is Rabbi Nitzan Chalak who also runs the yeshiva katana and the preschools. The school is laid back and proffessional at the same time. The secretary Anat is warm, helpful and competent.  She is the responsible secretary for the preschools and the boys elementary school and also holds some responsibilities for the yeshiva  katana.

The Yeshiva katana is in the old city neighborhood. It also houses the eighth grade/ Mechina students. It’s a small Tomchei Temimim equipped with dorms.

The girls elementary school “Beit Sefer Chabad Uziel” is in the Daled neighborhood. It houses grades one through eight. The building is old but the staff more than makes up for it.  It is an award winning school for academic excellence in Israel. It’s run by Rebbetzin Simcha Veitzman who is an energetic and committed person. The school days finish at 1:30 but the school offers a free extracurricular afternoon program (including music, art, gardening.)

The girls high school Beit Chaya VeRivka is in the Nachal Ashan neighborhood. It’s run by Rebbetzin Puah Charar. The school promotes a healthy balance of happiness and respect. The girls from the Chabad community in Arad also attend the high school in Be’er Sheva.

Food\Kashrut

Although limited, there are plenty of mehadrin choices in Be’er Sheva. The grocery chain Osher Ad carries many mehadrin foods and sometimes even has Chabad shchita meats. Osher Ad carries fruits and vegetables from chutz la’aretz during shmitta year. Machsanei HaShuk is another grocery chain with mehadrin options. One of their many locations in Be’er Sheva opens a special fruits and vegetables storefront for mehadrin shmitta produce.  Of Anash does meat/chicken/fish home deliveries once a week. Two local Chabad families also sell Lubavitch shchita  meat/chicken out of their houses.

There are restaurants with Mehadrin Bdatz Beit Yosef hechsher including Cafe Cafe and Pizza Hut.

Mikvaot

There are two Chabad mikvahs in Be’er Sheva. One in the Daled neighborhood, and one in the Neve Ashan neighborhood. The one in the Neve Ashan neighborhood is newly renovated and beautiful.