A Zoo That Began in a Classroom

The zoo of Beersheba was not built as a zoo. It grew into the role, and its beginning was very small.

In 1954 the teacher Manya Urieli set up a petting corner at the 'Shorashim' school, in the Neve Noy neighborhood. A petting corner in a school.

Over the years the corner began to serve also a public that was not of the school, and to receive help from the municipality. And in 1977 Urieli, who was already retired, received a prize from the Ministry of Education for running it.

In 1979 Dr. Haim Sivan replaced her in the management, and she moved to raising funds. In that same year Irene Kreitman of London donated the sum that made it possible for the petting corner to become a zoo, in premises of about one hundred and twenty square meters designed for that.

And in 1983 a nonprofit for fundraising was set up, headed by Professor Reuven Yagil.

And the zoo went on moving. In 1985 it moved to an area of a thousand square meters, which had previously served the Hatzerim transit camp, and it was dedicated in the year after. At that time only two and a half posts were employed in it, and most of the work was done by volunteers.

And in 1991 the building of the Neve Ze'ev neighborhood began on the zoo's compound, and the Ministry of Housing and the municipality built its fourth premises. The construction took seven years, and the premises were dedicated in 1996.

And it is worth stopping on that number: four homes in forty years. The zoo moved place four times, and every move was a rebuilding of everything — cages, fences, water, shade — and every time with living animals that have to be moved along with it. A zoo is not a box you pick up; it is a place that has to be built again.

At its peak it had about one hundred and thirty species of mammals, birds and reptiles. Peacocks roamed in it freely, and it had a petting corner, classrooms, guided tours and pony riding.

And some of the animals were injured wild animals that were brought for treatment and rehabilitation, and some of them were returned to nature.

At the end of 2022 the zoo was closed and the cages were demolished, ahead of a move to a new site named Midbarium.