David Ben-Gurion Square

The story

David Ben-Gurion Square stands on the boulevard named after him, in Neighborhood Gimel of Beersheba, next to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and its sports center, at the entrance to the Be'er Sheva North railway station. At its center is an iron sculpture of David Ben-Gurion standing on his head, upon dozens of books made of marble. The sculptors are Varda Givoli and Ilan Gelber, and the work was placed in 2018. The headstand was Ben-Gurion's hallmark in his last years, and the books are the second part of that portrait. The two things together stand here and not in another place because of what he asked of the state he founded: that it go south. The university that opened in Beersheba in 1969 carries his name, and the boulevard on which the square sits leads to it. The square is one of about fifty squares of Beersheba that have a name of their own and carry a sculpture, a fountain or invested landscaping, out of more than two hundred and fifty traffic circles in the city, and a minority of them carry a work signed with an artist's name.

• People
• Public art
• Beersheba