Men of the Desert Find a Permanent Home

Every year, some 60,000 visitors, many of them schoolchildren, come from all over the country to visit The Joe Alon Museum of Bedouin Culture in the northern Negev. Here they learn about the lifestyle of various Bedouin tribes - a lifestyle fading fast in the modern world.

Bedouin in Arabic means "man of the desert", and Bedouins have roamed the deserts of the Middle East for many centuries, herding camels and raising goats, sheep and cattle. Now, however, many Bedouins in Israel are in the process of becoming sedentary citizens, earning their livelihood as farmhands, on construction sites or in industry. Of the some 100,000 Bedouin living in the Negev, about half now inhabit seven new towns. The other half still live in the open, but they no longer crisscross the desert. Their children attend some 80 schools in the region.

The Joe Alon Museum of Bedouin Culture the only one of its kind in the world was established in 1985 to preserve the unique culture of this vanishing way of life, and to inform the general public about its customs, rites and traditions.

The permanent exhibits focus on the cultures of tribes in the Negev and in Sinai. The Sinai artifacts mainly fishing implements of the southern tribes who live in the vicinity of the Red Sea, and baskets of the northern Sinai tribes - were brought to the museum by its chief curator, Orna Goren. Archeologist, anthropologist and museologist, Goren collected them while spending five years living in the Sinai, studying the daily practices of the Jabalya Bedouins.

At the same time, another collection of Bedouin archeological items was being assembled in Kibbutz Lahav in the northern Negev, by kibbutz members with friendly relations with their Bedouin neighbors. One of their aims was to prevent a favorite "pastime" in a countryside rich in ancient relics - the theft of antiquities. When their collection grew, they created a traveling photo exhibit entitled: "The World Beyond the Hill."

Eventually, the Sinai and Lahav collections merged, and in 1975 the first building of the Joe Alon Center for Regional Studies was constructed. Today the Center is composed of three handsome buildings and two large tents, of which the Bedouin Museum forms the core. On display inside the museum are working tools and items of everyday living, intricately woven rugs, magnificent silver jewelry, colorful embroidered costumes, simple children's toys, sculptures, paintings, wood- and leather-work.

Says Goren: "I am most fascinated by the talent of the Jabalya Bedouin in the Sinai to adapt to their environment and use available materials for their everyday life." Visitors can also see examples of eating utensils fashioned out of accacia wood, and rope made out datepalm fibres used for drawing water from wells.

In one of the halls, a group of teenagers is sitting in a circle, watching a film made in Egypt depicting a Bedouin trial. Outside the building, near a grove of evergreen trees, another group is noisily enjoying camel rides. In one of the two black goathair-covered tents - the hospitality tent Amina is baking thin round pita which she folds and offers her guests. In the other tent, a tall man dressed in white has just handed visitors cups of sweet tea and reclines on a low cushioned couch, ready to recount Bedouin tales and legends. He is Sheikh Salman, who, as the eldest son, received the hereditary title from his father. His parents had been nomads, but for Sheikh Salman, as for most of Israel's Bedouin today, nomad wanderings are a thing of the past. He makes his home in the new town of Tel Sheva, together with 5,000 other Bedouin." But, you know," he confides, "I have a tent outside the house, and sometimes I sleep there. And when friends come, we sit and smoke and eat in the tent. All the entertainment takes place in the tent."

In addition to the exhibits, the Center hosts meetings and dialogues to further understanding of Bedouin culture. Joint workshops and long-term encounters between Bedouin and Jewish residents of the region take place regularly. One involves 15 Jewish and Bedouin women who meet weekly. The goal of this project is to train participants to become initiators of more intercultural groups in their towns or villages. Another project, called "Roots", involves some 70 Jewish and Bedouin young adults from the Negev who conduct research and study each other's history in this region during an entire school year.

The museum hopes to be able to create a travelling exhibition which will visit schools throughout the country and teach more children about Bedouin tradition and heritage.