Community-Based Tourism
Ethno-Tourism
Slow Tourism
Sustainable Tourism
The above terms describe how localities around the world are reimagining how to share their ethnic heritage with tourists who are eager to delve deeper into the human facets of the beautiful, often remote places they visit. Community-Based Tourism is exciting and fun and benefits everyone—visitors, the hosting community, suppliers, and the environment.
For reservations and details, contact us:
Netanela: +972-54-7160401
office@bamidbar.org
Tel. (office) +972-8-658-5484
The Culinary Queens of Yeroham
Culinary Queens is the flagship project of our Community-Based Tourism program and provides rewarding livelihoods to local families who warmly welcome visitors into their homes, serve delicious ethnic meals, and tell inspiring personal stories that are part of modern Israel’s history.
Residents’ Panel
This project brings visitors together with two or more generations of Yeroham residents, each of whom brings his or her own lived experience and nuanced personal perspective to the story of this small Negev town, today a flourishing, multi-cultural community serving as a nationwide model for civic engagement on behalf of the common good.
עולים ממרוקו לירוחם 1954. צילום: פריץ כהן
Pioneers
During the 1950s and early 1960s, representatives of the young State of Israel met ships and planes disembarking Jews from Romania, Iran, North Africa, and India. They brought them by bus in the dark of night to Yeroham, then a far-flung transit camp for immigrants whose “homes” at first were makeshift cabins of wood and tin.
Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) Community
Whatever you may know about the Beta Israel community, their life in Ethiopia, their journey to Israel, and their meeting with their lifelong dream—Jerusalem and the State of Israel—this tour takes you deeper. Your guides will be siblings of leader, aliya activist, and Mossad agent Ferede Yizzau Aklum (1949-2009), who forged the route taken by tens of thousands of Beta Israel from Ethiopia to Israel via Sudan.
Unrecognized Bedouin Villages
Tour Rahma, an agricultural village on Yeroham’s outskirts that only recently received state recognition (a land-ownership category) after decades in limbo as an unrecognized village without basic infrastructures or legal building rights, and meet with courageous Bedouin women entrepreneurs fighting against the odds to generate change.
Guided Tours
You’re here!—of course you want to see the desert and the town. Atid Bamidbar’s tour guides and experiential workshop facilitators are the experts.
Between the Crater & the Lake
This tour reveals the Negev’s surprising physical features shaped by water, vegetation, and human history. We’ll take you mere kilometers outside Yeroham to panoramic observation points and into nature: Yeroham Crater, Hagar’s Well, and (manmade) Yeroham Lake. Part of the tour can be done by bicycle or jeep.
Science and Robotics in Yeroham
In recent years, Yeroham has transformed into a cutting-edge regional and national center for science and technology, whose robotics and drones programs expand our youngsters’ horizons, inspire them to dream, and provide them with tools for success in their adult lives. We’ll guide you through the Yeroham Science Center and the Robotics Team Workshop and introduce you to the founders of Yeroham's educational-technological revolution.
Experiential Games
Atid Bamidbar offers three experiential outdoor activities suited to cohesion-building within groups.
Kites of Vision
What is vision? What is the difference between a vision and a dream? What am I doing to realize my vision? How can I reach great heights but still keep my feet on the ground?
Outdoor Training (ODT)
Walk planks, jump through (literal and figurative) hoops, and traverse mazes: This series of outdoor group challenges aims to improve communication and management skills and bolster team spirit. Our facilitators help you analyze your group dynamics and discover meaning relevant to the daily life of an organization and individual employees.
Yeroham Treasure Hunt
This interactive game of Q & A using smartphones turns participants into urban explorers. Navigate our town to discover the secrets of its historical sites and meet its people.
Outdoor Jewish Study
Why was the Torah given in the desert? What can we learn about Jewish heritage from the desert?
This in-depth activity combining textual study and bonding with nature takes your group into the desert or up to spectacular Mount Avnon Observation Point, where we’ll facilitate guided meditation and learning in pairs or small groups (chavruta). You’ll address questions of Jewish identity, tradition, and spirituality, and ponder your core values in the surroundings where Judaism first shaped its values.
Music
Raga Tunes Ensemble
Yigal Dan, lead member of the Raga Tunes Ensemble, introduces visitors to Bene Israel (Indian-Jewish) traditions by way of an Indian music workshop featuring the darbuka. You’ll experience drumming-on-the-body exercises and rhythm games and be invited to accompany the group’s singers.
Kibbutz Galuyot Band (literally, Ingathering of the Exiles)
Yeroham-born Avihai Hazout (guitar, oud, and lead singer) and Raga Tunes’ Yigal Dan (percussion), joined by Atid Bamidbar’s own Shai Ben-Tal (vocals and storytelling), stage an Israeli musical evening blending East and West that inspires audiences to sing and get up and dance.