Tel Aviv Bus Station (Day One)
Visitors to Tel Aviv in 2021, who are thinking of using public transport can now enjoy the relative calm of the new multi-storey, multi-level, shopping complex with added Bus Station on the roof, that serves the city today.
Back when I first set foot in Israel it was a different story. The central bus station, the transport hub of a nationwide network resembled an open-air cattle market, with all the bus stops lined up in ranks and the whole place awash with armed soldiers.
Everywhere you looked there was a Green uniform toting either an M16 or some other form of long-gun. Some wore full battle dress, others seemed more relaxed in uniforms where boots seemed to be optional and shirts were worn untucked, berets tucked casually under shoulder epaulettes.
And the berets. There were Red Paratroopers, Brown Golani Brigade, Purple Givati brigade, and loads of other colours as well. Occasionally among the sea of olive green, there stood out another uniform, Air Force or Navy but green was the overwhelming colour.
“Do you think war broke out overnight and the pilot just forgot to mention it?”
I asked my brother as we forced our way to the front of the queue at the ticket office. We collected our tickets and went off in search of the correct bus stop.
Over time I got used to the ever-present soldiers and their guns and even began to pick out the different groups from their dress and general demeanour. I always had a soft spot for the older guys who seemed to have second-hand uniforms that bulged open over well-developed stomachs and older weapons. They weren’t quite ‘Brown Bess’ muskets but I certainly spotted the odd Lee Enfield .303 and German Mauser among other weapons of that vintage.
These older guys were, of course, the troops called up to do their reserve duty and as I got to know more Israelis I came to realise what effect that month of service could have on someone and the fundamental effect it could have on their personality.
There were two other things that struck me about the central bus station on that first morning. The first was the noise.
Above the general racket, that which occurred from so many chattering people all congregating in one place, the revving engines and the blaring horns, you could hear strident voices yelling what appeared to be random city names.
Welcome to the Sherut service. Costing about the same as a bus ticket a Sherut was a more flexible type of transport.
These Sherut Taxis all set off from the same place as the buses in the central bus station and basically worked in the following way. You paid almost the same as the bus fare but could ask to be dropped off anywhere at all.
You didn’t have to go to a particular destination so if you wanted to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere at the end of the road to your settlement they were a viable alternative. Obviously, they look like normal taxi’s and there were no convenient bus stop signs for them, therefore it was necessary for the drivers or other paid individuals to announce the destinations of their Sherut by yelling the destinations at the top of their lungs. Therefore, above the normal level of background noise, you had the nonstop calls of, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Netanya and Jerusalem, with the occasional Haifa and Sefat thrown in for good measure. Took a couple of Sherut taxi rides in my time but after the second one when I sat with a flatulent woman and a chicken in a cage that was suffering from avian dysentery all the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth I abandoned that mode of transport and hit the road to hitchhike or used the Egged buses. Hitchhiking might have been a gamble but after that Sherut ride, I was sick to my stomach for days and just existed on Arac and water.
The second thing that hit me on that first day was the wonderful smell of food. This came from the food stands that surrounded the place on all sides and from a number of people who were walking around munching on the Israeli answer to fish and chips, the falafel, even at that early hour.
Everywhere there was the smell of deep-fried chickpeas mingled with the smell of cooking meats on large rotisseries as you see in kebab shops back home. The thought of falafel or shawarma for breakfast really did not do it for me. In time, I would learn to take nourishment, like sleep, whenever and wherever it became available.
One final note on the subject of the Old Bus Station. I recently discovered that the place is now firmly in the centre of the vice trade, surrounded by sex shops and porno cinemas. It’s kind of a shame because the place was so alive and vibrant, we were excited to be on our way to a new life and to be surrounded by so much visual, aural and olfactory stimulation just added to the overall feeling of euphoria.

22nd January 2021 @ 5:17 pm
Bought back vivid memories to me of either heading to Eilat/Sinai or heading back to Qiryat Shemona to one of the many kibbutz I was on around there, happy days.
22nd January 2021 @ 8:05 pm
You capture it very nicely. Saw it both as a kibbutz volunteer, a soldier (Nahal, thank you,) and as a kibbutznik coming to the city for vacation or to order / buy spare parts. My personal favorites were the volunteers hawking raffle tickets for Magen David Adom (Israeli red cross and ambulance services.)