Yom HaAtzmaut - יום הצמאות

Independence Day kicked off at 20:00 (sunset after Memorial Day). Many houses, businesses and government buildings are draped in Israeli flags.

My engineering building at BGU (my window is somewhere in the photo).

My apartment building.  If you zoom in, you'll see flags on lots of the windows and balconies.

I left the house to walk to City Hall plaza (עיריית באר שבע) and found that the big street on which I catch the bus (big like Metcalf big) was closed, and only open to pedestrians.  I eventually got funneled to the security checkpoint, and walked with lots of people to City Hall.  There was a concert stage set up (easy since rain is very unlikely, and it was 80 degrees), and lots of vendors selling festival food, like cotton candy and candied apples (no funnel cakes that I saw) and silly, flag-related things that light up (since this event was at night).  All the kids were really cute with all their light-up things.

The fireworks were scheduled to begin at 22:00, and there were various musical performances (many very amateur).  I wasn't crazy about the 30 minutes of rap music from 21:30-22:00, but it was all free, and it wasn't crazy-loud.  No, I didn't expect operatic arias!  But jazz would have been nice.  But, back to the evening.  The fireworks were launched behind the buildings of the square (probably another reason to close traffic) - this was in downtown Beer Sheva.  We ooooed and aahhhed for 15-20 minutes.  It was great.

Then most people left, so there were a lot of people exiting.  Luckily, I live close enough to have just walked. 

I was thinking that I got to see the fireworks over the Charles River in Boston in 1976 from a roof at MIT for the bicentennial (where I shot Ektachrome slides of the fireworks with a Canon), and last night I got to see the 66th anniversary of Israel in Beer Sheva (and shot photos with a new Canon).