Photo credit: Noam Bedein

There is a particular kind of quiet that only the desert gives you, and I found it in a hot tub at two in the morning, staring up at more stars than I knew existed, my wife beside me, the whole world reduced to steam and sky.

We had come to Noor, the glamping compound built inside an old ostrich farm near the Besor stream in the western Negev, for one night away from everything. What we found was closer to a small act of healing than a vacation.

A farm with history behind it

Before Noor existed, there was simply the farm. Tzofia and Mike Van Herbenbroek fell for desert animals long before they fell for each other, and their shared love of wildlife eventually led them to start an ostrich farm in the early 1980s, back when almost nobody in the country was raising ostriches. For decades, the farm exported breeding stock, then shifted to ostrich leather and products, riding out the ups and downs of an industry most people never think about. In 2022, in the folds of the badlands near the Besor’s secret springs, the family opened Noor, a cluster of tents designed to feel like the camps of old-world explorers who arrived somewhere remote and simply stayed. That is really all the backstory this piece needs. 

The fuller story of the farm, its animals, and its four decades in this corner of the Negev deserves its own telling, and I am saving that for later, along with a look at how the farm and the region around it have moved through the nearly three years since October 7th, and how a place like this has quietly become a possible home for healing retreats for servicemen and women, and for many other groups who need it. 

There is also a winter version of this story still to write, since the suites at Noor are a different experience entirely once the desert cools. For now, though, this is just about one night. 

What matters here is the experience of staying in one of the private suites, as a couple, in the thick of........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)