Is Beit Shemesh Aleph Child Friendly?

And the answer is, not really. Now on the pilot trip you'll take note of the playground equipment. The city does have some decent playground equipment. But that's it. There's nothing for bigger kids or teenagers. There's no soccer field, basketball court, or bicycle park. Accordingly, the sidewalks tend to be dangerous places as teenagers race their bicycles there. The entrance ways to buildings often have kids smashing soccer balls into the walls.

Also, there's no real libraries. In America, one takes libraries for granted. Every town has one, oftentimes very good ones.

Here, there's a small municipal library way down in Beit Shemesh. In Ramat Aleph, there's a tiny library run out of somebody's storage closet. It's open for an hour or two a week and certainly you can't go in there and read. The community center had a small library for a while. I'm not sure if they closed it or limited its hours. It's also quite small, with books that somebody was going to throw away.

I spent a good part of my childhood at the library or on sports fields. You cannot do that in Ramat Aleph. And the teenagers really have no place to go.