Take a Ride on Bus Number 7 in Jerusalem: The National Bus Line

No other bus line in Jerusalem passes by all the important national institutions in the city

I take Bus Number 7 home from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel and its swimming pools and workout rooms to my house on Bethlehem Road at least three times a week. (For exercise, I walk the other way first.) I have been doing this for more years that I can remember. But it was on my third reading of Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness that it struck me that he too, as a child accompanied by his parents, took the same bus after spending much of Shabbat in the mid-1940s with his great uncle, Hebrew University Professor Joseph Klausner. So just like young Amos, I decided to ride Bus Number 7, but this time all the way from the kibbutz to its last stop at the Edmond Safra Campus of the Hebrew University at Givat Ram.

It is after the ride that I decided to call this route the “National Bus Line.” For it is the only bus line that passes by all the national institutions: The Knesset, the Prime Minister’s Office and most of the Government Ministries at the Government Center, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Israel as well as by the new National Library of Israel. The bus then goes by the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum, by the Bloomfield Museum of Science, before it reaches its final destination. (A few of other bus lines pass by only some of these institutions.)

To learn about the bus route that Amos took I have to thank the Egged Transportation Company History Archive and the late Zeev Vilnay, author of a number of guide books, who in 1945, three years before the State of Israel’s establishment, published “Transportation and Trips in the Land of Israel.” (Egged was established in 1933.)

Once Shabbat was over, Amos and his parents waited for the bus in Arnona, near Klausner’s house. Vilnay mentions that only “special vehicles” could travel from Ramat Rachel – then a small and isolated kibbutz in the south of the city, facing Bethlehem. Before reaching Arnona, the bus passed by the Elijah Hill and the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Mar Eliyas. (In 1948, during the War of Independence, the hill was occupied by the Egyptian army and subsequently by the Jordanians. Kibbutz Ramat Rachel was manned by young Israelis and some Hagana fighters, mostly teenagers, who finally stopped the Egyptian army from reaching Jerusalem.)

Once the bus reached Arnona, it was back, for a while, in the “Jewish territory,” according to Vilnay. The bus then travelled towards the British army camp – Camp Allenby, and Bethlehem Road with its Arab-owned elegant homes. It then swung towards the Government Printing Office (today a high-tech hub) and the Jerusalem Train Station (today’s “Takhana”), up Julian Street (today King David) and by the “Young Christians’ Club” (the YMCA), across from the King David Hotel, before reaching Jaffa Road, passing by the Central Post Office (still very much there) and ending behind it on Princess Mary Street (today Shlomotzion Hamalkah). Amos and his parents then had to take another bus, the 3B, to Zephaniah Street and walked another five minutes to reach home in Kerem Avraham (Abraham’s Vinyard), near today’s Makhane Yehuda Market.

Fast forward to 2025, and I am on the #7 at its final (or first) stop by Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. After passing the kibbutz, the bus picks up passengers at the Lindenbaum Women’s Community College on Leib Yaffe Street, named after a Hebrew poet and Ha’aretz Newspaper editor (1876-1948). For years someone must have had fun and the bus recording announcing the stop said “Leib Yaffa” (a pretty sweetheart) before switching to its proper name for the rest of the street.

We soon reach Klausner Street. Professor Klausner (1874-1958), the great uncle of Amos Oz, was Professor of Hebrew Literature, the chief redactor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica and was a candidate for president of Israel in 1949, losing to Chaim Weizmann. One of his most influential books was Jesus of Nazareth, where he described Jesus as a Jew and Israelite who was trying to reform the religion and died a devout Jew. He and his book are hardly known in today’s Israel, not even his house exists anymore, which stood across the street from the house of Shmuel Agnon (today a museum).

Bus #7 will then pass near the United States Embassy and cut through the rest of Arnona, cross Hebron Road and travel on Bethlehem Road, passing by its many coffee shops and fruit and vegetable stores. One of its main stops is by the “Takhana” at the old railroad station – today the area of restaurants, bars and entertainment. The bus will then travel by the Liberty Bell Park (with its facsimile of the original bell) and up Keren Hayesod Street toward the city center and King George Street – the only street that retains its original English name.

The bus stops at the crossroads of King George and Ben Yehuda Streets – Jerusalem’s center. At a block before, on King George, final touches are being administered to the Froumine House, which housed Israel’s Knesset there between 1949 and 1966. The Knesset Museum will hopefully open there soon.  After the Knesset moved to its present location, the building housed various government agencies, was sold to a private developer, was bought back by the government following a scathing State Comptroller’s report, and finally designated to house Israel’s Knesset Museum.

It is on to HaNeviim (the Prophets Street) and Kikar Davidka, the square that commemorates an extremely loud homemade Israeli mortar used in the 1948 War of Independence. Had young Amos and his parents been able to take the #7 bus to here back then they would not have to take another bus to get home – they would not be far.

The #7 then skirts by Makhne Yehuda – the large produce market in Jerusalem which at night becomes full of young and less young people availing themselves of the numerous bars there. The bus then makes a U-turn and go by city center again before turning onto Bezalel Street. It passes by the new Jerusalem Center for the Arts and the renovated Beit HaAm Cultural Center. The latter’s history began in 1961 when it was built specifically to hold the trial of the Nazi henchman Adolf Eichmann, as there was no other building in Jerusalem at that time to hold such a trial.

It is after traveling on Bezalel Street and crossing Ben Tzvi Boulevard by Sacher Park that the #7 reaches the national institutions. The Supreme Court and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are first, then the Bank of Israel and other government ministries, including that of the prime minister, and finally the Knesset. It is here that one needs to get off to visit the new National Library of Israel – the latest jewel in Jerusalem’s crown.

It was previously housed at the Givat Ram Campus of the Hebrew University as the Jewish National and University Library. The NLI is dedicated to collecting and housing the cultural treasures of Israel and of Jewish heritage. The library owns the world’s largest collections of Hebraica and Judaica and houses a huge collection of rare and unique manuscripts. Its temporary exhibitions attract audiences in tens of thousands as do its concerts.  Every day, tour buses from all over the country bring visitors to NLI.

After NIL, the #7 crosses Rupin Road and reaches the Israel Museum, the Bible Land Museum and the Bloomfield Science Museum, and finally arrives at the Hebrew University campus at Givat Ram. The Israel Museum, founded in 1965, is one of the world’s leading museums housing a collection or some half a millions archaeological and art items. The museum holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of the archaeology of the Land of Israel.

The Bible Lands Museum, established in 1992, is an archaeological museum exploring the cultures of the peoples mentioned in the Bible. They include ancient Jews, Egyptians, Philistines, Arameans, Hittites, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Persians.

The Bloomfield Science Museum, established also in 1992, features indoor and outdoor exhibits, mostly hands-on, and includes programs on such topics as biomedical research and other science related topics. It offers programs in sciences for different age groups.

The Givat Ram Campus, officially known as the Edmond Safra Campus, was established in the mid-1950s after the Mount Scopus Campus of the Hebrew University, although in Israeli hands but surrounded by Jordan, was evacuated following the War of Independence. After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Mount Scopus campus was reestablished. The Safra Campus today houses the Departments of Mathematics, Natural Sciences, the School of Engineering and Computer Sciences, the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies, as well as the Institutes of Chemistry and Physics.

After traveling the entire route of the #7, one could jump right back on it and get off at the Jerusalem Center for the Arts and the surrounding restaurants, or at the Makhane Yehuda market and its eating places, or even at the Takhana and on Bethlehem Road for a well-deserved rest. No other bus line reflects the history of Jerusalem before Israel’s independence and as well as city’s latest developments.