Life in Karmi'el

                                                             (the view from our porch)
For almost a month now we've been living in our new home in Karmi'el, and so far it has been a fantastic experience.

Karmi'el literally means the vineyard of God, though to be honest the vineyards have yet to be located (there are none in the immediate valley). Nevertheless, Karmi'el is most certaintly blessed with beauty and is an extremely accomodating place to live. It sits on a few hills, making the terrain a challenge but providing a picturesque view (so much so that our street "mizpe nof" means the view of the landscape) . From our house we can see the neighboring arab villages (including Deir Al-Assad, where members of the group work) and the road that winds to Akko.

With a population of 45,000 Karmi'el is just a large town, but because it has become a popular place to live in recent years, it is blessed with two malls, the old and the new. Sometimes on the weekends we trek the 25 minute walk (of pure hills) to grab a burger or a slice of pizza. It's pretty gratifying to be in a place where that luxury is possible, speaking in comparison to Kibbutz Ein Dor where we were constantly reminded that there was no where to eat other than the chadar ochel (dining hall) and that we had very few chances to leave the kibbutz.

Karmi'el was established in 1964 as a development town, meaning that its creation was mainly for the purposes of bringing a Jewish population to the area and absorbing new immigrants coming to Israel. This shows dramatically in the demographic. Karmi'el is home to a huge population of Ethiopians, Russians, and Mizrachim (North African Jewish immigrants, mostly from Morocco). You would think that such a diverse group would bring cooperation and tolerance to the area, but in fact Karmi'el suffers deeply from racial tensions. A couple months back advertisements were run in the local newspaper saying that if anyone was selling their house to an Arab (or knew someone who was), they should call a provided number. That number led to a group of people that would persuade others to sell their house to an Israeli and if there was a lack of cooperation, sometimes harrass the homeseller. When the ads were traced back to the Deputy Mayor, the whole thing became a public scandal, and the tension still hasn't been diffused. The worst part is that it's not only happening in Karmi'el; it actually originated in Tzfat.

Part of our community service projects are to try and teach understanding and stop those tensions from brewing hate in the community, but more to come on that later.

Karmi'el is lovely and a pleasant place to live, but our involvement here stems more from the belief that we stand to help the area gain a greater sense of tolerance and benefit from the values we seek to teach and the kids we seek to influence. Hopefully in the time I have here I will be able to impact the people around me to have greater respect for one another and to seek equality in their daily lives.