Sky Watch: Modi’in

Modiin Landscape
Nof Ayalon entrance into Modiin: The houses on left are Buchman, homes on right are Buchman Darom

Here is a photo of Modi’in, a new town in Israel, photographed from the distance. You can see that the fields abut tall buildings. The sky in Israel looks like this all summer; we didn’t have to bring raincoats. It doesn’t rain until fall.

Street in Modiin
Here’s how a street looks when we are driving in the town.


Right outside Modi’in will be a new railway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. One will be able to get from Modi’in to Jerusalem in about 17 minutes.

A playground in the center of town
A playground in the center of town

One of the great features of Modi’in is a string of parks that run through the town. We played in this one for over an hour. It was nice to see dads out with their kids in the late afternoon.


If you live in one of these apartments, you are so close to the park. I took this photo from the playground.

A note from Baila, a blogger who lives in Modi’in:

Modiin is a planned city, planned and designed by the famous Israel architect Moshe Safdie. When he flew over the Modiin hills, and saw the valleys, he decided to use the natural contours of the lands. Modiin is a bunch of valleys where the shops, schools, medical centers, shuls, and of course parks etc are placed, and on either side of the valleys are rising apartment building and homes. There are currently about 70,000 residents, with plans for expansion up to 120,000 to 250,000 (depending on who you talk to and read).

Thank you so much, Baila, with all your help with this post. Baila also noted that the Maccabees reportedly lived in this area (2000 years ago).

If you’ve made it this far, and you are wondering about nature in Israel, a great place to visit is the Hula Valley Nature Reserve. I’m adding this here because I had some comments last time asking about nature tours in Israel. I’ve never been to the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, but it’s on my list for next time. We did visit Ein Gedi, where I photographed a hyrax, an ibex and a grackle. And I have a photo of Banias that I am saving for a future Sky Watch.

 See all my posts about our two week trip to Israel.

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