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Forum -> Inquiries & Offers -> Israel related Inquiries & Aliyah Questions

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amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 4:27 am

We're planning to make aliyah 3 years from now, once our youngest finishes high school.
We have a budget of around 1.6 million ש"ח and would really like a cottage or garden apartment.

I've recently been reading about Harish/Charish and I'm interested in finding out more. I know the plans for a city of 10k inhabitants, but I'm curious about who is actually buying there and what the atmosphere is like.

Are there already restaurants and things to do there? Do you think it is likely to become very Chareidi or very secular? We would ideally like to live somewhere with a mix of cultures.

We were planning a trip this summer, but that's obviously cancelled now.

If you know the town and can tell me a bit more about it, I'm interested in your views and experiences Smile

amother

Coffee

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 4:48 am

I don't live in Harish but half of my colleagues do.
They all love it there. They are mainly dati leumi. It seems there is a huge flourishing dati leumi community there, with tons of activities etc. There are also a lot of secular people. I don't know about charedim, I assume there are some, but I don't know if there is a huge community (originally the city was slated to be a charedi city, but in the end it became open to all, so I don't know how many charedim bought).

There are a lot of buildings there, it seems, and less private homes. I checked out yad 2 and it seems you could get a garden apartment for your budget, but not a private home. That's actually odd, I thought prices were cheaper there.

Do you need an anglo population? I am not sure how many anglos are there.

If you are already looking in the area, you might want to also consider Hadera. 1.6 million would get you a garden apartment there too, I believe. You have a train station there, so accessible to all of Israel, you have the beach nearby, and you have tons of shops/restaurants/cafes, especially with the new Mul Hachof Village they built.

The folks I know from Harish do most of their shopping and a lot of their entertainment in Hadera.

Harish does seem to have more of a community vibe than Hadera though. Also the population seems to be younger.

Rappel

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:27 am

Grivky lives in Harish, and we've had several imas here check it out recently. (They were all anonymous, so can't point you in the right direction.) Hopefully one of them will weigh in, but if you search "Harish," you'll see several recent threads with a lot of information.

Hatzlacha!

amother

Coffee

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:27 am

If you know Hebrew, there's a facebook group with 13k members called חריש הבית שלי, where it seems you could ask all these questions. There's also חריש שלי- פירגוניישן with 4.3K members.

There's also a group in English called English Harish with 267 members, for residents or those interested in moving to Harish.

If you want to take a look at Hadera too, there's a Hadera English Speakers group with over 350 members.

WitchKitty

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:35 am

My sister (chareidi) just bought in Charish. I haven't been there but from what I've heard from her the plan is to have a chareidi neighborhood divided into cultures- litvish in one area, toldos ahron (I think?) in another, some chassidim (don't remember which) in yet another, and sfardim in a fourth part... Probably with separate chadarim for each. The community is full of young chareidi couples.
As of now the place is still in the "planning to fill" stage, or, in other words, a lot of empty storefronts that will Iy"H have stores in them at some point.
That's all I know...

amother

Ruby

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:39 am

I wrote a long thread about my experiences with Harish recently https://www.imamother.com/foru.....91134

I don't recommend joining the FB group. It's very anti-religious and almost nothing will be relevant to you at this stage in your search.

amother

Coffee

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:40 am

WitchKitty wrote:

That's interesting, because on the Harish website it says that no neighbourhood will be closed off to any population. Maybe they are marketing it to Haredim, but I think anyone can buy anywhere. It's not a yeshuv.

חריש פתוחה לציבור הרחב ולכן האוכלוסייה בעיר מגוונת. ככל שהעיר תגדל ותתאכלס צפוי תמהיל האוכלוסיה לשקף את התמהיל בציבור הכללי. נכון להיום בשכונות שכבר שווקו קיים רוב של חילונים ודתיים לאומיים, רובם זוגות צעירים ומשפחות צעירות שמגיעים לחריש מכל רחבי הארץ.
בחריש אין שכונות סגורות לציבור כזה או אחר, האוכלוסיה מעורבת ומתקיימים חיים משותפים בין כולם הן ברמת השכונה והן ברמת הבניין.

As I said, most are dati leumi and secular at the moment, and on the young side.

amother

Coffee

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:41 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I've recently been reading about Harish/Charish and I'm interested in finding out more. I know the plans for a city of 10k inhabitants, but I'm curious about who is actually buying there and what the atmosphere is like.

The plans are for a city of 100K. 15k already live there.

בשלב הראשון נבנות בעיר כ-12,500 יחידות דיור. בשלב הבא עתידות להתווסף עוד למעלה מ-10,000 יחידות דיור נוספות. בסוף 2019 מנתה אוכלוסיית העיר כ-15,000 תושבים, בשנים הקרובות צפויים להתגורר בעיר כ-50,000 תושבים ובסה”כ צפויה העיר לאכלס כ-100,000 תושבים.

amother

Coffee

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:42 am

amother [ Ruby ] wrote:

The link doesn't work. It says that the thread no longer exists.

Which Facebook page do you suggest not joining? The English one?

Most people I know from Harish are actually frum.

chanchy123

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:50 am

My sister (DL) lives there. And she loves it, a lot of young families. I don’t know if this would be the place for you at your stage of life. I don’t know how many people will be retiring there.

WitchKitty

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 5:54 am

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

Nobody's closing it off to anyone Smile

It just kind of happened. Ramat Shlomo "happened" in a similar way.
People buy on streets they know people on, and chassidusis buy apartments and sell them to families that are part of the chassidus.

chanchy123

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:02 am

OP my fiend’s mother who was in a similar stage of life moved to Katzrin. It’s cheap, there are affordable homes, a nice mix of people and when the time comes grandchildren will love visiting you in Israel’s prime tourist destination.

amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:14 am

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

Thank you.
We don't specifically need an anglo community, but I would like to find a place with people of all walks of life, ages, religious strands and languages. I am interested in Harish because that seems to be the goal, but I was wondering if it was actually the reality.

We've also looked at Hadera, although I'm slightly concerned about pollution there. Do you know if fumes are a problem, or if the air quality is good?

amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:15 am

Rappel wrote:

Thank you Rappel. You were very helpful last time I posted on an aliyah thread too (I'm the doctor with a French husband Wink

)

amother

Ruby

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:18 am

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

The link doesn't work. It says that the thread no longer exists.

Which Facebook page do you suggest not joining? The English one?

Most people I know from Harish are actually frum.

That's odd, it works for me, the below is what I wrote. Also, the Hebrew page is quite anti-religious (only takes a few vocal seculars to get it going) and tbh I found the English page useless. Just a few people trying to peddle goods from their home businesses. Also there was a very odd woman in the English group who kept PMing me constantly after I joined and being a bit creepy. All in all, FB doesn't reflect 'real life'.

"I noticed an uptick in interest in Harish and visited there as a potential buyer today and wanted to give my 2 cents (true of May 2020 - it seems to be changing rapidly). Without traffic on kvish 6 it's approx 40 mins drive from Tel Aviv. The surroundings are pastoral and beautiful as the city is situated beside a huge forest. First thing you see upon entering the city is the brand new mall, which has many of the favorite Israeli chain stores. The main street is filled (a lot more than I expected) with various eateries (a few mehadrin) and all of what you may need in a city. I also saw throughout the city all the major kupot cholim. Apartment blocks as far as the eye can see but they're all very beautiful and modern with clean lines, glass balcony fronts and made from a kind of jerusalem stone style material. It feels very homely and not at all cold / minimalist / unfinished as I had expected. There's an abundance of mitkanim (playgrounds) all over and plenty greenery (or 'greenery in planning').

There's a lot of talk about secular vs religious tensions, and I can only speak from my experiences as a haredi couple in their 20s who came to visit. We went into a model home in 'haprachim' neighborhood and before we even could sit down the guy in charge told us it was a secular neighborhood and not relevant to us. As if to insure that we wouldn't buy there, he declared that they'd installed a light which turned on automatically in the building (on each floor) and there was no shabbat elevator (which we don't use anyway, but whatever). He told us that 'people like us' live in the neighborhood by the entrance to the city and indeed there's no shortage of 'na na nachman' signs, a chabad flag etc to be found. He sent us packing to that area and we entered another show house 'especially for dosim'.

The sellers came across as being a bit patronizing, but if you get past that, the apartments are genuinely good quality, brand new out of the wrapper (literally, peeling off the plastic from various things). Well worth the money you pay for them. We looked at the 5 room garden apartment and penthouse. Bedrooms aren't huge but the balcony space is very generous for both. Overall, I loved the style and atmosphere of the place - very family orientated and many new schools, ganim and maonot are just opening their doors and look very sleek, modern and top class overall. We were looking into the chabad community but it's very spread out (shul in the 'religious area', gan in the 'haprachim' neighborhood and lifts to the school in Hadera. Not ideal. For someone without a car, it's not practical to live there (we have a car but we're moving davka to be in an area where everything is within walking distance). On the subject of walking, we're talking lots of hilly area.
That's just my take on it, given that there's been a lot of talk of the place on imamother.

Overall, recommended strongly for those who drive and would like a penthouse for about 1.4 mill shekels."

* only new addition to my review is that this year they're opening a new Chabad school, but that's not so relevant to OP. Unless she's a teacher or something.

amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:19 am

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

Thank you. I'll check them out.

I'm already following a French-speaking Harish group (my husband is French), but it seems to be mainly adverts.

My Hebrew is good enough to read and understand quite a bit, but I'm not confident writing yet. I'm working on it though (currently in ulpan gimel).

amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:24 am

WitchKitty wrote:

Thank you. That's pretty much what I thought, but I'm hopeful there will end up being a mixture of groups and cultures where everyone respects each other. Like Rechovot or Ra'anana (which I love but are out of our price range).

I'm a GP. I would like to hope I can work somewhere with a varied patient base, but also to live somewhere where I can make friends with different kinds of people (I'm MO, but have both chareidi and secular friends here and I find it enriching that my friends are not all like me or like each other)

amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:26 am

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

That's what I actually meant. I should proofread better before posting Wink

amother

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:27 am

amother [ Ruby ] wrote:

It's not working for me either, I'm afraid. Is it in a private folder?

amother

Ruby

Fri, Jul 03 2020, 6:33 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

It's not working for me either, I'm afraid. Is it in a private folder?

I wrote out everything in the thread further up in another post

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