Tzur Hadassah

We had a beautiful shabbat with friends from Sharon, MA who moved to Tzur Hadassah a couple months before we made aliyah. 

South East of Beit Shemesh, the city is slightly smaller population wise (12,000 vs 100,000 here) but growing and building rapidly. Once a non observant (chiloni) community, more young couples (in their 30s) and older families live in this desireable neighborhood that boasts new construction, gorgeous views, close proximity to Jerusalem and a mix of Israelis with Anglos. Tzur Hadassah only recently started to attract olim as a destination. That means that you hear more Hebrew but there's certainly English too. The vibe just feels more Israeli, if you're looking for that. 

A rental house of 180 sqaure meters, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 bath, mirpeset and garden costs approximately 5000 shekel/month. Though our rental is the same in terms of bedrooms, and more square meters, each house has roughly 2 or 3 meters between each home, and the layout very thought out. There were other parts of Tzur Hadassah with projects with houses very similar to ours. The average cost to own is 2.2 to 2.6 million shekel and in the older part of town, known as the Vatika, the houses are each unique and pricey. There's enough choices of housing styles from town homes, apartment buildings, garden apartments, attached houses, single houses and more. 

There's one mikvah (heard it's very beautiful), two Ashkenaz shuls, one congregation building a shul, a falafel store, pizza store, deli, hardware store, super market, a strong coed religious school called Lavi and a new school that just opened up and goes to 3rd grade for now. For religious high school there are hasa'ot to Jerusalem, Ramat Beit Shemesh (a girls school by the name of Noga) and the Gush. Most children come back home every night but some go to dormitories too. 

There are buses from Tzur Hadassah to Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem and Beitar Ilit. There are no buses to Tel Aviv. For that many drive to Beit Shemesh, park for free and take the train. There's also a merpa'ah (clinic) that accepts all insurance but no pharmacy within the community. For that people go to Beit Shemesh or Beitar Ilit. 

There was minimal liter, though we did see some pockets (this I have learned bothers others too and not too crazy of an observation - - as noted in previous post - - הכל יחסית). That said, real (stunning) greenery, flowers, a house we saw covered with delicate vines. And while there are non-religious Jews in town, there weren't too many cars. People congregated in the park outside of shul (right now in a caravan) to relax. With less options, the opportunity to acheive nuclear community can happen since you're not passing 5 shuls along the way, rather zero until you get to one of the two. There's pros and cons if say, for example, that you need more minyan hours. But there's no doubt that 5 years,.maybe less, people say Tzur Hadassah will be the next Modiin.

We were very impressed by the community, it's diversity, integration with all types of people, vision, growth potential and domesticated dogs (lots). Sidewalks were also stroller friendly, leaves from trees and nuts from others trees that we've never seen as of yet. 

We slept well and truly enjoyed reconnecting with familiar faces. There's more of a suburb feel within what can be even mistaken a city in Israel, but with views of nature, you need to do a mental check.