CKCKCKCKCK ... armiel

Over ten years ago, I spent some time in the little northern city of Karmiel (also written with a C ...) I lived in a ugly ugly orange building with 3 other guys in apartment 1221 (see photo circa 1996) . The building we lived in was the tallest building in the area -- truly tallest building for miles. We used to joke the farthest south Syrian missiles could hit was Karmiel and we lived in the one tall bright orange building in the entire area. (Not as funny anymore, considering last summer, Karmiel was often hit by rockets from Lebanon)

Karmiel is the main city in the central north of Israel and while being very nice is very very boring. If people know Karmiel for any reason it's because each July they have a rather large and famous Dance festival that bring troupes from around the world. It's also surrounded by a lot of Arab villages and is close to Sachnine one of the major Arab cities in the North.

Anyhow, I revisited Karmiel last week for a little while. Karmiel is a unique city -- it's home to about 50,000 people and many of them are recent arrivals from Russia. I remember clearly having some serious issues with the Russians that lived in our building. There are still a host of Russians in Karmiel as well as Ethiopians, Argentines and immigrants from all over the world.

Karmiel is actually a rather successful development town and unlike many of the other ones across the country has done a pretty good of absorbing new immigrants. Part of this is because of it's location with good access to industry and jobs (only 30 minutes from Haifa). Other reasons have to do with strong local government, a good number of sabras and some luck.

It was neat to get back to Karmiel (see photo of me above circa 2007 - i looked thrilled to be there) ... i actually remembered it remarkably well and had a tiny (oh so tiny) sense of nostalgia from being in the Big K or the Big C