Carmei Gat From the New Olah’s Perspective

By Rikki Lavine

My husband and I, along with our three young daughters, made aliyah from Teaneck, New Jersey to the beautiful neighborhood of Carmei Gat in the summer of 2025. Carmei Gat is approximately 35 miles south and west of Jerusalem. 

When we decided to move to Israel, we were under the impression that Carmei Gat was an Anglo community similar to Beit Shemesh, Efrat and Modiin. However, we were happily mistaken. Although it has a fast-growing Anglo population, with families from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia, Carmei Gat is overwhelmingly a majority Israeli town with a small Anglo subset. Notably, many of the Anglos who live in Carmei Gat were born in Israel to Anglo parents, made aliyah at a very young age, or made aliyah right after high school or college. Until recently, it was very uncommon to make aliyah straight to Carmei Gat, with many of the Anglo Carmei Gat residents coming from other areas of Israel. 

A key in making aliyah is distinguishing between the communities that allow for a soft landing, such as those that have many Anglos and services in English, or those that are more of a hard landing, where most families do not speak English and the services are only in Hebrew. I would call Carmei Gat a medium landing. There are around 300 Anglo families, so one will hear English spoken at the supermarket, at the park and around the city, but the majority of the town and government services, teachers, daycare staff, shop owners and local Israelis do not know much English. 

For my family, this was a blessing. Our twin daughters started kindergarten six weeks after we moved. Of the 35 children in their class, only four others spoke English. The teachers did not speak any English and told the English-speaking children not to speak English in class. Within less than two months, our daughters were speaking Hebrew like native Israelis, accent and attitude included. Our youngest daughter was 10 months old when we moved. We sent her to a Chabad daycare where not one teacher or administrator spoke English and as she approaches 2, we can see that she is beginning to speak Hebrew as well. My husband and I learned so many new children-related Hebrew words that we never learned in the Jewish day schools we went to in New Jersey and New York, such as unicorn and diaper rash! These environments, along with the necessity of communicating with neighbors, town and government services, medical staff at the health clinics, waiters at restaurants and other everyday interactions, helped our Hebrew greatly improve without a formal ulpan.

However, there has been an influx of Anglo olim each year to Carmei Gat since it was established in 2017. If this trajectory continues, Carmei Gat will become a soft-landing community in the near-term.

SCHOOLS

Carmei Gat has residents of all ages. However, the majority of the Anglo community has school-aged children, with many under 10 years old. There are currently numerous daycare centers and private daycare options for children under 3 years old. There are also ganim, both religious and non-religious, for children ages 3-5, and eight elementary schools and two high schools, including both religious and non-religious options. Since Carmei Gat currently only has one non-religious high school and one girls’ religious high school, many families with high-school-aged children will send their children to high schools in nearby cities or towns.

SHOPPING

Carmei Gat has three main shopping centers: the BIG, Gat Center and Residor. The BIG, located in central Carmei Gat, is an outdoor mall with a Rami Levy supermarket, loads of restaurants, bakeries, a gym, a pharmacy and shops selling clothing, shoes, toys, appliances and electronics. The Gat Center, located in the southern area of Carmei Gat, has a Shufersol supermarket and restaurants, as well as a hair salon, gym and health clinics for Maccabi and Clalit, two of the main health insurance providers. Residor, located in the northern area of Carmei Gat, is a semicircle ground-floor strip mall, which includes super-markets, bakeries and other stores that sell glasses, bikes, toys, hardware items and more. 

There are also many restaurants, and other shops along Lachish Boulevard, the main thoroughfare through Carmei Gat. Additionally, the main city of Kiryat Gat, only a five-minute drive from Carmei Gat, has many supermarkets, clothing shops, weekly general and fruit-and-vegetable shuks, a post office, gas stations, banks and other essential services, including much larger Maccabi and Clalit health clinics with specialists and dentists.

SHULS

Carmei Gat is a majority Sephardi town with many shul options. The Beit Knesset HaGadol on Nofech Street is famous for playing “Shalom Aleichem” and other Shabbat songs from the loudspeaker on Friday right before candle lighting to alert residents to the incoming Shabbat. There are two main Ashkenazi Orthodox shuls: Carmei Zion and Nechalim. Carmei Zion, established in 2017, is located in the central area of Carmei Gat and currently resides in an auxiliary building of the local non-religious high school. It has multiple weekday and Shabbat minyanim and shiurim, and much year-round programming for children and adults. Although the shul is run in Hebrew, the majority of congregants speak English and many programs are conducted in English. The shul broke ground for its new building, to be located two blocks from its current space, in September 2025. Nechalim was established in 2025 and is located in the Nechalim section of Carmei Gat (about a 10-minute walk from Carmei Zion).

REAL ESTATE / LOCATION

Carmei Gat includes single-family houses, attached houses and apartment buildings ranging from three stories to over 20 with much construction underway for new apartment buildings and houses. The neighborhood is located five minutes from the Kiryat Gat train station, which provides about two trains per hour to Tel Aviv (approximately a 45-minute trip). One unique element of Carmei Gat’s location is that it sits about two miles from Highway 6, which provides easy access both to the north and to the south. There is a sign by the Kiryat Gat Intersection of the highway that shows that Kiryat Gat is 64 kilometers from Jerusalem and 63 kilometers from Tel Aviv—almost exactly equidistant from both cities (about a one-hour drive to each). Additionally, Carmei Gat is about 25 minutes from beautiful beaches in Ashkelon, 35 minutes from the beautiful beaches in Ashdod, and 35 minutes from the city of Be’er Sheva.  

RECREATION

Carmei Gat has many incredible parks, ninja courses and running/biking paths. The parks are located throughout Carmei Gat and each has unique items that kids can play on, including zip lines, ropes courses, slides, and contraptions of all types. The Sportek, the main park facility in Carmei Gat, includes a playground, basketball courts, soccer fields and other sporting facilities. Both women and men meet in the evening to play soccer, basketball, football and other sports. There are also sprinklers located throughout the neighborhood for children to play in, including one in the BIG mall and one in Residor. There is a large community center that offers many after-school activities such as karate and gymnastics as well as classes for adults such as krav maga, and a Gymboree for children. Within the past year, a larger private Gymboree opened in Carmei Gat and a bowling alley opened in Kiryat Gat. There are two pools located in Kiryat Gat, both open all year round, that have Olympic-size pools, kiddie pools and grassy areas for families to sit and enjoy. 

Kiryat Gat houses the Bamba factory and there are plans for Ben & Jerry’s Israel to move its production facility to the city. Carmei Gat also hosts professional basketball and soccer teams. Additionally, there are many great family activities within a 30-minute drive of Carmei Gat including coffee carts and family-friendly restaurants, farms, Bet Gurvin-Maresha National Park,as well as hikes and archeological sites, museums, grape and berry picking, and lots of beaches.

Last but certainly not least, I want to emphasize the beauty of Carmei Gat. Located next to many fields and kibbutzim, the view from one’s apartment makes the small neighborhood absolutely picturesque. Quite literally, the evening sunset turns the sky into the colors of the rainbow. My husband and I feel so grateful that we chose to live in this fast-growing neighborhood with a palpably warm sense of community. It is truly a wonderful place to raise our children and has provided our family with sincere appreciation of the beautiful and diverse land and people of Israel.

Come be our neighbors!

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Rikki Lavine made aliyah in the summer of 2025 and lives in Carmei Gat with her husband and three daughters.