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On a day to day basis most services can be found in town or in the shopping areas of adjacent towns and villages such as Makkabim and Shilat. As the town grows services improve, and gradually we've become less and less dependent on nearby big towns, especially with the opening of the Yishpro shopping centre and the Azrieli Mall.
Today Modi'in has several large supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers, branches of major Israeli banks, household goods stores, post offices, pharmacies, hairdressers, clothing stores, cafes, travel agents, and most of the other shops and services you'd expect to find in a suburban town.
The much anticipated shopping mall is finally here and has rapidly become the de facto city centre with shops, restaurants, cinema, gyms, dance studios, a mother and baby centre, gymboree, doctor's offices, clinics and more. Built by Israeli “shopping mall king" Azrieli, it is located in the heart of what is planned to be the city's central business district. The mall hosts many events for kids and families (some of them free), as well as the annual Hebrew Book Week fair and other special events.
Yishpro, on the outskirts of Modi’in, includes medium to large sized branches of many well known Israeli chains, including two large supermarkets, DIY, clothing and appliance stores, restaurants, a cinema and bowling alley.
Modi'in has several health centres providing all the basic services, family doctors, labs, pregnancy monitoring, x-ray facilities and the like. There are special clinics for women's health, infant care and a Terem out of hours emergency centre, with x-ray and ultra-sound facilities. All of Israel's four health funds are represented, and two, Maccabi and Klalit, have their own purpose built clinics. There are also many dentists and a couple of dental clinics.
The town has many young families and a large population of babies and school age children.There are several schools in Modi'in, from elementary to high school, catering to the secular and religious communities, as well as numerous day care and kindergarten options. Aside from the regular state secular and religious schools there are also independent streams, such as the Democratic school, the mixed secular-religious Yachad school and the more Haredi style Lema’an Achai. The Katedra offers adult education courses in a variety of subjects. Many synagogues, the Modi’in Hesder yeshiva and various private individuals and organizations offer a wide selection of shiurim and lectures and events of Jewish interest.
Other activities on offer for both kids and/or adults include a selection of arts and crafts classes, dance classes, gymnastics, music lessons, martial arts, junior football clubs, little league baseball, occasional concerts, sing-along evenings, choirs, lectures, Rotary club, WIZO, Emunah and more. The Diada centre at the Azrieli mall offers a variety of activities and classes for babies, young children and their parents.
While in theory Modi'in was thoroughly planned, like any new place it's had and still has some teething problems. At the moment there is a shortage of public buildings so that it's hard to plan public events, hold a large celebration or find new premises for the growing number of synagogues.
In addition to all the ancient ritual baths, Modi'in has several modern mikvaot, including near the current town centre, the Shimshoni neighbourhood and in the Kaiser (Avnei Hahoshen) neighbourhood.
This is still a quiet town, but there are plenty of things to do of an evening, very different to Modi'in's early days.
There are several gyms in town, both municipal and private, offering all kinds of work-out options, dance and aerobics classes and more. With much fanfare the municipal swimming finally opened in the summer of 2010, and there are also pools at the Holmes Place recreation centre and there are also some developments built around a neighbourhood pool.
During the summer and on holidays the municipality arranges special events including free concerts, activity afternoons for kids and craft and food fairs.
After many years of waiting and whining, Modi’in now has it’s own cinema, a modern complex in the Yishpro Shopping Centre on the outskirts of town. During the summer the municipality used to hold some public open air filmshows, which were fun, but it seems that now there is a cinema these will no longer be held. Shame really, cinema in the park was fun, even if the choice was limited…
Modi’in’s theatre is currently under construction and is due to open this year. While as yet there is no Matnas (community centre), one is planned, with proposals submitted for its construction either next to the theatre in Emek Dotan, or in the Shimshoni neighbourhood.
Modi'in's convenient location means that it's quite easy to go out for the evening to say a cinema in Petah Tikva, a shopping mall in Tel Aviv, the theatre in Jerusalem or an increasing number of restaurants in the greater Modi'in area.
Introduction |
Location |
Historical sites in the Modi'in region|
Modern Modi'in
Population and Employment |
Services and Amenities |
Modi'in's Neighbours |
Recreation Areas
Eating Out |
Modiin area birds
Copyright 2007 by Leiah Elbaum. Text and photographs on this page are by Leiah Elbaum. Last updated 25 July 2007.