Levine adds that Israelis from more affluent areas in Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba have also been moving to Buchman.

The price of a house in Buchman, says Shumacher, is comparable to that of a house in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood. "A nice house in Buchman can go up to as much as $700,000."

Real-estate agents have been zealously marketing Modi'in to various English-speaking aliya movements such as Nefesh B'Nefesh and Tehila. Shumacher himself was about to leave for Toronto at the time of this interview, having had previous success with olim from Canada. "I met with a couple from Toronto a few days ago. They came for just a week, and now they're making us an offer."

Levine has been promoting Buchman in the US "everywhere except in Borough Park." Her focus has been on such upper- and upper middle-class communities as Teaneck and Englewood in New Jersey and the Five Towns on Long Island.

Buchman is even more popular among young couples from England than it is in the US, says Levine, because "British people are less provincial than Americans."

British olim tend to be modern Bnei Akiva in their religious outlook, and prefer to live in a mixed society that is centrally located, she explains, rather than in a homogeneous community like Beit Shemesh.

Dimri Towers, one of Modi'in's most noticeable real-estate developments, were largely bought out by South African olim when its apartments were still relatively cheap. The towers, massive interconnected structures meant to resemble Roman aqueducts that were designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie, have been criticized recently by the city council as an eyesore, marring Modi'in's landscape.

If they had been built after the city center was more developed, Weinreb says, they would have blended better into the landscape because of the other buildings surrounding them.

AN INCREASE in new olim to Modi'in means an increase in the number of religious people in a city that was initially planned as a secular one. When Modi'in was just getting started, anti-religious sentiments were already in place in the form of a political party called Ir Hofshit (Free City).

There was a vocal segment of the population that passionately decried allowing religious elements into Modi'in, with anti-religious hostilities peaking in 1998. But Ir Hofshit lost the subsequent city council election, and most residents of Modi'in deny that such hostility ever existed.

"When we first came here there was a very anti-religious atmosphere. People were arguing that religious people would convert secular kids," recalls Leiah Elbaum, who has resided in Modi'in for eight years. Elbaum and her husband had moved from Modi'in to Jerusalem.

"When we first moved here... a journalist came up to us and said 'You're religious, don't you know this is a secular town? Why do you want to live here?' We told her that we have always lived in a mixed neighborhood, but she couldn't believe it."

But according to Elbaum, the animosity has faded over the years, though she says that the Modi'in press has occasionally tried to fan the flames of anti-religious sentiment. "We saw the hostility in the papers, but not in daily life," she says.

It may help that "religious" in Modi'in terms tends to translate into modern Orthodox rather than haredi. Therefore the religious population blends more easily into a secular environment and makes no demands that interfere with secular life.

Nechama Parker, who lives in Giva C - a neighborhood that is becoming popular among religious people - maintains that Modi'in is a tolerant community. She and her husband Martin represent a "mixed marriage" - she is Israeli and secular, he is Canadian and religious. The couple send their children to Yachad, a school where religious and secular children learn together.

"No one was born here, so everyone is open to accepting new people, very open to new things," explains Parker. She dismisses the fear of religious people taking over because "anyone who comes [to Modi'in] knows it's not haredi... It's important that it be diverse."

"According to Deputy Mayor Alex Weinreb, at least 9,500 people move to Modi'in each year. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

Modi'in's development has been planned in two phases. Phase 1 is an expansion that will accommodate 120,000 people, nearly doubling the number of people who already live in Modi'in. Phase 2, which is a more long-term goal, is a plan to expand the city to hold 250,000.

There has recently been some controversy in the city council as to whether or not the time is right to initiate Phase 2. Most residents feel that the flaws that have emerged in the planning of Modi'in should be corrected before the city is expanded further.

School overcrowding, for example, is a serious issue that needs to be resolved, as the city's population has been increasing at a much faster rate than its schools are equipped to handle. According to Weinreb, the government hasn't been providing Modi'in with enough funds for the building of schools and kindergartens.

"Every year, it's the same story - more people are moving in, so there are not enough classes for next year," says Elbaum.

A lack of municipal funds has also meant an insufficient number of synagogues. "After a year of walking to synagogue for 20 minutes each way, I decided I'd had enough," says Doron Bodner, who initiated the first minyan in the mainly secular neighborhood of Tzipor.

But the problem has not yet been corrected. The Construction and Housing Ministry, which is obligated by law to provide a synagogue for every neighborhood, has yet to follow through. As a result, residents have developed their own solutions. "We started a synagogue in one of the schools, but every year we have to move to a different room, or sometimes there isn't one," says Bodner. "It makes it a little hard for a religious community to develop."

Residents are also concerned with the preservation of the city's archeological treasures, many of which have already been destroyed in the course of construction. Weinreb, who is writing a master's thesis on Modi'in's archeology, waxes enthusiastic when asked about the issue, and is eager to turn Modi'in into a tourist attraction through the preservation and development of its historic sites. According to Weinreb, numerous archeological sites have been uncovered in Modi'in, including a 30-dunam village from the Maccabean period.

There are also disputes as to how to expand. Environmentalists want to build up the existing city without expanding into the surrounding green areas. Others, who feel that one of Modi'in's main attractions is its greenery and parks, disagree.

Still, when it comes down to it, in spite of the problems, most Modi'in residents have mainly positive things to say about living in the city. Neuvirth sums it up when he says, "I'm a satisfied customer - and you can write that down."