ABSTRACT
Kiryat Eliahu is an unprepossessing place in the opinion of many of those Israelis who have heard of it, or ever visited it. It was established just at the end of World War II and has no significant historical associations, no outstanding physical charm, no social or cultural features not shared by any city of similar size in Israel. The people of Kiryat Eliahu do not suffer from the problems of those in Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Yeruham, or Mitspe Ramon. But Kiryat Eliahu, for all its ordinariness, is a remaikable example of the “miracle” that Israel represents for the Jewish people. Although a private company built a few houses there in 1939, and the British established a military camp on the site during the war, the real beginnings of Kiiyat Eliahu dated from the first days of independence in 1948 when the immigrants began arriving in the new state.
