In fact, more than half the village's 4,000 residents live most of the year in Philadelphia or New Jersey, and return here only in the summer.
With money from America, Mukhmas' residents are doing well, though they worry that the lure of an easier life in the West and a recent Israeli policy that restricts the stay of Palestinian Americans in the West Bank will combine to empty the town.
Last year, Israeli border authorities began refusing entry to Palestinian Americans, closing a loophole that allowed them to stay for years if they renewed their tourist visas every three months.
Some Palestinian Americans outside the West Bank have not been able to get back in. Others face an impossible choice: If Mukhmas residents leave to renew their visas, they may not be allowed to return. Yet if they stay, their visas will expire and they will be illegal immigrants.
Between the pull of Philadelphia and the push from the Israelis, Mukhmas, a village thousands of years old, sometimes seems destined to become an affluent ghost town.
The Phila. connection
For decades, the door between Philadelphia and Mukhmas has been a revolving one. Mukhmas' young and ambitious have left to find work, but they have returned each summer to look for a mate or immerse their children in Palestinian culture. Sometimes they stayed a few years to tame troubled teens with simple village life. Eventually, they made their final journey home to retire in Mukhmas' rocky hills.
Once upon a time, no one here had ever heard of Philadelphia.
Families lived in one-room homes with stables below. They grew olives and raised sheep and goats. The village had a small boys-only school, no medical care, no electricity, and not a single proper road.
In 1908 Mohamed Ahmad set out to find opportunity, and he landed in Philadelphia. That changed the town's fortunes.
