Shiloh at Forty 40, The Dream Keeps Growing

As I blogged earlier, we in Shiloh are still celebrating forty 40 years since the return of Jewish Life to one of the holiest cities for Jews.  As Yehoram Gaon mentioned during his performance, Shiloh as the most important city for the Jewish People predates Jerusalem.

The anniversary events from Thursday night until and including Shabbat are supposed to be the end of about a year of celebrations. It has been a very thrilling time. In all honesty, I feel very privileged  to have taken part and be part of such a miracle, the revival of Jewish Life in the Land of Israel. And  no doubt this will be considered an extremely important event in Jewish History, like Ezra and Nechemia.








On Shabbat there were two get-togethers during which now-adults who grew up in Shiloh, some who were born when their parents had already moved to Shiloh while others came as children, spoke about what they've made of their lives. A few live in Shiloh, raising third a third generation of Shiloh residents, while others live in cities, other yishuvim and some of our locally grown kids have even founded/established new communities far and wide in the Land of Israel.

It was interesting to hear how their childhoods in Shiloh have influenced their lives and decisions as adults. The community life and chesed, helping neighbors taught them a lot, and they have all integrated that into their present lives.

One thing mentioned was so deja vu for me. I remember at a Bnai Akiva youth movement ceremony about twenty-five 25 years ago, a neighbor of my generation told the youth that she grew up trying to emulate her parents, chalutzim, who built a new community in the early days of the State of Israel. For that reason, she and her husband were among those to establish Shiloh. On Shabbat, one of the children raised in Shiloh said that she felt it important to emulate her parents and establish a new community.

We consider ourselves and our younger generations as the continuation of the early Zionist pioneers. This isn't a matter of political Right or Left; it is just pure Zionism, the return of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel. 

I thank Gd for the privilege to live in such a holy and historic location, Shiloh. And even more than that I thank Gd for giving me life in the generation which has seen such great miracles as the 1967 Six Days War and the opportunity to help bring Jewish Life to Our Holy Land.