Not Afraid of Change, Vote עמ- Emek Shiloh Local Council

Rafi Fisher עמ- Emek Shiloh leader

Despite the modest plans, way back when, for Shiloh's growth and development, Shiloh and the surrounding area has been miraculously fruitful. Today there are close to one thousand 1,000 Jewish families in Shiloh and various yishuvim (towns) and hilltop from Givat Harel, just west of Highway 60, and going east until the Alon Road. This doesn't include Eli to the north, Maale Levona to the west or Amichai, which at present as a different government status.

Fertile vineyards in the area of  עמ- Emek Shiloh

For the second time, there will be elections for a "local council," which would have the authority to plan joint projects and even eventually make changes in how all of the various communities are governed. This council will consist of nine 9 members, and there are two parties competing.

I'm supporting עמ- Emek Shiloh, because its leadership sees the future of our region as a vibrant growing municipality, in which the existing communities need to join as one governing unit to the betterment of all. We shouldn't be competing, otherwise we will just end up strangling, slowing down or limiting our growth.

The outgoing council was dominated by people who wanted to preserve the status quo, keep the various communities separately governed. And those same people are hoping to continue; they are running on a competing list.

Last night, the עמ- Emek Shiloh candidates met with some of the English-speaking community in Shiloh to explain the situation and their plans.

It's time for change. We need to unite for a better future, Gd willing.

Vote עמ- Emek Shiloh!

Who Should Replace Avi Roeh as Head of Binyamin Regional Council?

There will be local elections all over Israel next week. That includes the Regional Council of Binyamin (Benjamin,) the local council of Gush Shiloh Bloc and our representative to the Binyamin Forum (parliament.) Yesterday I wrote that I'm supporting עמק שילה- ועד מקומי Emek Shiloh-Vaad Mikomi, vote עמ list for our local council,  and today I'll write about the top position.

Last night I attended a chug bayit, parlour meeting to meet, listen to and ask questions of Shiloh Adler, one of the two candidates hoping to replace Avi Roeh as head of the Binyamin Regional Council.  The meeting was very well attended, which doesn't show up well in the photos because of where I sat. Men and lots of women were there, too. Most were of the younger generation with children in school and still having babies. There were a few around my age. I was the oldest, but not the most veteran in Shiloh.

By process of elimination, I had quickly decided that I'd vote for Shiloh Adler even before hearing anything about him, but I needed to make sure I wasn't making a big mistake. The reason why I didn't want to vote for Yisrael Ganz is simply because I'm disgusted at how things are being done by the Binyamin Regional Council, and Ganz is one of the present hierarchy there.

Our public transportation is awful. Buses are unreliable, schedule problematic, routes, not enough or varied etc. A couple of years ago, the Binyamin Regional Council replaced very good wooden bus stops (shelters) that had windows  and replaced them with badly designed and constructed metal ones that neither protect us from the elements nor allow us to see an approaching bus nor let the driver see that we're waiting inside. And then right before elections, there was extra money, so they decided (like many other municipalities) to give us new sidewalks which almost cancelled our bus service. That's because the so-called planners never bothered to check government regulations for road width. They also destroyed very safe and sturdy safety rails on the staired paths and replaced them with cheap, thin rickety ones, which not only are already falling apart, but they are falling out of their sockets. While working on these "upgrades," as the Mateh Binyamin, the regional council calls them, they broke my main water pipe and damaged the garden wall. And there are other problems. So, for me, it was an easy and obvious choice not to vote for anyone connected to the present administration.

But I'm too much a political pundit and realist to blindly vote for Shiloh Adler. I had to meet him. That's why I went to the meeting last night. A few English-speaker friends had asked me to send a report about the meeting. The following is what I wrote/emailed, typos and all:

There was a nice group at the meeting, mostly young people from the middle and down the hill.
Adler came well prepared, with a staff/crew of impressive people, who also spoke.
What bothers him is that nobody ever says they're from Binyamin. After all these years, and despite the large size and population, it never has made people feel its presence. That bothers him, and he'd like to fix it.
He asked for questions. I had to reduce what I had planned to the minimum, so I mentioned public transportation and the awful roads. I stressed that we can't get to most of the Binyamin yishuvim easily, even Kochav Hashachar which is close as the crow flies. And Places like Talmon are near impossible.
I also complained that the moetza put all the offices in Psagot, which is out of the way and now in Sha'ar Binyamin. I mentioned that I consider Shiloh as having moved to Petach Tikvah and in my combination bus/tremp, I can get to Tzomet Yarkon more quickly than Jerusalem.
Adler seems to understand a lot about the financial potential, business etc.
Later he replied to my question. He has researched (his staff no doubt) the public transportation in other areas and agrees that ours is the worst.
I came up with someone who says that Ganz says many of the same things, but Ganz didn't come with a strong backup team. And although he has been with the moetza for a number of years, he never really succeeded in fixing anything and moving stuff.
I saw at least one person from the Emek Shiloh list. Moshe Batish was there, too, and he's running for the Moetza council seat. 

Before previous moetza (regional council) elections, I had gone to a number of "meet the candidate" events, and I must say that Adler's was the best presentation I've ever experienced. Not only did he take notes as we spoke, he tried to answer some of our questions after all questions had been asked, including mine. Then when he rushed off to his next meeting of the evening, his crew (cabinet) stayed to further answer our questions. I was impressed that one even buttonholed me for more information.

I have no doubt that we need new leadership in Mateh Binyamin. The only one offering that is Shiloh Adler. The icing on the cake is that he seems very competent and has surrounded himself with a good team.

Hiking Through Emek Shiloh Valley עמק שילה

Last Friday at high noon, a multigenerational group from גוש שילה Gush Shiloh Bloc took off together under the guidance of Land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael guide extraordinaire Zeev Ehrlich. 

A treasure trove of little-known history and Biblical geography, Ehrlich told us about the unusual nature of the massive Shiloh Valley and its place in Jewish History.

Apparently today's growth of Jewish communities around Emek Shiloh Valley עמק שילה isn't new. Over the millenia, even a few hundred years ago, there were also Jewish towns surrounding the valley and  taking advantage of the fertile land for agriculture.

Zeev Ehrlich

The tour was sponsored by the עמק שילה- ועד מקומי Emek Shiloh-Vaad Mikomi, vote עמ list for the Local Council. In recent years the גוש שילה Gush Shiloh Bloc has grown enormously in every way. It's situated between just west of Highway 60 and goes all the way eastwards to the Alon Road. There's potential for much more growth, since most of the Land is government owned. That's why the new community of Amichai, designated especially for the former Amona families/residents, is located here. 

I'm supporting this list, because I feel that it has the most vision for growth and unity. In order to maximize our potential the numerous existing communities must give up some independence and work together. This is a process that has played out all over Israel. Many of today's major and successful cities also began as small independent communities. No doubt that the גוש שילה Gush Shiloh Bloc will remain a combination of rural and suburban, but too much money and manpower are now being wasted.

The Biblical stories centered in גוש שילה Gush Shiloh Bloc are well-known, and it was very exciting to learn of Jewish life here during other times, even long after the Destruction of the Second Holy Temple. As you can see from the pictures, there's plenty of empty Land for Jewish Life here in גוש שילה Gush Shiloh Bloc.

Life in Judea-Samaria No Longer Frontier Pioneering

In 1981, when we first moved to Shiloh the heart of Biblical Israel, Judea-Samaria, we were certainly pioneers. And you needed that old-fashioned frontier spirit to survive and enjoy life.  We didn't live in tents, but the prefabricated cement home reached by a dirt path wasn't easy suburban living.

There were just a few dozen other families here in Shiloh. Electricity was provided by a tempermental generator; water was trucked in daily at best. And public transportation didn't reach our neighborhood. Actually, most of the buses only stopped on the main road, a few miles from us. And only after a few months was there a telephone, just one for the entire neighborhood.

It was a twenty minute drive to the nearest communities, and they were also struggling with the essentials of minimalist conditions. Forget about modern life.

During those early years, we were frequently visited by journalists who took for granted that we were just a temporary presence in the area, soon to be removed. Nobody imagined that in forty years Shiloh would be the center of a large bloq of communities, one larger and the rest smaller, stretching west, north and east all the way to the Alon Road and Jordan Valley.

Today's Shiloh is more suburban than rural, and we're not at all isolated. The city of Ariel is just ten minutes  away and has a university, cultural center, government offices and a mall, among other things. Here in Shiloh there are two supermarkets, an enormous hardware/building supply store, clothing store, two clinics, two bus lines, schools and more.

The entire development of Jewish return to our Biblical Homeland, Judea and Samaria, is miraculous and I'd even say Messianic, as in the Jewish prophecies. Only those whose vision is distorted by Leftist ideology can cay that we're marginal or temporary.

It's hard to say when it all changed, but changed it has. In the more veteran towns like Ofra, Shiloh, Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Kedumim and more, there are many families raising second and third generations of children.  Yes, to put it simply, we are here to stay, Baruch Hashem, thank Gd.

Gush Shiloh, Grape-Growing Center of World

Yesterday my friends and I took a short "road trip" around the communities, hills and valleys surrounding Shiloh. We're all living here well over thirty years and remember when Shiloh was considered rather isolated. Two of us are from the days when Shiloh was the only Jewish community between Ariel, Tapuach and Beit El, Ofra. Today, not only are there lots of small and medium communities in the area, but Eli is even larger than the more veteran Shiloh.

For us the big surprise was the amount of agriculture, more specifically the massive vineyards and groves of olive trees. It's easy to see that these are commercially cultivated. Everything is neat and carefully pruned, unlike those growing in my garden.

We ended our little trip by picnicking near the Givat Harel Vineyards, a "pot luck" lunch, which we shared.

Here are some photos:

It bothered us that the cluster of grapes wasn't shaped accurately.  

Most of the photos are from east of Shiloh. We didn't go all the way to the Allon Road. Givat Harel is northwest of Shiloh. It's clear that Gd created this Land to grow grapes and olives.

Houses on the Road to Amichai

Amichai!

Yesterday on my way home to Shiloh, I could see the caravillot, temporary homes on their way to Amichai, the new town just southeast of Shiloh.

https://a7.org/media/a7radio/misc/video/18/feb/AMICHAY21-2.mp4

Priority for living there is being given to those who had been thrown out of Amona, which was on a hill right next to Ofra. The residents of Amona had undergone two very traumatic destructions. One was partial, and the most recent totally leveled their peaceful community, making all residents homeless. As compensation, the government decided to build a new community for them, Amichai.

Amichai is southeast of Shiloh, south of Shvut Rachel, near a number of small hilltop farming communities and has been allocated land for growth. It is a beautiful area. It is a short distance from the Alon Road which goes north-south in the Jordan Valley. The children who had lived in Amona and whose parents agreed to move to Amichai have been bussed to the Shiloh elementary schools this year.

We, in Gush Shiloh, the bloc of communities surrounding Shiloh, are very excited about the establishment of the new town, although we are very upset that Amona had been destroyed. Why does it always take death, murder and destruction to galvanize the Israeli government to build new towns and communities?

Renewed Shiloh at 40

Even the most visionary of us early/veteran residents constantly repeat that Shiloh has grown and developed so much more and become larger than we could ever have envisioned.

Instead of one small, struggling isolated community which we had moved to in time for the opening of the school in 1981 with our four children, there is now an amazing amount of Jewish towns of all sizes. And there almost as many schools as there had been children on that first day, September 1, 1981.

Shiloh isn't even the largest community in Gush Shiloh, the Shiloh Bloc. Eli is the largest and most ambitious. But the heart of the bloc is here in Shiloh, at Shiloh Hakeduma, Tel Shiloh, one of the holiest places in the world.

I look around and I'm awed by the signs of life on the hills, north, south, east and west of us. And the other night at the big celebration of forty years, I truly enjoyed the fact that I barely know my neighbors. That's not because I don't participate in all sorts of activities. It's because there are so many new families, especially young ones, and our neighborhoods are spread out.

Many of those raised in Shiloh are returning home to raise their own children here. And others, who want more of the pioneering experience of their youth, are moving to the smaller communities nearby.

What's most amazing is that Shiloh, which had once been described as "alone in the middle of no place," is now closer to Petach Tikva than Jerusalem. We're also ten minutes from the Jordan Valley. By car you can get to most of Israel in barely an hour.

Shiloh is the real Merkaz Ha'Aretz, Center of the Land of Israel.

A great miracle has happened here for sure.