Local Shiloh Elections

Photo by Miriam Feyga Bunimovich

Last night we held our annual local Shiloh Elections for the new members of the "town council."  The Town Council aka Mazkirut has five members who each serve two year terms. There are annual elections so that two or three are elected annually, and there are the remaining two or three continuing. This way "half" of the members are new and half continue. Considering how many projects and issues they have to deal with, it is important that not all members of the Town Council are new to the "job." Also, you should know that that are all volunteers. My committee and I are volunteers, too.

Photo by Miriam Feyga Bunimovich

We need four people on the Election Committee, at least three during the voting and four during the counting. This year all of the members were experienced from previous elections, which made it so much easier.

One of my favorite things about being on the election committee is that I get to see lots of neighbors and good friends. I also have the opportunity to meet neighbors for the first time or to celebrate their first time voting. Shiloh is now a large community with hundreds of families of all ages and backgrounds. I'm now one of the old fogies, oldtimers. There are very few activities in which I can meet the youngsters, especially since most neighbors are not only younger than I am, but they don't live in my neighborhood.

Obviously I no longer have children in school, so I don't get to meet the teachers and other parents at meetings. There are also quite a few synagogues in different neighborhoods, and we no longer have periodic Shabbat classes for all the women. Anyway, even when we did, only a small percentage of the women attended.

Serving on the Election Committee is the only community activity I contribute to. I used to be involved with all sorts of committees when they were totally volunteer. Now there are paid coordinators to handle events and bringing new families and helping them. I don't volunteer to help those getting paid. But the Election Committee is a completely voluntary position. The office staff helps us, and the committee has a very short shelf life of just a few weeks each year. I am usually asked to serve on it, because I know the procedures and really enjoy it.

Gd willing, I'll be asked to be on the Election Committee next year, too.

PS I really don't care about the results, and sometimes none of the candidates I've voted for even won. That is what democracy is all about, accepting results. To me, following the laws and fair voting are most important.

Memories of A Miraculous Flight

Since Shabbat, I guess, because I first saw news of it after we did havdala, the news here has been full of the fantastic flying skills of an Israeli fighter pilot.WATCH: POLICE SECURE REMAINS OF ISRAELI JET THAT WAS SHOT DOWN.  http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/WATCH-Police-secure-remains-of-Israeli-jet-that-was-shot-down-542205

This brings me back to one of the most surprising experiences I've ever survived. It happened during the 1991 Gulf War, when as a reaction to US President Bush The Elder's threats to Iraq, Iraq bombed/attacked Israel. To this day, I can't figure out how we became the target instead of the United States of America. 

The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on 17 January 1991, continuing for five weeks. This was followed by a ground assault on 24 February. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased its advance and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on Saudi Arabia's border. Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel.

Those of us who were living in Israel at the time were frequently wakened in the middle of the night by sirens to alert us of possibly approaching enemy missiles. And we then would have to run into a shelter or whatever room in the house had been prepared as a "safe room."

The military experts insisted that there was a chance that chemical weapons would be launched at us and gave very complicated instructions on how to properly seal the room. I must admit that I didn't follow it exactly. We, davka, chose our bedroom because it has an ensuite bathroom. I wasn't frightened enough to equip the room with the recommended buckets. When a siren went off, the kids would just pile into our room, and we'd all sleep, somehow, together.

It didn't take long to discover that Shiloh wasn't a target. Suddenly Shiloh filled with friends and family of neighbors looking for a safe place to stay. Tel Aviv and its suburbs sustained damage, and miraculously there was nobody in Israel killed by a direct hit, if my memory is correct. But when one of those missiles hit a base with American soldiers, about two dozen of them were killed. That's how dangerous those missile potentially were.

My husband and I had been invited by Herut, Great Britain to be the honorary guests and speakers at their big weekend convention in Bournemouth, scheduled long before, about three weeks into the war. Since it was quiet in Shiloh, we didn't change our plans. Our oldest daughter scheduled vacation from her National Service in Kiryat Shemoneh to stay home while we were away, and we went off on an all expenses covered vacation to England for a few days.

During that war, only El Al was flying in and out of Israel. Ben Gurion Airport was smaller than it is today, and since there was virtually no incoming tourism to Israel and so few flights, things were pretty quiet. It really was a treat for us to get away, even though we didn't think that we were escaping a war.

The flight began on schedule with the usual instructions and buckling in. Then the plane began to move and then ascend into the sky. Suddenly it took a very sharp turn. Never before or after that did I experience such an ascent. Apparently the pilot had noticed a missile coming at us and took avoidance action saving us all, Baruch Hashem, thank The Good Lord.

At that time, pretty much all El Al pilots were trained in the Israeli Air Force as fighter pilots.

Drought Again? Punished?

A couple of months ago, the rabbis here in Israel called for special prayers for rain, since the rain has been very sparse. As you may know, rain here in the Holy Land is a good barometer of how well we Jews obey Gd. If we're not "on track," then there will be drought or terrible damaging floods.

After the special rain prayers had been added by many, there was more rain, so after a short time, the rabbis announced that the emergency was over. You can guess what happened next. That's right. The rain ceased. And even worse, it started getting summerlike hot. 

And soon after TU B'Shevat green leaves began to take over the almond trees, pushing out the flowers. It's a bit too early for that. I think we should have kept on praying for more rain. We need at least another month of rain at least three days a week. It's clear to me that Gd was disappointed in us. He wanted more prayers and a few other things...

My husband and I took advantage of free trees and planted two. Unless it rains well, we'll have to water them pretty frequently for the next few months.

About the drought. I have no doubt that every single time someone here states that we no longer have to save water and worry about rain, because we've solved the problem with our brilliant technology, Gd cancels a planned rainfall.

Even if we can produce the needed quantity of water, we still need rainwater. Not all water is the same. I can taste the differences between mineral and non-mineral water. The purified and desalinated water just aren't the same. They don't have the same minerals, for healthy people and good tasting fruit and vegetables.

Gd willing, we will be blessed with good sufficient rain in the right quantities and season.

Why Does it Take Murdered Jews for Government to Act?

For decades I've been asking this question. There has been a long-standing custom, even predating the establishment of the State of Israel, to establish and name communities and even cities after Jews murdered by Arab terrorists. The list of such places is very long, and I'm not going to try to list all of the communities/towns/cities that fit that criteria.

Just in the past few days, the community of Chavat Gilad, which is built on private Jewish land, was given approval, because of the sympathy the Israeli government felt for the residents after one was murdered by an Arab terrorist.

Shvut Rachel, which is just a few minutes' walk east from my house, was established on land allocated to Shiloh by a garin, group of people planning on living as a community together, that had plans to establish a new community east of Shiloh before Rachella Druk, HaYa"D, was murdered, but hadn't actually done it. After Rachella was murdered, they quickly moved caravans to the site which is now Shvut Rachel, and a yishuv was born. I've been wondering ever since about the possibility that if only they had established a new community beforehand, would Rachella be alive today?

Why do we only react to horrible tragedies? In recent decades this has become pretty much the only impetus for Jewish settlement. Forty years ago when Shiloh, Tekoa, Beit El, Efrat, Ariel and many other Jewish communities were established, there was a drive to fill the Biblical landscape with modern Jewish life.

We must return to the ideology of settlement in the Land of Israel because it is ours and our right, privilege and obligation to live here, not as a reaction to murder!

Interesting Posts, Blog Roundup

There's lots of great and interesting blog posts out there... Here are a few, and if you have some favorite blogs I've left out, please send links in the comments, thanks. Of course, please read, visit, comment and share.

Weird, wacky, wonderful (Hebrew) words: לְהִתגַעגֵעַ / To Miss

New Goat Yogurt, Report

But Letting Jews Live In Our Town Violates The Status Quo!

How the Palestinian Authority Teaches Math to Fourth-Graders

When the Truth is Treated as Hate Speech (Judean Rose)

The Sweet Taste of Gemara

UPDATE ON NATIV HA’AVOT BIBLICAL DESTRUCTION

Shiloh, Not an Ordinary Town, Reflections

Mishpatim: Permission for Doctors to Heal
Remember, you don't have to be a blogger to read blogs!

Shiloh, Not an Ordinary Town, Reflections

Reflecting on what living in Shiloh for close to forty 40 years has done for me...

Here I "pasted" a photo of the Shiloh Tabernacle Synagogue on the site at Tel Shiloh where it is believed that the Biblical Mishkan, Tabernacle stood for close to four hundred 400 years.

Although my husband and I had always thought of living in a part of the Land of Israel liberated in the 1967 Six Days War, during our first ten years in Israel, it didn't seem very realistic. It's not because we were frightened spoiled American wimps. The reason was much more practical and pragmatic. There were very few options that suited us.

My husband wasn't going to be a farmer; he had enough of that as a teenager on Moshav Amatzia when doing that part of Machon Lemadrechai Chutz La'aretz. We had tried the Old City of Jerusalem, and it wasn't for us at the time, 1970. We had signed up to be of the original residents of Kiryat Arba, but he felt the travel to Jerusalem for work would be too difficult.

In the late 1970s when the first non-agricultural communities began to emerge, again we looked, and in 1981 we discovered Shiloh. At that point we were expecting our fourth child, and my priorities were to find a community where the older girls would have friends their age and schooling wouldn't be too complicated. Not knowing much Bible, the significance of our new home was rather lost on me.

Gradually, I began to understand and appreciate and become connected to the Biblical narrative about Shiloh, Eli, Chana and Shmuel. And I especially appreciated that it was in Shiloh where the Jewish People evolved from its tribal anarchy into a united Kingdom, first under Saul and then David.

I found myself leading tours, frequently of Christian groups. At that time more Christians came to Tel Shiloh to tour and pray than Jews. That was one of the reasons I began to invite women to join me for prayers on Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the Jewish Month. In just over a week, we will celebrate Rosh Chodesh Adar, which heralds the time of joy and the holiday of Purim.

Women's Prayers at Shiloh Hakeduma, Tel Shiloh
Rosh Chodesh Adar 5778
Friday, February 16, 2018
1st of Adar, 5778, 8:30am
Hallel and Musaf for Rosh Chodesh
Tour of Tel Shiloh
Dvar Torah, Short Torah Lesson
Please come and invite family, friends and neighbors.

תפילת נשים ראש חודש אדר בשילה הקדומה, תל שילה

יום ו' 16-02-2018

א' אדר, תשע"ח 8:30

הלל ומוסף לראש חודש

יהיה דבר תורה קצר וסיור בתל

כדאי לבוא ולהזמין חברות, משפחה ושכנות

Please join us!

The religious and archeological site of Shiloh Hakeduma is open to the public six days a week, Sunday-Friday. For more information, email visit@telshilo.org.il or art@telshilo.org.il. See you Rosh Chodesh!

Our dovening is individual except that we sing Hallel out loud together. If you'd like more information, then please email me with "Rosh Chodesh" as subject, shilohmuse@gmail.com.

Another Murderous Arab Terror Attack

Enough!

'My husband will not return to the community he loved so much'

IDF soldiers, Border Police officers and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) are continuing their pursuit of Arab terrorist Abed al-Karim Adel Assi, who carried out Monday's stabbing attack at the entrance to the city of Ariel, in which Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal was murdered.
Ben Gal's funeral will be held on Tuesday morning at 10:45 a.m. in his community of Har Bracha.
Miriam Ben Gal, the widow of Rabbi Ben Gal, said on Monday night, "This afternoon I lost my husband on the land of Israel, he was murdered because he is Jewish. I am here in my home, in the home that he will not return to. Tomorrow we will bury him here at Har Bracha, in the community he loved and wanted so much to develop."

Stopping Arab terrorism isn't simple. It would help if the Left, the international media and all sorts of NGOs, countries, diplomats etc would stop excusing and rationalizing Arab terrorism. And every Arab terrorist must be either executed on the spot or given an automatic death penalty. They shouldn't get their "day in court," and the Israeli taxpayer shouldn't be supporting them in jail.

Shiloh Cemetery, among those buried here are victims of Arab terror

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.

Biblical Yitro and The Modern Baal Teshuva Movement

Just before Shabbat my neighbor called to ask me to prepare something for our weekly Shiloh Shabbat Shiur Nashim, Women's Torah Class. Within seconds my mind filled with the verse that opens the Torah Portion of the Week, Parshat Shavua, Yitro/Jethro, Exodus 18:

1Now Moses' father in law, Jethro, the chieftain of Midian, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, His people that the Lord had taken Israel out of Egypt.

אוַיִּשְׁמַ֞ע יִתְר֨וֹ כֹהֵ֤ן מִדְיָן֙ חֹתֵ֣ן משֶׁ֔ה אֵת֩ כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָשָׂ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ לְמשֶׁ֔ה וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל עַמּ֑וֹ כִּֽי־הוֹצִ֧יא יְהוָֹ֛ה אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מִמִּצְרָֽיִם:

It immediately connected me to the very unprecedented movement of ignorant and non-committed/observant Jews to Torah Judaism which began after the establishment of the State of Israel and became much larger after the totally miraculous, of Biblical proportions, 1967 Six Days War victory. And I also connected it to the relatively recent search quite a few Christians are making into the origins of Christianity and the theological questions and doubts this research is causing them.

As I've written here many times, I became acquainted with genuine Torah Judaism through my joining the Great Neck Synagogue Teen Club and attending Shabbatot with NCSY, National Conference of Synagogue Youth of the OU. This was in the middle of the 1960s before the Six Days War.

"Becoming religious" was the term. In those days, BT or Baal Teshuva were unknown phrases. My family was shocked and horrified at my decision to take on those mitzvot that family members had been rejecting and reducing for decades. Jewish families, and other ethnic groups, related so easily to the "Fiddler on the Roof" story of the strictly traditional Jewish family whose daughters all left the fold, in their own ways. The first half of the 20th century was a time when traditional religions were being replaced by ideologies such as socialism, communism and Liberalism.

The unprecedented and unexpected rebirth of the ancient Jewish Nation as the State of Israel in the very same Holy Land as the Bible, davka, after the devastating Nazi Holocaust was very much like what Yitro heard.  The Nazi Holocaust had caused the murder/death of six million 6,000,000 Jews, most of European Jewry, and seemed to herald the end of the Jewish People. But instead the very beginnings of Jewish rebirth began. It began getting much greater after the 1967 Six Days War, when the IDF Israeli Army, without any human or diplomatic ally, quickly defeated three well-equipped Arab armies, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Instead of Israel being pushed into the sea, Jordan retreated to the east of the Jordan River, Egypt to the Suez Canal and Syria to the other side of the Golan Heights. Finally, the State of Israel had reasonably defensible borders.

On the spiritual front, not only more and more Jews from all over the world accepted Torah and Mitzvot, but descendants of Jews who had completely left the Jewish world suddenly returned to their Jewish roots and the Land of Israel, and that included entire communities as far away as India and Ethiopia.

Everyone "...heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, His people..."

It is so clear and obvious to me that we are privileged to be living in miraculous times, like those in the Bible.

Jewish Book Carnival, Soon to be Here

Since the old Jewish blog carnivals, Havel Havelim, Kosher Cooking Carnival and JPIX are now history, I finally volunteered to host the upcoming edition of the Jewish Book Carnival. The Jewish Book Carnival is coordinated/publicized on the Association of Jewish Libraries site. Take a look at the recent January edition on Erika Dreifus's blog .

It is a monthly blog carnival which highlights reviews of Jewish books from all over the world. I've been participating in it for many years, but never before have I volunteered to host.

If you've reviewed a Jewish book, whether newly published or not, in the past month, you're invited to send me the link, preferably with a blurb about it which can be copied. The definition of "Jewish book" could mean religious, history, for children, fiction etcetera.

Please mail me your link & blurb with "Jewish Book Carnival" as the subject by February 10, 2018. My email is shilohmuse@gmail.com. I hope to have a nice variety of books and blogs participating. Thanks and Shabbat Shalom.

Real History: USA Wasn't Founded/Established by "Immigrants"

I hate to break to to you, but the truth is that the United States of America was founded/established by invaders and colonialists. They vanquished the native locals in every way possible. The surviving natives were then brainwashed by Christian missionaries. And to this day their descendants are second or third class citizens.

The immigrants came later, after the colonialists and adventurers. And don't forget the unfortunate black African slaves sold to the Europeans by the Arab muslims. The Europeans needed workers for the agriculture in the "new" land they had taken over.

Manifest Destiny was the rationale/green light for the new country to take over/populate all the land from sea to sea.

Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, expressed the philosophy that drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny held that the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.

And that's when immigrants became necessary.

Sorry, but what I wrote is the truth, and it doesn't sound all that pretty. And reading recent news, it's clear that Europeans still think themselves as "rulers" of the world. The Arab terrorist Abbas, whom they set up to run the PA, has gone davka to the European Union to ask their help in forcing Israel to kowtow to his terrorist demands.

The Jewish People have a much longer history here in the Holy Land, and we never completely left it. Now we are back where we belong. We've outsurvived our ancient enemies, and we'll be around long after the EU and the USA, Gd willing.