Shiloh Views and Memories, Celebrating 40 Years

I always enjoy being able to walk around my hometown of Shiloh. Views are always changing. Sometimes I try to reconcile the new with the tiny community of a few dozen families we moved to at the end of summer, 1981. Even in our wildest and most unrealistic dreams none of us could envision the large, vibrant, stunning and growing town that exists today.

Shiloh has grown and prospered despite our modest plans and dreams.

Absolutely nothing in these pictures existed or was even planned when we first came to Shiloh. It's clear that Shiloh's great growth and change from "the middle of no place" to being the center of a "settlement bloc" with easy travel to the Jordan Valley, Yarkon Junction, Rosh Ha'ayin-Petach Tikva, Ariel University and Jerusalem is miraculous. During the years I was on our "absorption committee," it became very clear that publicity/recruitment principles didn't hold with us. Something mystical was really controlling the traffic of new families to Shiloh. 

Ironically, or maybe more accurately, siyate d'Shmaya, the Hand of Gd has made the Gush Shiloh area the largest and most popular in Eastern Binyamin, rather than the two communities which had been favored by our regional council Mateh Binyamin in the 1980s.

During Biblical times, Shiloh had been the Jewish Capital City. I don't expect Shiloh to replace Jerusalem in any way, but I see our role in modern Israel growing, just like the gorgeous flowers pictured here.