Why we must learn about Shiloh: No Other Land Diane Bederman
https://dianebederman.com/why-we-must-learn-about-shiloh-no-other-land/
I must say that lately the Academy Awards have not failed me. I can count on them to include material attacking Israel and the Jews. This year, the Academy nominated a documentary: No Other Land, that accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing in Judea/Samaria. Seems history is superfluous to the members of the Academy. Obviously, no other documentary had a chance. Last year’s Awards were filled with people wearing Artists4Ceasefire red pins and pins for Gaza after Gazan barbarians invaded Israel during a ceasefire. Jonathan Glazer’s anti-Israel speech was also special. No one seems to care about Christians in Nigeria being murdered by Muslims, but I digress.
I returned to Israel late January, 2025 and was there for a brief time. But one should never go to Israel without learning about our history.
I was taken to a place called Shiloh. There I stood on ancient ground, looking up at modern-day Shiloh in the hills of Samaria. I consider myself a well-educated Jew but had no knowledge of this place in Samaria. Samaria – part of our legal, biblical and historical land. This land has been ours from the beginning of recorded history. Learning about Shiloh in Samaria, one of the most important places in Jewish history, helps us to fight the horrific Occupation Lie.
Archeological “findings in Shiloh confirm what we have long known, that the history of the Jewish people and the Land of Israel are intimately connected. We can trace our beginnings to Judea and Samaria through the Bible and modern archaeology just confirms it for us. Today, we have come back to live and develop the hilltops and biblical sites, including Shiloh, that formed the cradle of Jewish civilization.”
And this is so important, now, as Judea/Samaria is once again under attack from Muslims, claiming ownership of Israel’s historical, biblical and legal land.
During this time of war against the Jewish people, President Trump is promoting Israeli sovereignty over Judea/Samaria and no longer referring to the area as the West Bank. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said:
“We need to make sure that we don’t allow the language, the tradition, the history of Israel, to be weaponized by terms like ‘West Bank…President Trump has said this is going to be a very priority task for him to get this done. It’s the beginning of us shifting the language, and what we’re doing and making sure that we always protect the historical homeland of the Jews, and that is in Israel, and Israel includes Judea and Samaria.”
Judea and Samaria, known in the Bible as the heartland of ancient Israel, are deeply intertwined with Jewish history, dating back more than 3,000 years. This region is where the patriarch Abraham first settled after arriving in the Promised Land, where King David was anointed in Hebron, and where the Tabernacle, with the Ark of the Covenant, stood in Shiloh before the Temple was built in Jerusalem.
Shiloh was the religious and military capital of Israel during the times of the Judges. It was the place for the tabernacle, a temporary resting place from the time the Israelites entered the Promised Land until King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and built the First temple in 1000 BC where the tabernacle became a permanent structure.
Many pivotal biblical events took place here, including Jacob’s dream at Bethel and Joshua’s conquest of the land. When the Israelites settled the land during the days of Joshua, Shiloh was chosen as the site for the Tabernacle that had traversed the desert with them for 40 years. The temple stood in Shiloh, an ancient town in Samaria, for 369 years. There, the temporary boards that surrounded the structure were replaced with stone walls, giving the building a degree of permanence. The only other place that the House of God and the Holy Ark ever enjoyed this degree of stability was in Jerusalem.
The deep-rooted connection of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria is not just historical—it is foundational to the Jewish people’s identity, as seen in the countless biblical references to these lands, especially Shiloh, as the spiritual and political core of ancient Israel.
Shiloh also served as a national location. When the Israelites met to apportion the land for the seven remaining tribes, they gathered at Shiloh. It was to Shiloh that the Levites came to demand their assigned cities. The tribes of Gad and Reuben departed from Shiloh to their territory on the eastern side of the Jordan.
When we think of the three pilgrimages, we think of the Jews making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year: in spring for Passover, in summer for Shavuot, and in the fall for Sukkot. But the Jews made these pilgrimages before the Temple was built in Jerusalem. Shiloh was the place of pilgrimage for the Children of Israel from 1399 -1094 BCE. Three times a year the faithful sojourned in Shiloh to bring their festival offerings. The spiritual life of the Jewish people was centered in Shiloh for 369 years in the 11th and 12th centuries B.C.E
Shiloh is so important, that the ancient rabbis taught:
“There is nothing differentiating between [the importance] of Shiloh and Jerusalem but … that the sanctity of Shiloh was released [once the temple was no longer there], while the sacredness of Jerusalem is everlasting.”
In 1094 BCE a war broke out against the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant was taken from the Temple at Shiloh to Ebenezer where it is captured by the Philistines. That was a mistake!
The Ark was taken on a 7 month tour.
The triumphant Philistines carried the Ark of the Covenant from Ebenezer to Ashdod and set it in the temple beside Dagon. In the morning the image of Dagon had fallen down before the Ark. They set the god back on his perch and the next morning he had fallen again, his limbs and head broken off. Both hands lay on the threshold.
The people of Ashdod were afflicted with tumors. They brought the Ark to Gath, but tumors broke out upon them too. At Ekron there was deathly panic in the city because of plague–deadly bubonic plague.
After seven months of epidemic sickness and death the Philistines called on their priests and diviners for a plan to return the Ark. They were advised to send the Ark back with a guilt offering: 5 golden tumors and 5 golden mice, images of the things that ravaged the land. And they should give glory to the God of Israel, so that He would lift His hand from them. They should not harden their hearts as Pharaoh and the Egyptians hardened their hearts [hundreds of years before]. Finally the Philistines send the ark on an ox cart to Beth-Shemesh inside Jewish held territory.
This is Shiloh: past and present.
Indeed, the Talmud refers to the period that a house of G‑d stood in Shiloh as “a state of rest,” while the Temple in Jerusalem is called “an ancestral home.” Shiloh was a resting stop for 369 years on the path to the ultimate “chosen place of G‑d”.
There is a Holiness in this place. Rabbi Joshua ben Korcha (a leading second-century sage) cited the words of an elder:
“Once I went to Shiloh, where I smelled the aroma of incense [from the temple which had stood a thousand years earlier] emanating from its walls.”
The next time anyone questions the Jewish peoples’ rights to Judea/Samaria, remind them about Shiloh.
This is Shiloh. This is Our Land, past and present, in the land of Israel.
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