We are currently on a very special visit to the Israel, along with most of Shayna's immediate and extended family to celebrate a special family wedding and family reunion. The visit is being led by Shayna’s energetic grandmother who is having the Nachas and pleasure of seeing dozens of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren spend this special visit with her and with eachother. It is a truly special experience and we are so grateful that we are able to do this as an extended family. Over the next few days, I will share some of the highlights of things we have seen, learned and experienced.
Yesterday we took a trip to some of the heartland of Biblical Israel as we visited Tel Shilo, Shilo, Ofra, Maaleh Levona and Rechelim in the Shomron (Samaria) area of Israel.
We started out our morning by meeting our guide Kuti and driver Ohad who drove the bus so that we could all do this trip together in addition to one car of family that didn’t fit on the bus. . Our first destination was the town of Ofra in the Benjamin Region of Israel about 15 miles north of Jerusalem, 
which is where my brother-in-law Zalmy Plotke just spent many months as he guarded the highway when he served in the IDF. The post he guarded which is just off Route 60 was both to protect the people travelling on Highway 60 and also all the residents of Ofra. During the time that he served, there were no less than three car ramming attacks at the checkpoint or post that his unit was responsible for as well as dozens of stoning attacks. It was definitely a special moment when we passed by the Pillbox where Zalmy spent so many months and we all gave him a big cheer even though he is no longer there.
Ofra is a beautiful town that Shimon Peres gave a lot of support to when it was founded in 1974 and our guide shared some of the recent history of the town including how some of the residents were murdered by terrorists in the second intifada, and the challenges of the young couples who don’t have homes to move in to. We stopped into the main Synagogue in this town of 900 families and saw how there were Ashkenazi, Yemenite, and Sephardic Sanctuaries all within the same building, truly beautiful! On the way out of the town we saw a little wooden hut which is called Beit Pini which local residents keep fully stocked with all kinds of food, goodies and drinks for the many local soldiers that help protect their town.
After that we headed out to Tel Shilo which is about 25 miles north of Jerusalem and the site of where the Mishkan (Biblical Tabernacle) stood for 369 years prior to the building of the first Temple over 2800 years ago. 
Archeologists first discovered findings in 1922 and then more recently since 1967 Israeli Archeologists have been finding artifacts and historical evidence on a consistent basis. It is a very active archeological site and there were archeologists working and documenting findings while we were there. We stood in the place where the Tabernacle is presumed to have stood for hundreds of years when it was the central and focal spiritual point of the Jewish people and heard a lot about the biblical history of the place where some of the most important historical events took place, including the story of Samuel the Prophet and King Saul.
Due to the various ages in the group some of the people found the walk a little challenging, so at one point I was with Shayna’s great aunt and I flagged down a 4x4 for a ride and an archeologist happily agreed to give us a ride. Seconds later I wasn’t so sure about this as he flew down these narrow paths through orchards and greenhouses up and down hills on bumpy dirt roads with us flying around our seats. He saw our faces and quickly said to us with a smile, “don’t worry I was a tank driver in the army so no need to worry”.
At Tel Shilo they also have a phenomenal audio visual presentation as you sit on a hill overlooking the site of the archeological ruins and the story of the Mishkan and the Jewish presence at this place thousands of years comes to life.
My father in law ended up renting an ATV / Golf Cart and driving a whole bunch of people back to the entrance of the location. We walked back to the main site and as we did so we continued to see things that had been found at the location from the period of the Judges and earlier, including jewelry, big jugs and pitchers, and random pieces of pottery on the floor.
Above the archeological site high up on the hill sits the modern Israeli town of Shilo which has some 300 families and a Yeshiva and more. We went up there to have lunch and enjoy some refreshments and met a few other tour groups and local children.
From there we drove to the town of Rechelim which was founded in 1991 after several people were killed in terror attacks on the road at that site including one woman called Rachel Druk after whom the current town is named. Initially it was just women and children living in tents at the side of the road until eventually they were given permission to build houses and now about 100 families live there. Our guide Kuti was actually the first and only family living there in the beginning and lived out of a tent for a long time.
Since then the village has grown to a hundred families and those tents that served the founders along with that area have been turned into a beautiful winery called the Tura Winery. It is owned and run by Vered and Erez Ben Sa'adon who used to produce only a few thousand bottles a year 
from grapes that they grow in local vineyards and then due to BDS pressure, had to stop selling their wine to big companies. The curse turned into a blessing as they then started their own private label and are on track to produce 96,000 bottles this year. They have since won 40 different awards including in Paris, England and many other places and now export to many other places outside of Israel including to the East Coast of the USA.
We held a wine tasting and enjoyed the beautiful and delicious wines that they produce with their team of fifteen local workers and enjoyed a tour of their beautiful winery that once hosted the very first home of the Yishuv.
We then went to visit the village synagogue and heard more about the story of Rechelim and the local villages and then went down to a local pool that was recently built by youth from the village for local children to enjoy. The 
kids had a blast splashing in this pool that overlooks the hills of the Benjamin and Samaria Region while I spent time chatting and interviewing local mums and dads from area villages. I learned a lot more about the local topography, demographics, security dynamics and learned the lay of the land and which villages were where and why they were there. Each village has a story and reason behind it and I never ceased to be amazed at the recent history which is intermingled with the biblical history of the very same land.
One of the things that I was blown away by over the course of the day, was the sheer bravery of these young families who have to contend with a very challenging security dynamic, yet somehow are determined to be positive and good people and build up flourishing villages bustling with children and bursting with life. At the same time the local people expressed their tremendous appreciation for us making the time and effort to visit their towns and villages and show them our support.
We then went to visit a small town called Maaleh Levonah which has a 
population of about 700 people and sits hundreds of meters above sea level and is named after a biblical village that used to sit in the same ridge thousands of years ago. At the top of the village there are three lookouts which offer stunning views, I only got to go to one of them as we realized that someone in our group had left a phone back at Rechelim. Nevertheless the view at the lookout was well worth the visit, as we could see mountains and valleys galore and see all the way to the high risers of Tel Aviv which is over 40 miles away, helping us understand the strategic importance of such a village to the security of Israel.
From there we split up, and I went with my brother in law back to the pool at Rechelim and found the phone right where it had been left. We then picked up two hitchhikers and chatted with them about life as teens living in these areas and heard about some of the dynamics that they live and deal with.
We stopped at a local Gas Station where we were going to meet the rest of the group and met a few more Jewish locals and chatted with them about life. One of them who is originally from New Jersey helps run a webpage that is dedicated to promoting the thousands of businesses in the area that have been targeted by the BDS movement. Here too, the people were in awe and appreciative for our visit to the area and we were in awe at their commitment and dedication to living in this beautiful yet challenging part of Israel. At the Gas Station we also met a Palestinian family who had been pulled over and it turns out they were driving a stolen car. They were not arrested but the car was quickly towed away by Israeli police and they were then picked up by relatives or friends.
We had a hard time finding the opener for filling up the gas in the car that with the bus, but eventually with the help of the hitchhikers we succeeded in opening it and filling it up.
I then joined the bus and we all headed back to Jerusalem soaking in the richness and depth of this vast day of learning and discovery in the heartland of the Bible which has both ancient and modern history intertwined and interwoven, with the history of the past forming the narrative of present. We had seen nature, beautiful vistas, amazing vegetation like figs, almonds, wheat, grapes and olives, and seen dozens of valleys and mountains, many beautiful towns and perhaps most importantly chatted with and been inspired by dozens of very special people.
If you would like to see some pictures click here