God, Israel & Shiloh
Returning to the Land
By David Rubin
Mazo Publishers
Jerusalem, 2007
185 pages
Reviewed by Ann Johnson
In the winter of 2001, David Rubin and his three-year-old son Reuven
("Ruby") were driving to their home in Shiloh, the route taken by Abraham
and Sarah on their journey from Haran down into Egypt, when a hail of bullets
suddenly sprayed into the car.
The car radio went dead, as did the car's engine. I saw the sparks from what appeared to be four bullets zooming past me, as the car was slowly coasting down the hill. The bullets had tracers on them so they appeared as four orange sparks whizzing past, perhaps two inches in front of my eyes. Then I felt a terrible pain, like a concentrated ton of bricks crashing into my left leg, and the blood started gushing out fiercely, like an open fire hydrant.
Remembering his toddler strapped into his car seat, Rubin frantically checked
to see if he was hurt. Eyes and mouth wide open, Ruby appeared to be okay but
possibly in a state of shock. It was only later that the medics discovered a
bullet in the base of Ruby's brain.
I quickly tried to start the ignition, but with no success....the terrorists were still shooting... Finally, on the fourth or fifth attempt, the car started, and it started smoothly, as if there had never been a problem.
An obvious miracle
Rubin raced toward Ofrah, a nearby Jewish community, well aware that he could
collapse from loss of blood at any moment. Swinging into the security guard
station, he managed to lower the window and shout, "Ambulance!" One of the
gas station attendants nearby ran to the car shouting, "I'm a medic!" He ripped
off David's shirt and proceeded to affix a tourniquet to his leg. Yet another
miracle.
Rubin tells of his and Ruby's traumatic experience in his powerful new book entitled God, Israel, & Shiloh: Returning to the Land. (Rubin and his son since both fully recovered.)
But the attack is only one part of a larger story that Rubin tells in this important book: the story of Shiloh. Written from the perspective of a pioneer, the book details Rubin's love affair with Shiloh, the ancient city that was home to the Tabernacle for 369 years.
When Rubin first moved to Shiloh in 1992, he lived in caravan-trailer in the
"the heart of the Land of God." Later, with his new wife, Lisa, he gave himself
over to community work, becoming the volunteer mayor of the city.
Rubin spends much time in his book tracing Biblical and contemporary Jewish
history in order to convey the significance and the sacredness of Shiloh.
Chronicling the return of the Jews to their ancestral land, Rubin recalls
the victory of the Six Day War.
While the United Nations condemned Israel.. many Bible-literate people
from around the world were ecstatic, as the victory was rightly viewed as
at least a partial fulfillment of the prophetic vision of the return of Israel
to its Biblical heartland.
Rubin describes how the modern Jewish city of Shiloh was established. In January
1978, eight courageous religious families founded the new city, enduring enormous
hardships while living on the isolated, barren hills.
Relying upon a noisy generator
for electricity, the early settlers lived
in tents and caravans without running water. Despite their difficulties, they
felt privileged to be returning to the Biblical heartland. "Shiloh," Rubin
writes, "had been waiting for its children to return home for close to two
thousand years." Today, nearly a thousand families live among the towns and
numerous hilltop neighborhoods that comprise the Shiloh bloc.
Rubin's greatest pleasure is simply walking up and down the ancient boulders
in Shiloh and exploring the hills and the city's past with his children and
visitors.
"In the Talmud." writes Rubin, "there are three things that are acquired through
great suffering: Torah, the Land of Israel and the World to Come."
To Rubin and the other courageous pioneers like him, some things are worth suffering for.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Johnson is the author of A United Jerusalem: the Story of Ateret Cohanim
(New Jersey, 1992) She has written several articles for Jewish Action.
