"We're Here To Stay!" says Moriya Shapira of the Red Heifers in Shiloh

Shilo, West Bank — Moriya Shapira vividly recalls the day when her father, one of the founders of this West Bank settlement 28 miles north of Jerusalem, pulled her out of bed and brought her to see the large ceramic jars archaeologists had discovered in ancient Shilo, the biblical pilgrimage site where, archaeologists and historians believe, the biblical Mishkan (Tabernacle) stood for 369 years.

“It was 35 years ago and I was 4 years old. My father wanted me to see the jars our forefathers used 3,000 years ago to store the items people brought to the Mishkan,” the Israelites’ portable Tabernacle, said Shapira, now a mother of five, as she stood before a display case built at ancient Shilo containing some of the thousands of artifacts discovered there.

Decades of excavations have uncovered mikvahs, Jewish burial sites dating to the Second Temple Period, Jewish coins, storehouses from the time of the Mishkan and what was likely the site of the Tabernacle itself.

Excavations have also revealed the site’s Caananite culture, three ancient churches, a mosque as well as magnificent mosaic floors. One bore the Greek inscription “village of Shiloh.”

Shapira, now a tour guide who heads ancient Shilo’s visitors’ center, said the site, which affords a view of the modern Shilo’s homes, is living proof that Jews have ancient ties to the Land of Israel.

“When you come here and you see these Jewish roots with your own eyes, there can be no question that we lived here and belonged here,” Shapira said. “How can anyone question this?”

Last week, the Obama administration did just that when it issued an especially scathing condemnation of Israel’s plans — not yet fully approved — to build 98 apartments in the Shilo settlement bloc, part of a more ambitious plan to build 300 housing units.

The administration said the plans, which the anti-settlement NGO Peace Now publicized, go against a pledge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly made not to build new settlements.

Planning to build a new settlement, the administration implied, would demonstrate profound ingratitude to the Obama government so soon after it agreed to provide Israel with $38 billion in military aid over the next decade.

Moriya Shapira, a member of modern Shilo’s founding families, heads the visitors’ center at ancient Shilo, believed to be the place where the Mishkan (Tabernacle) once stood.

“The Tanakh [Bible] was like our GPS,” she said with a smile. “Sometimes I imagine [the biblical] Hannah standing here and praying or Shmuel in the Mishkan.”

To Shapira, the return of Jews to “Judea and Samaria” after two millennia is a modern-day miracle. “We came back after 2,000 years of yearning. We’re here to stay,” she said.

https://www.jta.org/2016/10/13/ny/here-to-stay-in-shilo