Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund

My apologies to those of you who have wondered why I haven’t been blogging recently. I’ve been writing my second book and most of my creative energies and much of my time have been going into that!

Lots happening in Israel as always. As we’ve discussed previously, the Israeli government, under heavy pressure from the Obama Administration, agreed to a misguided temporary (ten month) freeze on Jewish building of homes in Samaria. Thank G-d, it hasn’t yet  affected our children’s projects. In fact, we are continuing to have a great impact on the ground in the lives of the children, and the demand for our services is growing all the time. Our successful projects, which are supported by our friends around the world, are actually making the demand for a rapid end to the building freeze even greater!

With Blessings and Shalom from Shiloh,

David Rubin

I often try to find the delicate balance between my current events commentaries and my reports about the latest  happenings with our children’s projects. As the saying goes, there is never a dull moment in Israel. Yet, despite the fact that people enjoy reading my news updates,  sometimes my urge to comment on the latest news reports takes over. It often takes a gentle reminder from a friend/supporter to blog about what’s new with the children (so thank you Michelle!).  Feedback from the readers, whether through comments on-site or off, is always welcome.

The Music Therapy program is literally bursting at the seams! While I would be very happy if the need for this program would disappear, the recent increase in terror shooting attacks on the roads, as seen in the recent murder of a kindergarten teacher, a father of seven children, has only increased the demand for our services, and the therapy with music program is one of the most popular. We have close to one hundred children being treated in that program alone in the course of a month, which has necessitated the evacuation of a storage room to enable the creation of a second Music Therapy Room in the Center, so we can have simultaneous music treatments in two separate rooms designed specifically for music. This of course will increase our equipment and infrastructure needs, as we will need to duplicate most of the instruments, as well as acoustically insulating the rooms so they won’t disturb the treatments in the other rooms. This will require the partnership of our beloved friends and supporters and, as always, a little help from above, but we will get there!

Here in Israel, we celebrate our New Year on Rosh HaShanah, which usually falls in September. Obviously, most of the Western world celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1st, and therefore, I want to wish all of you a happy, a healthy, and a spiritually uplifting year!

David Rubin

Shiloh, Israel

Two attacks in one week. Last week, resident Yair Hirsch, a manager at the local olive oil factory and a father of several young children, was wounded in a terror shooting ambush while driving on one of the internal roads on the eastern side of Shiloh. Just one week later, a teenage girl was wounded when young Muslim terrorists threw rocks at her parents’ car as they were driving to the supermarket. These events received hardly a mention in the ”mainstream” media with its unspoken agenda to minimize the appearance of suffering amongst the Jewish residents of Samaria and Judea. The false image of “quiet” on the roads of the so-called West Bank, in actuality the Biblical heartland of Israel, is just that, an illusion.

Despite the distressing news, let us be very clear about where we are going! As we speak, two housing projects are underway in Shiloh and a new school complex to house a new school building is under construction to meet the needs of our growing young population. The Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund will be there to meet the needs of all the children, whose lives the Muslim terrorists would like to destroy. As much as they try to create hell for the children of Israel,  we will do everything we can (with the necessary help from our supporters), both to restore the lost innocence of childhood for these children and to rebuild the Biblical heartland of Israel.

“…they rebuilt the cities and they settled in them.” (The Book of Judges 21:23)

David Rubin

Shiloh, Israel

On a tragic night several years ago, a young married woman named Rachel, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, and the mother of a little girl, lost her husband in a horrible crash on the roads near Shiloh. For a couple of years, it seemed as if she was in a state of emotional collapse. She couldn’t handle both her own pain and that of her daughter. I remember meeting her one day in Jerusalem and listening to her trembling voice describing her efforts to find a good psychotherapy program for her young child. I told her about the subsidies that Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund was offering for our various play therapy programs in Shiloh and I am convinced that that very moment was the beginning of their recovery from trauma. I am happy to report, and Rachel has said it herself many times, that our therapy programs were a life-saver for Rachel’s daughter.

Tonight was Rachel’s wedding at Tel Shiloh, the site of Ancient Shiloh, the place where the Tabernacle stood for 369 years in Biblical times. It is also Shiloh to where the men of the tribe of Benjamin came in the summer to find wives from the young maidens of Shiloh who were dancing in the vineyards in their white dresses (Book of Judges 21:19-22).  So too in our times, Rachel’s young groom found his wife in Shiloh and there was singing and dancing in the vineyards once again.

Congratulations to Rachel, to her daughter, and of course, to Rachel’s new husband. Mazal Tov to them and to all those who have the privilege of turning trauma into miracles in our times!

David Rubin

Shiloh, Israel

The purpose of SICF has always been to heal the children, to restore some of the lost innocence to their lives and to rebuild for the Biblical heartland of Israel. But how does one accomplish that? As a fervent Zionist, I believe in doing, as opposed to just talking. As our new website clearly shows, we are  mainly focused on supporting our central programs ——the therapy programs, educational projects, youth programs, and camps.

We feel blessed to have the support of friends of Israel from around the world. Our accomplishments are because of you who partner with us. But there is an accomplishment that I don’t often speak about — being a catalyst. Because we are supporting winning  programs for children in need, other organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, are gradually wanting to join in. Because we are succeeding in our educational and therapeutic projects, meeting the needs of a multi-ethnic/socioeconomic population and working in schools that do not turn any students away, many parents whose children live well outside the zoned area of Gush Shiloh (the Shiloh bloc of communities) want to send their children to learn here, despite the fact that there are private, more homogenuous schools in their own areas. Furthermore, those who live here are becoming more and more optimistic for the future, despite the effects of war and terrorism that confront us daily. As a result of all this, the Therapy Center has been expanded and the local schools are bursting at the seams, which has spurred on the Education Ministry to approve the upcoming construction in Shiloh of a new, additional school building to meet the growing need. There are also new housing projects getting underway (after many years of stagnation), to meet the local demands of young families for housing. 

In short, we are looking forward to the future— creating momentum and encouraging momentum!

David Rubin

Shiloh, Israel

Shalom from the Biblical Heartland!

As most of you probably know, one of our key projects is the newly expanded (just completed the building!) Gush Shiloh Therapy Center, of which one of the key components is our Emotional Therapy Program that up to this point has used music, animals, and movement to help hundreds of children to overcome Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and to move forward with their lives.

I’d like to take this opportuntity to proudly announce the addition of a new therapist, Batsheva Sadan to our team at the Center. Batsheva was raised by American-Israeli parents who were devoted to the mission of bringing people closer to God in the Biblical heartland of Israel. In 2003, during a relaxing Sabbath meal in their home near Hebron, a Muslim terrorist invaded their peace, shooting and killing both parents. Batsheva, traumatized after the sudden murder of both of her parents, soon began undergoing psychological treatments, with her therapist using art as a therapeutic tool.

After her recovery, Batsheva, then working as a hi-tech physicist, decided to make a dramatic career switch. Now certified and experienced in treating children with Art Therapy, we are happy to add her to our therapeutic team and we wish her great success!

David Rubin

Shiloh, Israel