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power. Unlike my Jewish classmates, these girls made a point of seeking me out. But only in order to provoke
me into admitting that I intended to emigrate to Palestine. This admission would have made me suspect of
engaging in Zionist political activity, as well as being confirmation of disloyalty to the Rumanian state. Their
malice was no more than a classroom reflection of what was going on in the outside world. The seemingly
unstoppable advance of Hitler's power in Europe began casting a heavy shadow over our lives. In 1938, after
Hitler annexed Austria, occupied the Sudetenland and then marched into Czechoslovakia, our own future in
Rumania, next door, became anybody's guess.

… my newly resumed activities in Habonim - this time with my parents' permission. The reason for their
change of heart was no doubt connected with the atmosphere of growing atmosphere which was almost
palpable. From then on until I made aliyah, the movement became the centre of my daily life. During the week
we met after school, often at each others' houses. Our home also became a favourite meeting place. I can
still conjure up before me the picture of chaverim in possession of our sitting room. A bunch of teenagers,
boys and girls, carelessly sprawled over the sofa and the carpet, engaged in noisy disputation, busily
consuming large quantities of my mother's store bread and jam. Our weekend gatherings were often spent in
hot debate on some aspect of the movement's ideology. New members, like me, modestly silent, accepted all
we heard with uncritical enthusiasm. The most active participants in these debates were the older, more
experienced, eighteen to twenty-year-olds. Their talk, peppered with political and sociological terms went way
above my head. Nevertheless I was dazzled by their sophistication. 'What was the meaning of dialectical
materialism?' 'Would I ever understand Das Kapital?' Fired by ambition, as much as by intellectual curiosity I
resolved to master the subject. I got hold of a list of recommended titles and set off on a feverish course of
reading which I found, I remember, very hard going. The other task I set myself, to learn to speak ivrit, was
more enjoyable; learning languages had always come easily to me. The curriculum of the Lycée included
language and literature in Latin, Rumanian, French and German, all of which I enjoyed. Besides, I had been
reading ivrit, without understanding any of it, from the age of five. Now at last the prayers I had been
taught over the years, and the enforced readings from the Pirkey Avot (against which I had rebelled at the
age of nine), all began to make sense.

A topic which frequently came up was the relative moral worth of one youth movement versus another —
never doubting that our ideology was the most sound. My own views, I remember, were utterly simplistic. The
Noar ha Tzioni was not radical enough by our standards, Shomer Hatzair, on the other hand, was too radical,
and Betar, the militaristic Zionist youth group, was dismissed as being altogether beyond the pale.

On a few memorable occasions a visiting shaliach, passing through Transylvania, would give us an account of
the joys and problems of kibbutz life. What they said about hardships meant nothing to us; we never doubted
for a moment our ability to cope with any difficulty that might come our way. But beyond our normal teenage
bumptiousness, our confidence was also enhanced by the new sense of identity we had acquired through the
ideals of the movement. The cultural and social ambiguities of our status, as 'Hungarian-speaking Jews in a
Rumanian state', which had plagued us before, had now ceased to matter. We were neither Rumanians nor
Hungarians but Jews, who were going to build our homeland in Eretz Yisrael.

…Looking back on my own activities before I left home I have a keen memory of the ideas and activities which
preoccupied us in the movement but very little of what else happened. Despite our earnestness we also found
time for more mundane pastimes. Opera going, on Saturday afternoons was one of them. While the
authorities disapproved of students frequenting cinemas they considered going to the opera a worthy,
intellectual pastime for which they subsidize cheap season tickets. In fact the segregated audience of boys
spent as much time eyeing each other as enjoying the performance. But Jewish youth like us active in our
mixed Zionist groups of boys and girls did not need such subterfuges. Our relationship was that of equals and
we treated each other as comrades. But neither our earnestness nor our ideology as socialists prevented us
from being preoccupied with thoughts of love and sex in the manner of all normal teenagers. We fell in and
out of love with each other. Some, it was whispered had 'real' relationships but most of us never went beyond
'canoodling'. I too had my share of romances. The first boyfriend who counted was Latzi Fisher a
tall, handsome engaging youth. His block of flats was just across the road from mine which was very