Page 6 - Issue 18

As former federal mazkir, Gabe
Freund, heads back to HDOZ to take
up the role of Federal Mekasher.
Since making Aliyah in 2011, Gabe,
Nay & Naveh have moved to the
educator’s kibbutz in Akko, and will
be temporarily saying goodbye to
their kvutsah and their kibbutz,
Kibbutz Keshet.

Here’s a little-known and somewhat controversial
fact. I began my youth movement life in…Bnei
Akiva. After attending three consecutive camps
with BA in Perth in the mid-late ‘90s, my friend
Stan and I decided to jump ship and give Habo a
try (after reading the camp brochure handed to us
by a suitably pierced madrich with blue or bright
pink hair – this was part of the local Habo uniform
at the time, more recognizable than the blue shirt
and red string – revealed that attending Habo
camp would offer a $10 discount compared to
Bnei camp). This was enough to convince us, and
more importantly our parents, that guitar circles
and kibbutz dreaming was a suitable replacement
for Torah and Avodah.

Little did I know at that perhaps inauspicious
moment that Habonim Dror would eventually
come to play such an important part in my life. In
many ways, in my teens and early 20s Habo was
the crucible of identity and ideals that came to
define me as a Jew and as a man. HDOZ was
where I learned that Judaism was a civilization in
progress, and Israel a multigenerational project