Page 21 - Issue 19

in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In
2011-12, while in our early 20s, each of us made Aliyah,
and we’ve spent the past decade taking responsibility for
educational activities for Habonim Dror (Workshop,
MBI etc) as well as for Jewish and Arab Israeli youth.

During my years in Habonim
Dror Australia, all the
Shlichim I ever met were
native-born Israelis - they
had never gone to Machane or
the Ken with Habonim Dror.
They came with experience,
funny accents and new ideas, but also they needed to
learn the ropes of what works and what doesn’t in a
chalutzic Zionist youth movement in the Diaspora. The
shlichim brought a taste of Israel for those of us who had
never been there, could teach Hebrew words and songs
and were oddly confident in themselves. Their favourite
music was different, their jokes too, and often they had
small children who were far better than their parents at
adapting to the new landscape.
And yet this was not how the institution of shlichut
started out. Many of the shlichim in the 1920s and 30s
were youth movement graduates themselves, olim with a
historic and linguistic connection to their home
countries and a desire to forge a living connection
between the nascent Eretz-Israeli Zionist movement and
the chalutzic Jewish youth of the Diaspora. This is the
role shlichim have played for nearly a century,