Page 15 - Issue 24

Professor Gideon Shimoni has had a
distinguished career in academia,
having written several books on
Zionism and the Jewish people. He was
born in South Africa and grew up in the
movement there until his Aliyah in
1961. We publish an edited version of
a piece he wrote at aged 20, outlining
his understanding of Habonim, from
the perspective of a movement
member.

The ideological basis of Habonim

If there be any among us who are shocked at the
suggestion, implied by the subject of this paper,
that Habonim has in fact an ideology of its own, I
am afraid the rest of the paper will offer them no
consolation.

To those who do not yet know it, I say that it is
time they realized that no movement which is
dynamically propelled can avoid the precipitation
of an ideological base. If we began as a Jewish
organization on the Boy Scout prototype, we have
long since left these beginnings behind. The Boy
Scout has remained honourably and loyally
stationary while Habonim has evolved by a
dynamic internal process. In Habonim the vibrant
spirit of a Jewish Youth became increasingly critical
of society, while the Boy Scout retained as its
conscious or unconscious purpose, the loyal
perpetuation of the status quo.