Page 28 - Issue 25

interrogation of a number of ex Habonim
members in Durban who were involved in so
called “subversive activities”, we received reports
that part of their interrogation revolved around the
structure and educational programs of Habonim.
In 1966 when I was Mazkir, Alan Hoffmann (who
was then Mazkir Chinuch) and I were summoned
urgently to meet with Judge Issy Maisels who was
requested to pass on a very direct and a very
personal message from the then Minister of
Justice - John Foster. Habonim and its leadership
were under surveillance and the movement was in
danger of being shut down completely. This threat
to the movement and to our own personal
security ensured that we adhered to the policy of
non involvement and compliance as a movement
and compelled us to revise our printed programs
while continuing to inculcate the values of
democracy, social equality and an awareness of
the evils of the apartheid regime in our chanichim.

The Sixties were marked by the student
demonstrations in Germany and France, by the
Anti Vietnam demonstrations and by the Civil
Rights movement in the USA with which we so
clearly identified. We spent hours listening to and
singing the folk music of Pete Seeger, Joan Baez
and Bob Dylan, and passed around clandestine
recordings of the famous “I have a dream” speech
by Martin Luther King (which was banned at that
time in South Africa).

When Robert Kennedy visited South Africa and
addressed the students at a huge gathering at