Page 11 - Issue 8

Movin' On Up by Gil Browdy
Tue Oct 21, 2008

Shalom Tnua,

My name is Gil Browdy. In about 5 hours, I am making Aliya. Phew! I'm glad we got that part out
of the way! It's a load off my chest. The questions remain, though: How did I arrive at this
decision? And, what comes after Aliya? Good questions. I'll take a crack at the first one.

I've been in Habonim Dror North America since 1994, as a little Choter at Machaneh Moshava.
I stuck with it, like most of us do, rising through the ranks, going through the motions,
educating and making great friends. In all of this time, Aliya was not primarily on my mind. Not
even after Workshop was I pondering the big A, although to be fair my Workshop was A LOT
different than the structure we have had around now for a few years.

What I knew all this time was that I loved being a part of the movement, of the community it
brought, of the positive values it imparted. I wanted to do what I could to further those things,
so I kept taking on leadership roles, and for the most part I like to think I was successful in
that regard.

When I began my term as Mazkir, I started seeing movement education in a new light. I began
to see myself as a Jew and as an educator - a Jewish educator - as an integral part of Jewish
history. I began to see Zionism (sorry for dropping the Z word) as an incredibly important part
of what we do. It is what separates us from other just plain Jewish organizations in a major
way. It is what gives us a connection to the Jewish narrative. It is what gives us a sense of
ownership over that narrative and therefore a sense that we can make a change.

This was a major shift for me personally. I was no longer just spouting out ideology to make
myself seem like a good movement member, I had a belief. But I knew that believing those
things entailed some challenging questions about how I lived and the choices I made.

Fortunately, it was right around that time that the Mazkirut decided to explore living
intentionally. This, I thought, was a good step in challenging myself in a movement framework.
And that it certainly was. Kenan (who was also at Mosh with me in '94), Jamie (also on that
Workshop with me), K-Lo, Rufus, Rachel and I all joined together in a slammin' condo in
Kensington, Brooklyn to explore kvutsa living in North America, to explore post-college bayit
life, to challenge one another, to share ourselves with each other. It was hard as hell!

Luckily for me, contrary to Papa James' challenge to our kvutsa, living intentionally - even in
North America - gave me the exact framework I needed to ask myself challenging questions
about my life, including Aliya. After an intense seminar/retreat we had for ourselves back in
February, I was able to finally put myself face to face with this question. It was hard, but I
realized that I had beliefs and I wanted to live by them as fully as possible in what I felt was
the best way possible.

What that meant was that I wanted to change the world. I knew that the Jewish
community was my "backyard", and that's where I was poised to make the most