Page 13 - Issue 9

Landmarks 1929-2009 by Yoel Yarod
Next year it will be 80 years since Habonim
was founded in London, so quite naturally one's
thoughts turn to the events and landmarks of
these 80 years, especially as to some degree
they parallel my own life experience and
probably that of many of you reading this. For
me the most significant period was the 30's
and the 40's, and there are two or three
events I recall, even now, with a degree of
wonder.
The first was the Jamboree camp at Oakley in
Bedford in 1939. Over 1400 chaverim
participated. Considering that Habonim was
just ten years in existence - starting in 1929
from the first gedud in the East End of
London, Habonim had
spread to almost every
Jewish community in the
United Kingdom. I do not
know the numbers but in
a mere ten years there
must have been several
thousand members.
At a time when the
possibilities of a good
education and the many
advantages of British
culture were most
attractive and the temptations of assimilation
could so easily prove a snare to young people.
Habonim did much to create an awareness and
sense of identity for Jewish youth in Britain.
For me, Oakley camp was a wonderful
experience. There, we also met up with boys
and girls of our own age who had somehow fled
from Germany. The encounter was very
meaningful. Oakley was not my first camp. In
1936, I attended camp at Deal on the south
coast, quite an adventure for an 11 year old boy
to travel all the way from Liverpool to sleep on
a palliasse in a bell tent.
The second event, even more amazing was the
participation of Habonim in the Aliya Bet
project. In August 1943 I went on hachshara
to Wolfhall. In early 1944 I was called-up to
the British Army. I was demobbed in June
1946 and rejoined my garin, then at Bosham.
The day after Yom Kippur in 1947, together
with my wife Genie, we quietly left London on
Aliya Bet.
Of course, when we went on hachshara, our
intentions were to go on aliya to Palestine (as it
was then). When the war finished and
thousands were freed from the camps and the
British Government set up very severe
limitations on immigration to Palestine, we
expected that we were in for a long wait as we
could not consider ourselves in any way as
having priority over survivors in the camps of
Europe.
The whole aliya project was conducted with
total secrecy by the
Movement. Chaverim were
selected from the
hachsharot, passports
and minimum equipment
was acquired, and they
were sent off, usually in
pairs to Paris and then to
St. Jerome, a large
chateau near Marseilles.
There were several such
camps within a radius of a
few miles. All were
'populated' with refugees from all over Europe
and North Africa. Some camps had more
specific tasks. One I can mention was training
radio operators to serve on the boats. They
also set up a radio network for the Hagana
connecting Palestine and France. Several of our
chaverim who spoke Hebrew well were selected
for such duties.
Many of us were allocated to different jobs to
help in running the camps. Our girls had the
difficult job of receiving and caring for the
many mothers with young babies who traveled
overland for many days in sealed trucks from
the north. Every week or ten days a boat would
leave and our chaverim would go aboard, and as
with the others, shared all the same
conditions.
When we arrived in September 1947.