Page 48 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Autumn 21
P. 48

stage  where  Sir  John  Barbirolli  performed
               with the Halle Orchestra, but nevertheless in
               the  same  building.  It  had  something  to  do
               with Joshua sending spies into Jericho. The
               script was terrible, but at least we tried and
               our parents were very proud!

                                   Mention  must  be  made
                                   of Manchester Habonim            From left: Joy (Waltzer) Rosen, Gay (Kenton)
                                   football  team  –  not  the       Shindler, Mike Landes, Carole (Shwartz) Lopow
                                   Busby  Babes nor Re’al         suspiciously  but  could  not  understand  this.
                                   Madrid. But even if we         We had liberated these people from the Nazi
                                   did not finish top of the      yoke and now we were being treated as if we
                                   Manchester       Jewish        were the enemy. Eventually I found out why.
                                   Soccer  League,  we  did       It was because we did not speak French or
                                   not  finish  bottom.  We       Flemish  and  the  boys  wore  shorts  and  the
                  Alan Angel       had a superb goalkeeper        girls wore (I’m not sure what), but of course
                                 in Alan Angel. He threw          it was respectable. So, we were regarded as
               himself around the muddy pitches of Heaton         Germans who had occupied the area less than
               Park  to  great  effect.  And  Geoff  Goodman      20 years earlier and the memories were raw.
               was one of the best wing-halves I ever played
               alongside. The ball may have got past him,            Sue and Geoff Goodman at the site of
                                                                        the new Manchester Moadon
               but the player never did!
               So, life, went on. I was in charge of one Habo
               camp in Delamere Forest, which was fun –
               that  was  August  1961,  because  I  escaped
               from the preparations on Tuesday afternoon
               to  watch  the  last  session  of  the  England
               Australia  test  match  at  Old  Trafford  (my
               spiritual home), and which has gone down in
               history  as  a  test  match  where,  yet  again,
               England  should  have  won  but  contrived  to
               lose. I remember the afternoon vividly. As I
               recall  I  went  there  with  the  late  Mike      My  parents  had  managed  to  front  the
               Landes.  We  sat  on  the  grass  watching  the    committee  that  acquired  a  new  HQ  for
               English cricketing disaster unfold before our      Manchester  Habonim.  (I  am  not  using  the
               eyes.                                              word bayit for reasons set out above!)  So, the
                                                                  connection with Zionism never disappeared.
               I also went on a camp run by Stan Hyman,
               hiking    in   the   Ardennes    forest   of       Eventually  as  time  moved  on,  I  started  to
               Belgium/France. We were regarded very              have different views. The first point was that
                                                                  I  had no wish to  leave  England, and  I had
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