Page 64 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Autumn 21
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Kfar HaNassi), Brenda Ross, Lenny Dutch. I don’t recall any of our Chavura
Yodaiken also now at Kfar HaNassi, my participating but my friend Aryeh (Bert)
sister Sylvia, Rhoda Barron and my cousin Wolfin remembers coming over for it.
Muriel Harris. On the right, in front of Mike In 1951 I left for Hachsharat Noar, but Dublin
is Bernie Green, Shirley Brown, Cynthia Habonim continued to thrive without me!
Collins, Fay Calmenson and Mavis Alec Collins was sent over to set up a small
Weiner. Ida Krohn and Irene Richland are “garden” Hachshara in Dublin. The intent
also there plus many younger Bonim and was to provide a haven from conscription, for
Tsofim that I don’t recognize. All were the British chaverim waiting to make aliya. It
heart and soul of our Gedud Palmach.
lasted less than a year because conscription
Another lasting memory is of my first was eliminated. Then, after Mike and Alec
overnight camping experience in Shankhill, left in 1952, movement workers were still
just outside Dublin. It was the first time I had regularly sent to Dublin so there must have
slept in a tent or built a campfire. The date been a strong peleg.
was the weekend of June 25th, 1950. Why I know Tony and Sheila Berris were there
do I know so precisely? Because when we got about 1954 and, in 1959/60, my brother-in-
home Sunday evening, we learnt that the law, David (Pompey) Goldberg, Pauline’s
Korean War had started!
husband, was in charge.
A favourite weekend activity was hiking in An anecdote about Pompey. A few years
the nearby Dublin hills. Everything was so ago, when I was helping to sort files at the
close. A short bus ride to the end of Habonim Archives in Yad Tabenkin, I came
Rathfarmham village and we would start across a letter sent by Pompey to the
walking. Naturally, we walked to the cadence Mazkirut in London.
of Hebrew songs. I’m sure the villagers
assumed they had been “invaded” by some In it he says, to paraphrase, “Since the most
loony foreigners. recent newsletter put out from Habonim UK
fails to not only mention the Dublin peleg but
In fact, in 1950, they were. Dublin hosted a also fails to include me in the list of
Habonim Rambling Camp mostly from the movement workers in the UK, we are
UK, but I think there may have been some
resigning from British Habonim. In the future
I will report to World Habonim as well as
forwarding them all dues collected!!!”
As always, the Irish are independent!
I am often asked if we suffered from any anti-
semitism. My answer is that I didn’t really
know what that meant until I left Dublin.
Sure, there were a few urchins who would
tease us about being Jews, but that was it.
Irish Rambling Camp 1950
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