Page 11 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - October 19
P. 11

Following my aliyah in 1980, I worked in quasi-         chavurah, and shared the news of the downing of
        academic and later in academic frameworks. My           a Libyan plane by the Israeli Air force, it having
        teaching methods, never learnt academically, lean       entered Israel’s air space. 108 out of the 113
        on those days in the movement: the care for the         passengers and crew on board were killed. She did
        chanich, the passion for the subject matter and the     not avoid the subject: we reflected together and
        belief that what I am doing has meaning.                learnt even then that Israel could be caught in
                                                                dilemmas that might end tragically.
        The movement, and those who were my peers,
        also taught me a healthy sense of cynicism. I           Celebrating ninety years of Habonim is an
        remember very well one evening on Habonim               opportunity to reflect on the great things the
        Israel camp having crossed the Kinneret and             movement gave us. So many were deeply
        disembarked near Kibbutz Ein Gev sitting around         impacted by the freedom, autonomy, sense of
        a campfire. Our wonderful, charismatic madrich          belonging, service and that healthy degree of
        pointed to the Heights above and in the moonlit         cynicism and criticism the movement gave us. But
        night announced that he would shortly be making         without being nostalgic, I wonder what
        his home on Mevo Hama. A few of us looked at            frameworks today empower youth in the way they
        each other with scepticism, “We’ll see.” Needless       did in our time.
        to say, he did not make his home in Israel.
                                                                Dave was a member of North West London Ken
        However, another madrich of mine, a role model          from 1966-1975, went on hachshara and the
        throughout my teaching career, one Sunday               Machon in 1975-76, and was a movement worker
        afternoon in 1973 spoke to our N. W. London             in 1979-80. He made Aliyah in 1980.

















































                                                           11
   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16