Page 27 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - October 19
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Heating was also a problem. People used coal, In 2015, Asher Tarmon wrote about the Devon
which became scarce, more so in winter. Big Hostels again, the Choir, the BBC and the visitors.
houses needed a lot of heating. All these essentials Now it is quite clear that ‘Hostels’ really meant so
cost money. Habonim didn’t always have enough. much more – planning, Habonim commitment and
There were other problems (a piece dedicated to courage, to help all those Jewish evacuees and
“MICE” by Sylvy appeared Dvar Hamaon in refugee youth.
September 1941)
The Archives reveal the complexities of the
Olga Braham, member of the Hostels Committee
in Woburn House, London received a request Hostel’s formation and development. Also the fact
from Zvi Goldstone (Even-Paz) in Dawlish, the that there were some various lesser well-known
subject being coal or central heating. Other items, Hostels. Tanybryn, the Welsh Hostel, reveals the
no less important, are also mentioned. The Welsh sympathy of the Welsh, who are themselves a
Hostel Tanybryn also had heating problems. The people with a language of their own. Their love of
Hostels needed supplies, food, soap, cleaning music and singing and their own difficult history,
materials, medical supplies, and paper (for Dvar lent them understanding of the Jewish suffering
Hamaon). and needs.
th
On the 12 January 1941, 10 year old Esther Stern Kol Vatikei Habonim, Vol II, No. 4, 9/2001:
Marilyn Schiller wrote:
arrived in Teignmouth Beit Habonim with her 12 “Tanybryn, which opened in early 1941, was a
year old sister. “The Bayit, with 30 plus Chaverim
and a handful of Madrichim – was run on strict less well-known Habonim Hostel, compared to
chalutzic lines………… mitbach, toraniut, those in Devon. I was one of only two children
cleaning, machsan, lighting the coal fires. who were evacuated (from Cardiff). I went up to
Teignmouth Grammar School – there were some the Bayit in Cefn Coed in January 1942. There
bright kids amongst us, usually at the top of the were 29 of us in the Bayit. Most were evacuees
from London, there were several who either had
class … Some children who had come from come as part of the ‘Kindertransport’ or had
Europe; some … came with the Kindertransport.
Gradually we were learning what was taking escaped from Austria or France. It was a very
place in Europe”. wintry day in 1942 when my mother took me to
Cefn Coed’.”
rd
Kabbalat Shabbat, Pesach, 3 Seder, learning
songs and the language: The Madrichim were Dr. Cyril Pearl and his wife
“Then we had Levi Gertner – what a great Anita. Toffees also arrived that day from Mrs
Markovitch of Merthyr Tydfil! There were two
teacher he was. ……. Our Hebrew was good boys' and one girls' dormitories, with double
enough to put on a Hebrew play – Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves. There were such clever bunks. Life included the local schools, Shabbat
zigs and sketches and Purim Operas produced. services, beautiful Welsh countryside, mountains
We loved tiyulim.” and valley, cliffs, shirim and rikudim.
Marilyn Schiller continued: “In 1943 I left the
Esther describes music (classical), literature, Bayit to take a scholarship exam. In May a bomb
dropped on Cardiff and the family house was
important visitors, camps (once with floods, of wrecked”.
course) and the choir being recorded by the BBC.
Included in the ‘important visitors’ were Sir Leon
Simon, whose visit is reported in the Jewish In Post-War times, with the events leading rapidly
Chronicle, and Joe Gilbert. to the creation of the Jewish State in 1948, the
Wartime Achievements of Habonim faded into the
past. The Archives and Kol Vatikei Habonim
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