Page 22 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - September 15
P. 22

TEN YEARS AS CHAIRMAN




          ARYEH WOLFIN, KFAR HANASSI


          I                                                     together which has moved from Kfar Blum to
              n October 2003, the Garin Hey generation
                                                                Nachsholim. The venue and the program of this
              reunion, which took place in Kfar Hanassi,
              where close on a hundred participants took
                                                                today's reality".
          part, was beyond all expectation (see Iton March      annual weekend event will be more congenial to
          2004). The then chairman of Irgun Vatikei             And so it was! Furthermore, In the September
          Habonim, the late Yoel Varod  ז"ל , who               2006 issue of the Iton I wrote in my Chairman's
          ‘infiltrated’ the event, wrote in his editorial in    Report that…
          that same Iton:                                       "the idea of creating a "new look" to the
          "I had the pleasure of attending the opening          organization making it multi-generational with
          session of the Garin Hey reunion. It was a great      an internet website in addition to the Iton,
          surprise for me to meet a generation of Habonim       together with more intensive work on the
          that I was unaware of; a large group of people        archives, and historical research, caught on in a
          who grew up in the movement after I left on aliya     big way………. The meetings take place on a
          in 1947…………….. I could only wish that they            regular basis at the home of Coral Navon in
          would begin to take over IVH."                        Haifa…..Yoel…….., together with Lionel

          Shortly after the event, Yoel approached me to        Holland and Francis Van Emden are regular
          become chairman of IVH, which I agreed to with        attendees, ensuring continuity. They arrive at the
          some persuasion, and on taking office, I              meetings from Ramat Hasharon, Netanya and
          approached some of my contemporaries and ex-          Haifa respectively. Michael Schnur and Eddie
          chanichim to join the committee. Yoel's wish had      Rivlin travel all the way from Rehovot and rarely
          indeed been fulfilled, as we began to take over       miss a meeting…………Alec Collins from Kfar
          the reins of IVH. At the end of 2006, my              Hanassi, the symbol of the Garin Hey ethos,
          Chairman's Report in the Iton at the time             joined the committee and threw his weight
          reflected the new look of the organization:           behind finding a new formula for the IVH annual
          "The energetic refurbished committee, whose           weekend………Geoffrey Felberg from Petah
          members reflect the wide range of involvement         Tikva, who took over from Zelig as treasurer,
          in Israeli society, and who cover a wide range of     rules the financial roost with a rod of iron………
          generations, meets at fairly frequent intervals.      From then on during the next seven years there
          Under its auspices, work is carried out on            were several quality additions to the committee
          maintaining the archives for research purposes,       including Tehila Beck, Len Goodman (both
          a webpage has been set up, the very popular           Garin Gimmel), Frank Farbenbloom, Yigal and
          ''Iton'' continues to be published and tiyulim and    Linda Levine (Garin Zayin), Phil Margolis ,
          annual weekend get-together's are organized. In       Danny Margolis, Clive and Wendy Noble and
          addition a history book on Habonim's                  Harold Hirsch, who took over the editorship of
          involvement in Aliya Bet (illegal immigration         the Iton. They all worked hard on maintaining
          during the British Mandate) is being written,         the archives, running the finances, organizing
          which is based on the personal accounts of            functions, including the Habonim 80th
          vatikei Habonim. Currently, the committee is          Anniversary grand event and Kfar Hanassi's 60th
          engaged in organizing the annual weekend get-         anniversary, not to mention the annual events in



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