Page 84 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Winter 20

THE EDER FARM London Ken became my second home. I
recall Ben Gurion's visit to the Youth
HACHSHARA – 1967-68 Movements in 1966 on his 80 birthday, and
th
his call for Aliya made a deep impression on
HAIM BEN SHLOMO many of us.

In 1967, when the 6-Day War was imminent,
I went out to Amiad as a volunteer, and when
I came back to England, I decided to go on
Hachshara, with the intention of returning to
live on kibbutz.

The Hachshara was located, then, at the
I North London Ken village near Horsham in Sussex, capably
David Eder Farm near Dial Post, a small
joined
comparatively
by
Movement
late
supervised since 1958 by the farm manager,
standards, at the age of 15. The Ken (and
the Movement) was quite large in those days, Bill Stewart and, on a cold September
morning, my parents drove me down to the
and I was fortunate to have two excellent farm.
madrichim, first Stan Hyman from Beit
HaEmek, then Binyamin Yogev ("Budga"),
also from Beit HaEmek. Stan was also Rosh
Ken, followed by Steve Lerman. There were
additional shlichim who assisted. The Ken
was located in the old Harmony Club in
Upper Clapton, and then moved into new
premises at Stamford Hill Boys Club.
Chavurat Kinneret had over 50 members at
its peak. We used to meet on Motzei Shabbat,
first for the Sicha with the madrich (Stan or
Budga), then rikkudim until around midnight,
then on to Shoshana's falafel bar until we
were evicted at around 2 am, then walk the
girls home, stopping off at the Bagel Bakery The farm had two training options running in
to buy large brown paper bags full of bagels, parallel. One was the Hachshara for
sharing and munching most of them on the chaverim of around my age, training in
way. I usually arrived home around 5 am, agriculture for Aliya to kibbutz. We lived in
leaving my parents the rest of the bagels for a large mansion house on top of the hill.
Sunday morning breakfast.
Then, there was the Hachsharat Noar, for
I was soon involved in hadracha and the job chaverim a couple of years younger than me,
of Mazkir Ken and, within a short time, North who combined farm work with Jewish and

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