Fighting for the Soul of Israel

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Dear friends:

Every year at Passover, Jewish families gather around the table to remember the epic story of the downfall of tyrants and the struggle for freedom that gave birth to our people. Every year as we sit around our tables, we are urged to ask again what freedom means in our own generation.

Image of Habonim Dror Alumni protesting in Israel

Habonim Dror Alumni at protest in Israel

This year, all our minds and hearts are on the struggles in Israel, where our people and its dreams for a just, progressive and forward-looking future are facing what is
rightly called an existential threat. I imagine many of us will be having difficult and even heated discussions. Many of us will be asking more than just the four questions in the Haggadah; questions like “What if?” and “What’s next?”

image of Habonim Dror members protesting in New York

Habonim Dror members protesting in New York

But we will not have to ask: “Where is Habonim Dror? “ Because we know that those who have been raised with progressive Zionist and Jewish values in our machanot and on our Israel programs, and those who have made the commitment to live in Israel, are part of this struggle. They are and will continue to be on the streets and engaged in the activism that will chart the future of the vision we share.

In the words of Erica Kushner, mazkirol (secretary-general) of our movement in North America: We have a long history of holding the vision and the reality of Israel side by side. And we will not let the current government stop us from making our demand for an Israel that is democratic, Jewish and just—a place to build the dream into a reality.”

I am making a generous contribution today to the Habonim-Dror Foundation,  whose exclusive purpose is to support the work of Habonim-Dror and to ensure its future.

I hope you will join me.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Tom Gutherz
Chairperson, Habonim Dror Foundation

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Canadians can now donate and deduct!
Canadians can donate to the Habonim Dror Foundation Canada Fund.

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Please help us reach our 2022 Annual Fundraising Goal!

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Dear Habonim Alumni and Friends,

On a recent trip to Israel, I spent time with Habonim Dror olim at their urban kibbutzim in struggling neighborhoods.

In Petach Tikvah, a city in central Israel, the local “kibbutz” has established a weekly food bank for people, including foreign workers, who suffer from food insecurity in town. Building relationships with local produce merchants, they distribute fresh fruits and vegetables every week to those in need. The personal connections generated by this small initiative are only a piece of a larger network of relationships they have made in the process of living and working in the town, which allows them to be an effective agent for social change.

These Habonim Dror alumni – like so many of their chevrei throughout Israel, the US, and Canada – are leading lives guided by the core values- the pillars – that they first learned at Habonim Dror camps and movement activities.

Will you donate to make sure these values continue to inspire young Jews today and tomorrow?

 

 

 

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The Isaac Merkel Scholarship Fund

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Announcing The Isaac Merkel Scholarship Fund

Announcing The Isaac Merkel Scholarship Fund for participants in Habonim Dror Israel programs in honor of Isaac Merkel

Our thanks to Joan Isa Berelowitz for her generous matching grant to establish the Isaac Merkel Scholarship Fund for HDNA participants in Israel Programs and to honor her heroic uncle Isaac's  memory. Your gift will be doubled! 

Use the link below to donate by credit card or visit the Habonim Dror Website donation page for other options.

Learn more about Isaac and this enduring scholarship.



Connecting Charlottesville with the Leaders of Habonim Dror

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Dear chaverot and chaverim:

In August of 2017, I saw with my own eyes the hate marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, where I am a rabbi. I saw the faces and heard the chants of “Jews will not replace us.”

Since that time, it has become clear to anyone who is paying attention that antisemitism is indeed increasing, both in terms of actual incidents as well as in a resurgence of classic anti-Semitic tropes in the political discourse. Jewish conspiracy theories that all of us thought had been consigned to the dust-bin of history have risen, zombie-like, to find new audiences among people who are too young to remember the consequences of such propaganda. And the inability of some sectors of the anti-racism movements on the left to fully recognize the vulnerability many Jewish Americans feel is troubling.

Picture of Rabbi Tom Gutherz Congregation Beth Israel, Charlottesville VA

Rabbi Tom Gutherz
Congregation Beth Israel, Charlottesville VA
Member Board of Trustees
Habonim Dror Foundation

Even in the aftermath of synagogue shootings, some cannot shake the long-standing conviction that Jews are a a community of privilege that “can take care of themselves.”

The Jewish community will be struggling to find the right response to the growing antisemitism on both the left and the right. Israel’s continuing drift towards the right gives more fodder to our genuine enemies on the left, and creates alienation with those who legitimately seek to end the injustice of the occupation. A savvy dark web stokes the alienation and rage of “white ethnocentrics” who are given cover by a public agenda that cynically promotes fear-mongering towards those who are not “true Americans.“

It is our young people who find themselves at the front line of these battles on college campuses, and who will emerge as the next generation of leadership in the American Jewish community. Those of us who grew up in Habonim Dror can appreciate the importance of the voice that we bring to these conversations: a progressive Zionist voice that acts in solidarity with struggles for justice in this country that is also able to articulate and to work for a different vision for Israel’s future.

When I meet and speak with the bogrimot of our movement, I am reminded again of how important it is to support this voice. Through its movement activities and machanot, Habonim Dror continues to nurture a different voice which will become ever more important in the struggle for the soul of the next generation of American Jews. I am giving them my support. I hope you will do the same.

Please make a generous donation today!!

Rabbi Tom Gutherz

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Why I Made Aliyah as a 24-Year-Old American

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By Anya Friedman-Hutter May 2018

Hadassah Magazine Logo“

"Why are you here?”

It was my fourth day in Israel as a new immigrant and my first day on the job as an educator for one of Israel’s largest youth movements—and I was startled to be asked such a direct question.

​I wiped the sweat from the September heat off my forehead and looked at this ninth-grader who managed to take a selfie, smoke a cigarette and talk to me all at the same time. She continued, “You were in America. Things are fun there. Why would you come to this hole?”  Read the full article

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A Time to Take Stock

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A time to take stock of what is good and precious…   And a time for us to support and protect what is good and precious

Dear Friends,

What an unsettling time we are living in… anxious days and sleepless nights for many of us.  Prospects for peace are dim in Israel, the future here in the States is uncertain at best, frightening at worst.

 
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OPINION Struggling for Zionism

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“The entire Hatikvah platform was created out of what we thought was the best way to strengthen Israel and the Diaspora-Israel relationship.”

By NATHAN HERSH \  02/23/2015 22:03

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A baby sits in front of an Israeli flag. (photo credit:MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

A baby sits in front of an Israeli flag. (photo credit:MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

A few weeks ago, MK Stav Shaffir lambasted the Bayit Yehudi Party in the Knesset. She told them that their corruption – transferring billions of shekels from Israeli taxpayers to the settlements – is an affront to real Zionism. She said, “real Zionism is solidarity, not only in battle, but in everyday life.”

MK Shaffir’s words ring as true in the United States Jewish community as they do in the Knesset. The past year has seen my organization, Partners for Progressive Israel, attacked by people and NGOs that intend to deprive progressive Jews of their voice in the Diaspora.   Read more ….

 

Habonim Dror Hosts Rabin Exhibit

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Jewish Exponent Square

By: Amishai Gottlieb, © 2014 Jewish Exponent

Anyone who happened to pass by the library at the Jewish Community Services Building in Center City on Nov. 13-14 was virtually transported to Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.

In memory of the anniversary of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s murder on Nov. 4, 1995 by a right-wing Jewish activist, three Habonim Dror youth movement counselors — all college-aged — set up an exhibit in honor of the late leader.  READ THE FULL ARTICLE

ABOVE  Dan Shahar (right) does a trial lecture for fellow exhibit leaders (from left) Adi Goldberg, Hila Huber and Ross Weisman. Photo by Amishai Gottlieb.