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?
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.
Join us as we celebrate a movement that has given so much to so many through musical performance and give back to help sustain the movement during the COVID-19 Crisis. Proceeds will benefit Habonim Dror North America via the Habonim Dror Foundation.
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.
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.
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
WASHINGTON — A number of Jewish camping organizations wrote to US President Donald Trump urging him to keep in place a program that grants visas to foreigners who work in summer camps. Read full story
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.
“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
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 ….
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.
Building Progressive Zionist Activists: Exploring the Impact of Habonim Dror, authored by Prof. Steven M. Cohen and Steven Fink describes evidence of the life-long impact that the Habonim Dror youth movement has had on its participants. The report draws upon a survey of nearly 2,000 alumni of Habonim Dror camps and other programs, ages 20 to 83.Continue reading→
