HABONIM IN THE NEW ERA (1948-1950)

The November, 1948, issue of Furrows appeared after a lapse of six months with a strikingly changed format. As the editor wrote: ". . . Attractive and colorful, enriched by photos . . . its contents will be alive to the life of and problems of the bonim and noar of Habonim. The 'new' Furrows will devote a great deal of space to the activities of Habonim in America . . . [and] serve as a link between us and the substantially large numbers of Habonim in Israel. This is the first number since the birth of Israel. . . ."

The editor's statement represented a change not only in Furrows but in Habonim. The half-year interval when Furrows had not been published coincided with the Israeli War of Independence. Habonim, alone among the youth organizations, had relegated organizational and educational considerations for activities bearing more directly on the momentous events of the times. This policy known as "giyus" (mobilization) encouraged the largest single aliya of Habonim members. Two hundred left for Israel in these six months. Ninety eighteen year-olds left their cities for the hachshara farms. When the new furrows appeared, it indicated not merely the return to normal activity but the sweeping change the organization had undergone. The magazine, the editor wrote, intended to "reflect a more chalutz-conscious, more youthful movement." Its pages were to stress, henceforth, the internal concerns and domestic life of Habonim rather than aspire to communicate with the wider circles of American Jewish youth. The renewed Furrows, now admittedly a house organ, faithfully represented the new lines of Habonim development.

Habonim granted formal recognition to the beginning of a new period when, in September, 1948, the moatza (national council) convened at Camp Kinneret, Michigan, empowered to elect a new merkaz (national executive committee) and mazkir (national secretary), functions heretofore reserved for the biennial conventions. Only twelve months before, the national convention had marked the departure of the last of the generation of founders. A new generation, products of Habonim upbringing, had replaced the "old guard." Yet within a year nearly the entire personnel of that merkaz had left for Israel, including the mazkir.

The Kinneret -moatza did more than elect a new merkaz. The issues and dilemmas with which Habonim was to grapple during the months ahead were broached clearly and forcefully. On the one hand, subservience of every educational and organizational consideration to one overriding need could no longer serve as a policy and elicit the response it had. Victory and peace in Israel focused Habonim's attention, once again, on mending its organizational fences. Educational work, in its nature slow, delicate, and absorbed with the individual, required a qualified leadership that had to be recruited and trained from amongst a much younger and less experienced reservoir of members. Continuity of leadership became a prerequisite for strengthening and expanding the local units. The expanded network of Habonim camps, particularly hard hit the previous summer when key camp personnel left for Israel or hachshara farms, called for qualified people. On the other hand, the young state's need for dedicated people did not abate. It was, in fact, greater. The sense of urgency had not diminished and the same unceasing pressure for aliya was heard.

If all Zionist organizations in America found it difficult to return to normal operations with the successful conclusion of the defense of the newly-established state, how much more complicated was it for a chalutz youth organization. The obstacles of mandatory days had been removed. The financing of the movement appeared about to be solved. An increase in the number of shlichim was promised. The authority of the new state, backed by important elements in American Zionism, agreed on the need for a chalutz movement. One by one the cushioning effects which blurred the disparity between "the need" and the ability to meet it were eliminated. Every chalutz movement was served a summons to produce the goods. A flood of "calls," "open letters," public pronouncements, schemes for youth congresses and serve-for-a-year projects bombarded the American Zionist scene and was taken to heart by every chalutz movement. The challenge came: three hundred settlements on the borders! . . . Only American Jewish youth can provide the pioneers!

From its inception Habonim laid claim to being best able to bring the message of personal Zionism to American Jewish youth. The claim was based on the ideological tenet of "aliya-centeredness" coupled with active involvement in the American scene. Thus Habonim declared that it had not alienated itself from the mainstream of American Jewish life nor ceased to speak the language of American Jewish youth. To many it appeared that never before had such an approach seemed so needed and Habonim so ill-prepared to implement it. The rapid changes in personnel had introduced a cadre of leaders too young and poorly equipped to make an impact on wider circles of Jewish youth. Emotionally immersed In the strain of the aliya demands and of garin (settlement group) organization, the internal educational and organizational questions assumed places of prime importance and taxed all the resources of the Habonim leadership. A large garin assembling in Israel on the eve of permanent settlement and a second large garin manning the hachshara (training) farms indicated a development towards the classical form of chalutz movement of European and Israeli vintage, dedicated to a single, all-pervading goal. Though the question was thus resolved in practice, Habonim did not easily retreat from the theoretical position it had held since its inception. Throughout the period herein described there is an undercurrent of uneasiness and misgiving within the movement at its loss of influence in the circles of the adult Labor Zionists, in Zionist circles on the campus, in Jewish youth organizations at large, and even in the councils of the Hechalutz Organization.

The individual issues with which Habonim grappled indicate the new direction as well as the unity of the years under review: the demands for aliya, the need for continuity in leadership, and, related to it, the consequences of a young leadership; the efficacy of hachshara in the light of the young people it served and, an entirely new consideration, the lessons to be learned from the experience of Habonim in Israel; the increasingly difficult position of the non-garin "chalutz" in Habonim; the conflict over university studies. These questions, in turn, raised a host of localized organizational problems, such as the competency of a young group of leaders to administer a network of camps, three training farms, local and national finances; the effectiveness and well-being of the organizer assigned to a distant city.

The period under review concludes formally with the Baltimore convention in December, 1950. From the perspective of ten years another event suggests itself as far more indicative of the end of a period. The outbreak of the Korean War in June of 1950 caused a profound psychological crisis in an organization become "more chalutz conscious, more youthful." One need but recall the summer and fall of 1950, the reintroduction of Selective Service calls, the retreat of the United Nations forces, the intervention of China. The unpopularity and feeling of futility which the war engendered cast gloom and despondency over the new leadership generation, the generation of Garin Bet, of eighteen- to twenty-year-olds. Full-time college studies, high scholastic records—requirements not often compatible with fulltime organization work—were conditions set by a Selective Service Board as necessary for army deferment. Habonim, after nearly three years of a fast-paced aliya program with the resultant changes in its character, would be required to readjust to the new conditions. What would the delays in aliya mean for Garin Bet and for the network of hachshara farms? Would the garin system be able to survive delays of three and four years in the ally a plans of individual members? Could a sufficient number of key leaders be recruited for full-time involvement in Habonim work? The suddenness of the new turn of events brought dismay and perplexity. Though the adjustment to these conditions belongs to the chapter to come, the appearance of these conditions in the summer of 1950 abruptly brought to an end the era which began in the fall of 1948.

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Dominating the year 1948-1949 were the garinim, the groups formally organized for kibbutz settlement. New to American Habonim they tapped vast sources of creative energy. So pervasive was their impact that existing institutions created to service the garin-age element deteriorated. Chavurat Aliya, the organization of aliya-comitted members, barely operated. Information on aliya, vocational guidance, negotiations with other institutions in America and Israel, the financing of aliya—functions heretofore performed by Chavurat Aliya—were now effectively performed by the functionaries of the garinim. Only the unaffiliated aliya-committed had recourse to Chavurat Aliya. On the local scene, prior to the ascendancy of the garin, the Chavurat Aliya group included the entire range of those planning aliya. But in the fall of 1948, with an influential and numerically large number of eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds on hachshara) members of the garin remaining in the cities found little interest in, or had little patience for, anything other than their garin.

Meanwhile, steady departures of Garin Aleph members and, in January, 1949, its settlement in its own kibbutz, Gesher Haziv, greatly added to the influence of this form of organization on Habonim's new pattern of growth. However, the event also implied handing over the responsibility for Habonim to the generation of Garin Bet. A large number of candidates for future educational work were approached to attend leadership-training courses in Israel. To all intents and purposes, then, Garin Bet would yet have to provide the personnel to administer the local branches, the national organization, and the camps. Did this not conflict sharply with the hachshara policy which had developed so 'quickly as a by-product of the giyus and the founding of Garin Bet? Altogether, over ninety members of Habonim were located on the three Hechalutz training farms assigned to it. Nearly all were eighteen years of age. Most had come directly to hachshara from high school, and one could now point to chevrot (local social groups) which had grown up in Habonim, moved on to hachshara, joined Garin Bet, and were planning aliya immediately on completion of their training. In 1949, one could hardly speak of an alternative to this garin hachshara pattern.

To many of those in the national leadership, particularly the remaining members of Garin Aleph who occupied the central positions in Habonim, it seemed incompatible for the young garin to begin its aliya and at the same time only begin to provide the fifty or more of its best people needed to man the movement for three or four years to come. Memories of the havoc of the giyus period stood out too clearly in the minds of those on the national staff.

Moreover, other serious misgivings were expressed as to the desirability of this new way—the unpreparedness of the agencies responsible for hachshara training, for example, to cope with a large number of young people just out of high school. In all three Habonim-Hechalutz farms which handled the eighteen-nineteen-year-olds, no full-time shlichim from Israel or farm instructors were assigned, nor were there provisions for Hebrew classes. Yet, at this very time, Hechalutz acquired its sixth hachshara farm in less three years. No other question aroused such controversy in the national executive committee of Habonim as the hachshara issue. Proposals for one large, consolidated training farm were made. The first bold suggestion to remove hachshara to Israel was broached. Meanwhile, from the experience of Garin Aleph came additional arguments questioning the vocational and social value of the American type of hachshara farm. Let it be said that the following year, when a highly competent shlicha was assigned to the Habonim farm, a vast improvement of the general level of training followed.

The discussion moved full circle when once again the effects of the removal of this age group from the educational framework of Habonim were stressed. But this turn in the discussion centered now on a more fundamental question. Not only would the age level of the leadership be depressed further, the essential leaven removed from the older groups in the movement and from Chavurat Aliya, but Habonim would become a children's movement with no mission but to produce garinim. What about its ambition to influence the Zionist club on campus, to be heard in American Jewish youth circles, or to play a role in the Labor Zionist movement?

The counter-argument, originating with the shlichim, pointed out that a requirement for leadership in a chalutz movement, particularly a garin-oriented movement, was hachshara. Hachshara viewed as part of leadership training had to become an important element in Habonim education. Thus, the shlichim conceived of membership in a garin as essential for leadership in Habonim. Whether articulated or not, the position was predicated on the abandonment of a hazy, chalutz-centered" ideology with its concern for non-kibbutz and non-aliya elements and issues. This was no longer Habonim's function, they said. From the experience of the first year of the state's existence, with its desperate need for chalutz manpower, a fundamental change in Habonim should follow logically. Again and again the need to secure the borders with a ring of young, dedicated kibbutzim was presented as the first obligation of a chalutz movement.

Much rancor and bitterness between the national leadership, shlichim, and those on hachshara accompanied this debate during the spring and summer of 1949. At the Garin Bet conclaves, the first of the teen-age graduates of hachshara pressed for a decision to be allowed to begin the aliya of the garin, threatening to withdraw from it if refused. The approaching convention of the movement, scheduled for
Chicago in June of 1949, broadened the debate to one on "Noar and Chalutziut," "Our Approach to Chalutziut," "Organizing our Chalutziut," "Garinim and the Movement," to mention some of the articles that appeared in the pre-convention issues of furrows. The shlichim felt deeply that leaders of a chalutz movement could not morally postpone the expressed wish of its members for immediate alya, In private, shlichim expressed the opinion that the conservative merkaz position reflected the personal indecision on aliya and hachshara of many on the merkaz itself. At times, in the course of the year, those on hachshara suspected those working in the movement of using the call to educational work as a dodge to avoid or postpone the true calling of Habonim.

In the retrospect of time, it must be acknowledged that some of this suspicion was justified. For some, accepting an educational assignment offered a way out of a personal dilemma, allowing the continuation of studies and the maintenance of one's status in Habonim. Thus, several influential leaders, studying full-time at the university while on organizational assignment, held up the need for a "permissive" attitude in Habonim towards such matters as studies. They questioned the psychological readiness of high-school graduates for hachshara or for joining a garin. They warned that the present pith would lead to a monolithic and intellectually stifling movement whose products would be quickly disillusioned in Israel.

Efforts were made seeking not only to temper the various viewpoints but to harmonize them into a single approach Perhaps the very fact that exponents of both extreme positions renamed active in the organization reflected the deep roots of the Habonim tradition of intellectual independence and tolerance. Nor should the soul-searching and the sharpness of the resulting debate obscure the common values and goals which permitted Habonim to pursue an ambitious and path-breaking policy in many spheres. Unimpeded by precepts formulated by others, as was the case with most of its contemporaries, and spurred by a sense that it alone could plot its way on the American scene, Habonim was prepared to experiment to find new ways in the confusing first post-state years.

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Habonim's eagerness to capitalize on the new educational opportunities presented by the establishment of the state reflected its undogmatic and imaginative qualities. Four years before, Habonim had pioneered in creating a full-time, college-level, leadership-training institute in New York. No sooner had the fighting ended in Israel when negotiation? for the transfer of the Institute to Israel began. In the fall of 1949, the twenty members of the Sixth Habonim Institute class, representing twelve cities, sailed for Israel. Nine others, most of whom had already undertaken major educational assignments, had preceded the Institute class by a few months for a year of work and study at Bet Habonim in Kfar Blum and the Institute for Youth Leaders in Jerusalem. In the summer of 1950, these nine, together with the Institute graduates, were scheduled to return and shoulder the major share of Habonim field work. Bearing in mind the sustained tempo of aliya and the readjustment the movement was undergoing, the sending of twenty-nine key people for a year of leadership training becomes all the more impressive. In addition, the project undoubtedly focused the attention of other Zionist youth organizations on the practicability and desirability of year courses in Israel. Furthermore, the group spent part of their year working in kibbutzim, and so the advantages of hachshara in Israel became all the more evident. At the Hechalutz convention in February, 1950, Habonim urged the transfer of hachshara to Israel but received little support.

In the area of Hebrew language study, Habonim initiative again suggested new paths, which were to be adopted later by others. In October, 1949, Habonim conducted an intensive pre-aliya Hebrew seminar in an up-state New York camp. The seminar lasted five weeks, with twenty persons participating. Recently arrived shlichim with experience in the ulpan system of Hebrew study in Israel served as instructors. Six months later, Hechalutz undertook to sponsor a similar course. Amal, Habonim's Hebrew-speaking camp, conducted its first three seasons in the summers of 1948, 1949, and 1950. From a handful of campers in 1948, the camp grew to sixty during the third season. By then, six Jewish educational institutions were listed as sponsors, and twenty-two scholarships were awarded to Amal by various Hebrew-school systems. The director of Amal claimed that his campers spoke more Hebrew than the campers of any other Hebrew speaking camp in America. The climate of a Habonim Camp Kvutza, with its live, Israel-centered program, provided the most favorable ground for maximum results. Yet, it should be pointed out that, promising as both projects were, they did not continue to grow and realize their potential. The reasons, tied up as they are with the lack of an experienced and continuous leadership, belong to the province of the writer of a later period.

These "firsts" did not prevent the -merkaz from giving major consideration to such matters as educational programming. Habonim's most ambitious attempt to standardize and improve its educational work belongs to this period, when a curriculum for the two youngest age groups in Habonim was issued. The first, comprising ten units with such subjects as "Jewish Children Around the World" and "Scouting and Games," numbered over four hundred pages. The second, comprising seven units on such subjects as "How Our Grandfathers Lived" and "The World We Live In," numbered close to five hundred pages. These comprehensive programs provided the club leader with resource material, activity-session plans, and all the techniques needed by a leader to take his charges through four years of club growth, week by week.

The span of time from September, 1948, to June, 1950, witnessed the employment of the largest staff in the history of Habonim. In September, 1949, thirty-seven field workers received half- or full-time salaries; and, of this number, twelve were shlichim. In addition, five Americans and one Israeli served in the national office. Eight Hechalutz shlichim, one of whom resided at the hachshara farm, also assisted in Habonim work.

Many difficulties reduced the effectiveness of the large staff. Often, local communities failed to honor the pledged budget for a fieldworker's salary, causing outright hardship when what were at most subsistence wages came only intermittently. Some of the organizers were young, inexperienced, and unprepared for the psychological, intellectual, and physical rigors of field-work. Possibly as much as a third of the field staff consisted of young people under nineteen years of age. Frequently, just these young leaders were sent to the smaller Habonim centers, which turned out to be more isolated cities where the leader found few if any co-workers his age or a stable adult movement to fall back upon.

The shlichim who began arriving in the fall of 1949 became enmeshed in similar difficulties. Coming to America while in their early twenties and with an inadequate command of the language, having just gone through the searing experience of the Israeli War of Independence, and feeling the isolation of life in a foreign country, these shlichim found the Americans incomprehensible. The American arena had little resemblance to the one in which they had gained their educational experience, and in some cases their work was ineffectual.

The national office quickly realized the seriousness of its personnel problem. A policy was initiated which called for the withdrawal of younger organizers and shlichim from isolated cities and the concentration of several field workers, one of whom would be an older, more experienced hand, in larger metropolitan areas. In addition, it was decided to follow a more selective policy in recruiting personnel. But the pace of aliya and the pace of organization reconstruction was not conducive to a strict adherence to this approach. It was thus with great anticipation that the movement awaited the return of the thirty people it had sent to Israel for a year of study and work.

The total picture in June, 1950, assumed an encouraging tinge. The merkaz, aware of the organization's weaknesses, had taken steps to correct them. The investment in leadership training, which included two projected summer leadership seminars at camp; negotiations to alter the hachshara system; and efforts to establish a Labor Zionist Youth Commission to stabilize the local and national budgets—all these fostered an optimistic reading of coming events. Even the biting debate over the garin, the movement, and "Habonim's role" had become modulated. There was much to boast about—m particular, the large numbers of Garin Aleph graduates at Gesher Haziv and the excellent reputation Garin Bet had won while on final training at Kvutzat Geva in Israel. It appeared, too, that a new leadership type was about to take over. Speaking Hebrew, having lived in Israel for a year, spending part of that time on hachshara with their garin in Israel, these graduates of leadership-training courses in Israel who returned in June of 1950 appeared to symbolize, in their training and background, the new pattern of Habonim development which had finally evolved out of two years of confusion, adjustment, and rebuilding. But June also brought the Korean War, and the atmosphere of anticipation and optimism turned again to confusion and dismay. Others presided over the accommodations which the new situation made necessary.

ARYEH GORENSTEIN, New York, 1960