THE POST-WAR CONVENTION (1945)

The end of the war, the position of world Jewry now that the peace had come, imposed upon Habonim's first post-war convention the duty of preparing the movement to answer the crucial need of the Jewish people, to carry out the "mobilization of American Jewish youth for the rebirth of our people." Calling Habonim to elect its delegates to convene in Detroit from the 22nd to 28th of December under this slogan, we sought to do more than offer the symbolic rallying-point necessary to dramatize a gathering of youth. The goal of the convention was to imbue each member of Habonim with an understanding of his place in the Labor Zionist movement, with the responsibility implicit in his membership n Habonim to mobilize every young American Jew for the rebirth of the Jewish people, for the realization of Zionism.

The convention met under the shadow of the extreme tension in Palestine, a tension which permeated all our deliberations. We met with the knowledge of the formation of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry and its calling into question the political aims and achievements of Zionism. We met knowing that we were small but possessed of a powerful and righteous cause, and with the determination to add the strength of numbers to the strength of our ideas.

The unique responsibility of American Jews was brought home sharply in several ways, and its relevance to each of us individually and to Habonim as a whole was unmistakable. Chaverim who had been to Europe with the American forces, who in Germany, Austria, Belgium, worked with the Jewish remnants, told the lesson of European Jewry during that time—the manner in which it looked to us and to Eretz Israel for assistance, the measure of assistance Palestine had given it, the measure America had not. And in unequivocal terms we were told what was expected of us. We alone had vast numbers of Jews to influence; we alone could make the free decision to go to Palestine and could come there not as problems but to be of assistance in ameliorating existing problems. Shlichim who had arrived just a month before the convention made Eretz Israelis expectations of us very clear. Their messages meant that either we could see as our task the "mobilization of American Jewish youth for Jewish rebirth" and mobilize ourselves to that end, or we did not understand our responsibility and certainly would be unable to discharge it. So our work in Detroit was essentially directed toward the ways to accomplish this internal and external mobilization.

We placed stress on the following: organization of the oldest group in Habonim, the noar; more effective organization and functioning of the chalutz element in Habonim; and the educational aims and techniques for the younger sections of the membership.

Accepting chalutziut as the central motivating force of Habonim, we understood it as part of our task to have a large reserve of members above the age of eighteen so that there would be those to go out to the young-adult Jewish community with the message of chalutziut, with the message of Labor Palestine. This led to the need for well directed activity for this older group of Habonim in every phase of American Jewish life. The American Jewish community could not be influenced by us unless we were in it; if the sources for chalutzim and for positive Zionism were dormant within it, we had to be a wholehearted part of it, to accomplish its awakening.

So, for a day and a half, a commission crystallized the work of noar groups, the national organizational structure which would best facilitate renewed activity among the older members, absorption of Jewish servicemen into Habonim, and campus activities. Several delegates of our convention came directly from the convention in Chicago which founded the Intercollegiate Zionist Federation, for which Habonim has long been working. The commission outlined its relationship to the younger groups in the movement, its responsibility to create a large group of youth in support of Labor Zionism, which would eventually become the Poale Zion Party with specific political tasks as Labor Zionists in America. We sought a structural change which would encourage the vitalization of this older membership of Habonim, which would give the necessary emphasis to its program and plans. The convention therefore decided upon an organizational revision to help bring this into being. In addition to electing a national secretary, we elected two other secretaries, one to concentrate on developing the younger groups and one to devote all his efforts to those of eighteen and over, the noar. With such single-minded concentration we were sure that we would increase the number of noar in Habonim and would increase their activity commensurately.

This division of executive responsibility was to benefit the younger groups as well, and the commissions which worked on problems of leadership and expansion in these younger groups approved the plan. If we were to prepare ourselves internally for answering the call to chalutziut and to spearhead the "mobilization," we needed strong and numerous younger groups, educated for their eventual place as adult Zionists and chalutzim.

Conscious as we were of the poverty and exhaustion of the Jewish people, of the hostile forces condemning us to further annihilation, the convention considered as one of its most important tasks the development of a strong chalutz membership in Habonim and the creation of a strong Hechalutz organization. The fourth commission at work heard reports of the internal organization of Habonim chalutzim and of Hechalutz. Our concern was two-fold: to adapt the education of Habonim to the point where larger numbers of our membership would become chalutzim and to do our part to make of Hechalutz a large and powerful organization, encompassing thousands of American Jews preparing to go to Palestine. A thorough discussion resulted in a changed emphasis of the work of the cr5atutzim of Habonim, who until then had been organized in specific Habonim chalutz units. It was decided that their work henceforth was to be done through Hechalutz branches as a means of strengthening Hechalutz; Habonim chalutzim were to become the nucleus for recruiting hitherto unaffiliated youth in Hechalutz and were to be responsible for building Hechalutz branches. Internal education for chalutziut was to be intensified, but stress on organizational structures for the chalutzim of Habonim would give place to organization within and for Hechalutz. To connote this changed emphasis in our chalutz work, we changed the name of our organizational framework from Kibbutz Aliya to Chavurat Aliya.

At the opening of the convention a moving memorial to the European victims of Nazism and our chaverim killed in the service was read. At the closing oneg Shabbat) the delegates pledged Habonim to plant ten thousand trees in Palestine in memory of our fallen chaverim. In the spirit of dedicating ourselves to carry on their work, in our determination to be worthy of the goals we set ourselves, all those present pledged themselves in these words: "Habonim expresses its determination to answer whatever call may come to stand by the yishuv [the Jewish community in Palestine]. Each one of us is ready to answer an immediate call to aliya, no matter what means may have to be employed to conduct this aliya; each one of us is ready to respond to the call to help those of the yishuv who have been sent to guide European Jews to Palestine; each one of us will labor unceasingly to arouse the American Jewish community to an understanding of the single Jewish destiny and single national need of Jewry. We pledge our readiness to answer whatever call our movement makes upon us, to be ready to participate personally in all forms of hachshara, to man the chava, or to attend the Institute, to assume any position of national or local Habonim responsibility.

"In these crucial days, when the entire life and future of Jewry is at stake, every chaver of Habonim will rise to fulfillment of the needs of our people and our movement with tireless, selfless devotion!"

From FURROWS, Jan.-Feb., 1946