Category Archives: Statements

A camp tries to reinvent the Hebrew language, so transgender kids can fit in

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By Julie Zauzmer August 11

Photo kids at Habonim Dror summer camp.

Sam Newman starts a cheer after lunch at Habonim Dror Camp Moshava on Monday in Street, Md. The campers rewrote their cheers this summer to use special gender-neutral Hebrew plural nouns. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Zev Shofar, a 14-year-old from Takoma Park, started going to Jewish summer camp seven years ago, the children all learned the Hebrew words to introduce themselves. “Chanich” means a male camper; “chanichah” means a female camper.

But what if Zev didn’t feel male or female — neither a chanich nor a chanichah?    Read more ….

Jewish Teens Learn Lessons of Zionism

Jewish Exponent SquareMAY 4, 2016
By: Liz Spikol | JE Staff

 

 

 

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Participants in Ein Zo Agada gained a newfound appreciation for Israel and discussed why they care about it.

“If you will it, it is no dream,” Zionist leader Theodor Herzl wrote in 1902.

More than a century later, Herzl’s words — translated into Hebrew — served as the inspiration for an auspicious gathering of educators and Jewish teens called Ein Zo Agada (“It Is No Dream”), which took place on a recent Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia.

The event was conceived by leaders of two Zionist youth movements — Habonim Dror and B’nei Akiva — and motivated by a single question: “What are the needs of Jewish teens?”  (Article no longer in archive)

An evolving experience

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Friday 22nd, January 2016 Written by Mira Sucharov

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On a little corner of Gabriola Island lies an enclave of old-style Jewish utopianism. Modeled after a kibbutz, campers (chanichim) and counselors (madrichim) talk about heady topics like radical justice, equal worth, unionization, socialism and Labor Zionism.

They learn Hebrew, engage in physical labor and debate topics like whether O Canada adequately addresses the reality of First Nations, the fate of the Palestinians, and how to make a radically inclusive society within Israel. It’s Camp Miriam, part of the network of Habonim-Dror camps across North America. Among the founders of the camp was my grandmother, Marian Margolis, and I spent one memorable summer there as a counselor in 1990.  Read more …

 

 

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Hike, swim, fix the world: Kids mix it up at Gilboa camp

jweekly logo    by dan pine, j. staff

 

 

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Summer camp for Eliza Smith includes more than the typical swimming and s’mores around a campfire. It also includes discussion of Middle East peace and cleanup duty in the bathrooms.

That’s how they roll at Camp Gilboa, a Jewish summer camp in Southern California to which the 15-year old Berkeley High School junior has returned every year since she was 8.

Located in the San Bernardino Mountains, Gilboa encompasses 40 forested acres where campers age 8 to 17 — many from the Bay Area — can hike, make artsy crafts and engage in other typical summer camp activities.   Read more ….

Hatikvah Slate calls ZOA charges ‘hysterical’

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NEW YORK (Press Release)–The U.S. Area Elections Committee chair has found that there is no basis for the request made by the ZOA to disqualify the Hatikvah progressive Zionist slate, established for the upcoming World Zionist Congress elections in the United States. Ironically, the ZOA is attempting to delegitimize the ideological heirs of those who established the state of Israel and since that time have helped sustain the Zionist dream. Ameinu, Partners for Progressive Israel, Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair, the organizational members of the Hatikvah Slate, have presented a platform that represents today’s mainstream peace and democracy camp of Israel.  Read more …..

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Jacques Wagner named Brazilian minister of defense

 

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December 26, 2014 11:32am

(JTA) — Jacques Wagner, the governor of the Brazilian state of Bahia, was named the federal government’s next minister of defense.
President Dilma Rousseff tapped Wagner, 63, and 12 other new cabinet ministers on Tuesday following her re-election in October.

Born in Rio de Janeiro to Jewish immigrants from Poland, Wagner, a former activist with the Zionist Habonim Dror movement, was elected governor in 2007. He had previously served as minister of labor under former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.  Read more …

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Habonim Dror Hosts Rabin Exhibit

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.  Article no longer in archive.

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.

Welcome Our New Shlichim!

Picture of Ido Rumianek

Ido, 34, comes to us from Pardes Hana. He is married to Nurit and father to Alma, a 1 year-old baby. He grew up in Kfar Kish (in the north of Israel), where he was a chanich and a madrich in the B'nei-haMoshavim youth movement (a division within our sister movement of haNoar haOved v'haLomed). He is a social worker with experience with youth at risk and adolescence groups in Israel.

 

Hila Huber, Camp Galil

Hila Huber, Camp Galil

Hila, 23, was raised in Gan Ner, near Mt. Gilboa. Hila was involved in the B'nei-haMoshavim youth movement since she was 10 years old. She was a chanicha and a madricha in the Gan Ner ken and continued on to a Shnat Sheirut, year of community service, organizing community events as a madricha. Hila is fluent not only in Hebrew and English, but also in Arabic and Portuguese.

Daniel_NadavNadav, 23, is from Jerusalem, where he was a chanich and madrich, for at-risk youth, in the Tzophim (Israeli Scouts). Prior to his military service, he volunteered for a year of service and learning in the ha'Emek, a pre-army academy. Nadav also attended the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership where he studied the bible, Talmud, and Western philosophy.