Adventures in Pioneering: Twenty-Five Years of Habonim Camping Introduction During the past twenty-five years, close to five generations

of youth have participated in the Habonim Camps. The pioneers of Camp Kvutza were imbued with an all-consuming desire for creative Jewish living. They dedicated themselves to a form of society based on principles of self-labor and mutual cooperation. These pioneers transmitted their zeal and vision to succeeding generations of Jewish youth in Habonim who followed in their footsteps. Thus, Camp Kvutza enriched the lives of all who participated in its growth and development. It is correct to say that Camp Kvutza is the basic source of strength for the entire Labor Zionist Movement in America. Today's leaders of Habonim are veterans of Camp Kvutza, as are most of our halutzim in Israel. The leaders and halutzim of tomorrow are at Camp Kvutza today, working, studying, playing - creating their own society of the future. Through these years, much has been written both for Habonim and for the Jewish educational world on this unique form of camping. Many were the deliberations within the movement on the development, expansion, and content of Camp Kvutza. Many were the reactions written by campers while at Kvutza and upon their return to the city. In compiling this collection, we were confronted with the wealth of material which has been accumulated for a quarter of a century, and with varying levels of presentation: from that of a thirteen-year old describing his experiences with childish enthusiasm, to that of a leader enlarging on the principles by which Camp Kvutza will function, to that of educators and community leaders analyzing and evaluating the significance of this departure in Jewish camping. Out of these diverse sources, we have not attempted to create a literary unit, but have presented the material in the differing forms in which it originally appeared. Most of the material included has been gleaned from the Habonim archives: News and Views, Furrows, Haboneh, Menahel, convention reports, and internal organizational and educational bulletins. Many present members of Habonim will no doubt discover herein a world seemingly remote from today's reality. But they will find much which may inspire them and will guide them in their movement activities. Many adult readers who experienced the birth pangs and gradual development of Camp Kvutza in the United States and Canada will no doubt find nostalgia mixed with smiles upon the perusal of the articles. We hope, however, that each reader will find herein something of intimate significance as well as informational value. We want to take this opportunity to thank the Chay Commission, Merkaz Habonim, our editorial committee, the office secretaries, and especially our patrons for making possible the publication of this volume. The Editors Summer, 1957

THE BEGINNING An anniversary is a time of reflection; one retraces the years and comes to the beginning: the first Camp Kvutza. Suddenly all is focused clearly and is full of an inner glow - the beginning. So much comes alive: the haverim, the studies, the camp, the campfire with its songs, but above all, the Kvutza: the living and studying together, a mutual investigation of the problems inherent in the ideals which we held in common. Looking backward, one senses how much importance there was to this beginning, but at that time, there was merely the living together at a Camp Kvutza among the gentle hills of New York State. Today the conception of "idealist" has acquired a strange interpretation, and it may even sound boastful to say that we were an idealistic Jewish youth. But in truth and most sincerely, we tried by our own living to create a new world: a world in which the Jew would live in his own country, the forms of living there to be based on Socialism. At the Camp Kvutza these ideals were most meaningful. They guided and directed our lives. It was very hard for we were going against the stream. American Jewish living surrounded us. It was the time of the depression, the economic collapse after 1929. All around us the youth was concerned with jobs, with making a livelihood. Yet we, the tiny group of Poale Zion youth, were far away from all that worried Americans. Our minds and our hearts were concerned with another land and our problems were foreign and distant to American life. We lived in our ideal: a worker's life in Eretz Yisrael. As one looks back twenty-five years, how strange it was, how revolutionary, how "peculiar." Many of us were born in the United States. Some came to the country as young children. Our schooling, our style of life, our thoughts were molded by the country we lived in. We loved this country with its sense of human dignity and freedom, its pioneers, and its absorption of the downtrodden and poverty-stricken millions of human beings who flocked to its shores. We were overwhelmed by its vastness, its mountains and plains, its lakes, rivers, and oceans. There were before us the grandeur of the West, the charm of the South, the beauty of the Appalachians, the awe of Niagara, the breadth of the Hudson. We were conscious of the stirrings of new forces in American literature, art, and music. The life of America was our life: the jazz, the night club in Harlem, the new forms of the dance, the new theater, the politics of the country, the stirrings of the vast labor masses - all this was part and parcel of our day-by-day living. Yet we dreamt dreams away from all that America was, vivid with the hope of the liberation of the Jew, and saw ourselves in our mind's eye with our comrades in the Promised Land. Why? What moved us? How did we come to these thoughts, this tiny group out of the millions of American Jews? Again and again at the Camp Kvutza, it was important to know the reason. I tried to understand why the haverim chose this ideal. What moved these few to meet for a study of Poale Zionism and ways and methods of bringing this ideal to others? So I asked and found that one's Jewish consciousness was awakened by the haunting sadness of the Kol Nidre melody. Or again, it dawned in a crowded college auditorium as the Twenty-third Psalm was read by a Christian clergyman, and moved one to closeness to all people of the Book. Another was fired by the tales told by a recent arrival from Eretz Yisrael who worked in Petah Tikva with the Haverim of the Second Aliya. I learned that often the home and the parents were in opposition and added nothing to these unknown deep springs which lived in the consciousness of our comrades. Some homes were "Bundist," motivated by the thought that Jews need to build a Jewish entity wherever they may be. In some homes, Russian revolutionary songs of freedom and Siberian exile were sung, but not a Jewish folk song. Zionist, Poale Zionist, consciousness grew out of this strange soil, and at times against the wishes of the parents who were aghast at their child's "peculiarities." Why dream of the liberation of the Jews? How about other peoples enslaved by cruel despotic governments? Why far away Eretz Yisracl? There was a working class to be helped in the United States. There were problems to be solved here: tender children working beyond their strength, exploited by those intent on profits; there was a large mass of workers with no job security. Why Eretz Yisrael? There are two million Jews in New York City alone. Much must be done for them, to hold them to some kind of Judaism, to teach their children about their glorious heritage. Why not work here at home?

In the first Camp Kvutza, all the above elements were ever present; they motivated the program of work. We tried to add to the elements already influencing the haverim. In the short span of time spent at Camp Kvutza, there was the singing of the Eretz Yisrael songs which linked us with our unknown comrades. The rhythm, the poetry of the words, the sentiment of rebuilding and heroism, all spoke deeply to us. Around us was the camp fire, bright and cheerful, amidst the dark shadows of the trees, the tense young faces lit by the flame, and young voices filled the air with Hebrew or Yiddish songs of Eretz Yisrael and Jewish revival. We wanted to know more and more about the ideal we so earnestly believed in. For Poale Zion ideology, we went to the writings of Borochov and Syrkin. To the Camp Kvutza was brought much out of the American life in which we found ourselves. We well understood the pioneering life of Eretz Yisrael, for in America we were still close to pioneering, and American history glorified the pioneer who moved West to build up the great United States. To the Camp Kvutza we also brought the new educational theories just coming into being in the United States. I had just received my Bachelor of Science degree in education from Teachers College of Columbia University. My special contribution to Camp Kvutza was to bring to our studies the new educational philosophy of John Dewey, William Kilpatrick, and E. T. Thorndike. These, my teachers, were breaking new ground in education. Twenty-five years ago their educational philosophy was a complete departure from what was then prevalent. It was new, challenging, and audacious. It was a theory of freedom in education and especially John Dewey's philosophy, opposed to all forms of absolutism. The personality of the learner was stressed; he was motivated, he studied on his own level, his personality was respected, he was taught to work and think in a group. The project method was concomitant with these new theories. Adult education was assuming its rightful place. All these methods admirably suited our need, namely, to study our ideology and to pass on our ideals to many American Jewish youths. How happy I was that I was privileged to study under John Dewey, Kilpatrick, and Thorndike! I was fired by the new philosophy of education which they taught and I had learned the new techniques which they advocated. Both in planning the program of the Camp Kvutza and in carrying it out, the haverim wholeheartedly accepted these new methods which I so enthusiastically advocated. My share in the program was to teach and demonstrate those new techniques so that the haverim could take them to the clubs of which they were the leaders. The new methods were so well fitted to our Poale Zionist ideal, which was to give the Jew inheritance in his land. The new education stressed respect and dignity of the individual. It aimed to enrich the individual by giving him the tools whereby he could continue his investigations. These new methods taught the individual how to motivate a study not by committing to memory many facts, but to study for the love of the subject - study deeply and creatively. So we studied the creative discussion method. We sought to draw out every individual to full participation. Especially suited to our Camp Kvutza idea was the fact that these new educational methods stressed group work and participation in group discussion and reaching conclusions by group thinking. This group work was in complete accord with the cooperative ideals of Labor Eretz Yisrael. What a new world these fundamental methods of learning opened up for us! We sensed the democracy of these techniques. The study of E'retz Yisrael problems lent themselves particularly to the new project method. I had some years of organizational work behind me, but never bad I enjoyed a more innerly satisfying experience. It was group living and learning which was deep and lasting in its influence. Camp Kvutza twenty-five years ago was a small pebble thrown into the vast ocean of American Jewish youth. The small ripple it caused has moved farther and farther. The waves in its wake have reached the Promised Land. For haverim from the Camp Kvutza have settled on the soil of the land. By their example they have influenced others to come to Israel. They were on so-called "illegal" boats, they were in Cypress, they fought in the War of Liberation of Israel, and they served in Sinai. Their children are growing up in Israel. And the genesis was that first Camp Kvutza twenty-five years ago. Happy are we to have been comrades and partners in that great adventurous undertaking.

Sophie A. Udin, 1957

ACCORD 1933 Shortly before I came to America, I attended a convention of a Zionist scouting organization with which I had been affiliated. It was held in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. I saw then what such a camping experience can mean in the development of the spirit, ideology, and leadership of a youth movement. The lingering memories found their expression when in America I became a member of the Central Committee of the Young Poale Zion Alliance. Many of us began to think in terms of making of the Labor Zionist youth movement a youth movement in fact, something other than a mere replica of the senior Poale Zion. One of the first media that came to mind was the establishment of a YPZA summer camp similar to the one I had seen in Galicia. Other members of the YPZA Central Committee were like-minded. Berl Locker, then National Secretary of the Poale Zion, enthusiastically accepted the idea. But most of the other leading haverim of the senior organizations were skeptical and some were even opposed. The reasons were: one, the lack of funds; and two, the insistence that inasmuch as the movement already has a children's camp, Kinderwelt, YPZA should utilize that in every way possible. In the summer of 1932, we decided to make an experimental beginning in Unser Camp. Sophie Udin assumed the leadership, and while all who participated gained considerably in their knowledge of Labor Zionism and techniques of leadership, it was generally felt that the real spirit of a Kvutza, of a place that one built with one's own hands, in which one labored and which was governed by its own members, was lacking. The following winter and spring, therefore, strenuous efforts were made to obtain a campsite of our own. With the help of Golda Meir, the use of a beautiful spot in the Catskills was gotten. Jacob Katzman, who was then National Secretary of the YPZA and directed our first Kvutza at Accord, has already related the story of its birth elsewhere in this -volume. But Katzman had to leave in the middle of the season to help prepare the forthcoming YPZA national convention, and upon his insistence and that of our Central Committee, I took over for the remaining period. I found the campers a most heterogeneous group. Among them were some of the best members of the YPZA from several communities, young people with organizational tradition, with leadership abilities, and a fine Jewish background. However, we also had some newcomers who could not even pronounce the name of the organization. One of the four tents consisted of ten boys from Orange, New Jersey, to most of whom, camping and the Young Poale Zion were quite alien as yet. They came because after all, the tuition was only $7 a week and where could one get such a bargain even during the Depression? Under those circumstances, it was very hard to improvise a program to keep the campers busy, to mold a cohesive group, and to institute self-rule and discipline. To this day I don't know how it happened, but we succeeded in instilling the proper spirit of cooperation and a form of self-government. The first few weeks were the hardest. I bad to conduct all the discussion groups and Shabbat programs, supervise all the camping activities, and assign work for the daily work crews, whose task it was to bring some modicum of civilization to this wilderness, keep the grounds clean, provide wood for the stove, carry water from the well, and a multitude of other jobs, including K.P. The first substantial help came with the arrival of Mr. Margolin, a Hebrew teacher, who immediately instituted a program of Hebrew, Jewish history, and geography of Eretz Yisrael. Little by little, our senior haverim started to look upon the camp as something worthwhile. First of all, Meyer Brown and Shmuel Siegel, who came to visit their families, brought back to the city good reports of what was going on in Accord. Of inestimable value in this respect were the several days which Golda Meir spent with us. Her discussions on halutziut were inspiring to the campers, but her report to the senior movement was of even greater importance in bringing Camp Kvutza to its attention. The camp reached its maturity when we instituted the forms of "self-government." Representatives to a camp council were elected by all the campers. The council took its task seriously. Work was assigned judiciously and without favoritism. Everyone, without exception, had to participate in K.P., which, under those primitive

circumstances (without a heater for hot water), was quite a chore, help police the cleanliness of the grounds and tents, and share in whatever manual labor was required. The council proved its effectiveness by seeing to it that once a task was undertaken, a program mapped out, a decision arrived at, they were carried out in a responsible fashion. During that time, we even had the whole camp sit in judgment of a camper who broke discipline and left camp without permission to go to a dance in a nearby hotel. The age range of the first season in Accord was probab1y older than any of the subsequent seasons. There was quite a large proportion of haverim who had completed their preparatory training and were awaiting aliya certificates. The first Accord Kvutza was also rich in adventures. There is a limit to the punishment which even a secondhand army tent can take from the elements, so it was not surprising when occasionally a tent was blown down. This was taken in stride. But one stormy late afternoon, when the velocity of the wind was of hurricane proportion and the rain came down in sheets, the camp found itself without a single tent standing and without a place for the campers to sleep. If ever the spirit of the camp was manifest, it was during this emergency. All the campers, with the exception of a few, were transferred to a nearby hotel. By the time the exodus began, the brook had overflowed its bank and the water covered the bridge. The taller and older haverim had to carry the younger ones, especially the haverot, on their backs to the other side. The few that remained on the camp grounds tried as best they could to sleep on the tables in the dining room. However, the roof leaked, and no matter which way one turned, he got wet. But this did not diminish the spirit of those who remained behind. One vividly recalls the morning after-the sky was overcast, our clothing was soaked, and we were all sleepy, wet, and cold to the marrow. We emerged from the dining room and began a snake dance to the tune of Chopin's Funeral March. As soon as the sun came out, the tents were put up again, the cots and all the possessions of the campers were put out to dry. The advice of the good people around to break up camp was not heeded. In retrospect, this experience became a highlight of that camping season. One would like to characterize some of the campers but that would take too much space and would be unfair to those not mentioned. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that more campers of this first group went to Eretz Yisrael than of any other group since. Many have made their mark in Eretz Yisrael as halutzim and leaders in the Labor Movement. Mention should be made of the contribution to the camping experience of Rachel Siegel and Leah Brown, our cooks, who not only saw to it that the food was adequate and wholesome, but by their presence, lent dignity to the camp and helped to establish the reliability of Camp Kvutza in the minds of our senior haverim. The first season of Accord was the proving ground for the concept of a camp run by youth for youth. It pointed the way toward self-discipline and self-government, and it proved that a camp of this kind lends itself to the pursuit of serious study of the ideology, history, and problems of the organization, while giving the campers a practical demonstration of communal living. The basic idea of the camp was that no member of the staff was paid or received any other special consideration outside of the authority deserved for good leadership. It was most gratifying when months after the close of the first season, participants got together to evaluate their achievements and to speak of their experience with a yearning and nostalgia of summer months well spent. Most of the campers attended the Young Poale Zion convention in Philadelphia, held immediately after the close of the season on the Labor Day weekend. It was mainly due to their stand and influence that this convention decided upon the reorganization of the Young Poale Zion, to introduce tzofiut, and to lay the groundwork for what later became Habonim. Jacob Lemberger, 1957

"KVUTZA" AND KVUTZA Probably the query most frequently flung at me during my sojourn in our Kvutzot was : "Is a Kvutza in Eretz Yisrael really like this?" The answer was awaited anxiously, as if final judgment would be pronounced by the words "yes" or "no." Both the question and the intense anxiety for a positive answer represent, from the educational viewpoint, a triumph for our idea; therein is contained the keen desire to realize personally, in as great a measure as possible, those ideals which motivate our movement. The differences between a Kvutza in Eretz Yisrael and our summer Kvutzot are quite evident; yet one is surprised to what a great extent the essence of Kvutza life is retained, though expressed in different forms. For what are the great values introduced by and embodied in our Kvutzot in Eretz Yisrael? The mutual relationships between haverim; the responsibility which the individual feels to the group, which makes him place all his ability at the disposal of the group without measuring how much he receives in return; the true equality which arises not from an abstract philosophical belief that all men are equal, but from a heartfelt recognition of the value of one's haverim. All these are expressed through communal living, communal labor, play, study, worry, and joy. This attitude toward one's fellow men is the essential ethical motif in our educational program and represents the only true socialist mentality. However, attitudes and states of mind are not created by speeches and lectures and discussions. These instrumentalities are limited in scope. They can indoctrinate a theoretical acknowledgment of what should be. They cannot put what should be into being. Deeper emotions must be stirred, deeper roots must be sought, one's entire personality must be overhauled, and no number of meetings in the city can accomplish this. One can master the art of living together only by living together. That true comradeship, that true self-esteem and esteem of others, does not arise from common outlooks on the paths to be taken, but from following those paths in common. What are meetings? They signify that all present have come from different directions, meet temporarily, and then all return to their respective different places. In the Kvutza, one does not meet with another, one lives with another. Thus our education, which aims at creating an individual who will not only have definite ideals but also realize them, cannot be complete without the Kvutza. Sleeping with one's comrades in tents pitched with one's own hands-eating food prepared and served through one's own labor-learning some important fact about Jewish life one hour and the next chopping wood or playing ball with the same comrades-spending rainy nights on night watch, guarding the health of others-enjoying starry evenings of collective singing and group dancing the sum of all these moments which make up Camp Kvutza life is that self-discipline, self-reliance, and the consideration for the welfare of others which years of preaching could never develop. Ben Zion Ilan 1937

THE MEANING OF KVUTZA Camp Kvutza is our way of making the ideas we have developed and the ideals in which we believe real for ourselves and for the haverim whom we lead. We believe in the right of man to be free as an individual. In specific terms, this means that we want to develop an individual who is awake and sensitive to his world, who dares to participate in every phase of its life, and who creates within himself a force that drives him on to selfrealization. In other words, he is a young Jew who understands what is happening to his people in an alien world and, because of the sensitivity within himself, takes part in the renaissance of his people. His participation in this renaissance becomes the foremost factor in his life as an individual. We believe in the right of an entire people to be free as a group. Were we to believe only in man's right to be a free individual, we would choose other avenues than Zionism on which to live. But it is because we believe in the value and the necessity for national living that we are Zionists. We familiarize our haverim with our historical past; we interpret our present struggle; and we point the way to return to nationhood as our only means of survival and our way of participating in the further development of our people and of society. We believe that there must evolve a new society of cooperation where mankind will develop new values. When we speak of new society and new values, we are not dreamers after Utopia, but followers after the pattern of life being created now in Eretz Yisrael. In the new society that we seek to create, we try to erase the narrow concept of "me and mine," that concept which makes man struggle to fill his pockets so that he and his small family may enjoy the fruits of the world. In the place of this narrow view of life, we would implant a concern for mankind, for our people, for all individuals. And this concern would be demonstrated in our economic, cultural, and social selves. We seek to take the word equality off the lips of our haverim, and put it in their hearts and in their way of living. Equality must be expressed in every phase of life conomic, political, re ligious, social; otherwise there is no equality. This equality and this concern for mankind will become real only when man is judged by his selfless contribution to society, and only when he is a laborer for the improvement of that soci * ety. In order to translate these ideas into human living, we must educate an entire generation of Jewish youth along new lines of thinking and acting. Discussion is an important part of education, but living is by far the greater teacher. In Camp Kvutza we live our ideals. Individual Development at Kvutza Haverim who come to Kvutza must create the Kvutza. That is our best way of developing the new individual. Even before he sees the site, our haver must be made to feel that he is going out on a pioneering adventure to work out a way of life with a group of boys and girls his own age. While still in the city, he should become a part of Kvutza. If he,is a responsible boneh, he should have a part in the actual planning of construction, food and equipment purchasing, and educational programs. If he is too young for this, he should bear witness to all the excitement of preparation, help to raise funds, prepare himself to go to Kvutza. Once at Kvutza, everyone must be made to have an interest in every phase.of the day's activity: work, study, development of creative interests such as, scouting, dramatics, music, art, photography, crafts, and sports. Everyone must become interested in the management of Kvutza: the government, discipline and attitudes of the little community, management of the kitchen, appearance and cleanliness of the settlement. Unless the individual is part of the day's activity, we will fail in our attempt to develop him into the person we want. O Our aims for the haver who participates in Kvutza may be summed up as follows 1 1. To learn to live with a large group of individuals; 2. To deal with the problems of life in a group through the creation of a society based on equality and c cooperation; 3 3. To understand the significance of being pioneers in in a new form of living; 4. To experience, through discussion and dramatics, through special programs and in daily living, the lifes struggle of our people today; 5. To know that the future of our people depends on "me, the individual" and to be so challenged as to take upon himself the task of realizing that future. The Madrich of Kvutza Upon the madrich rests the Kvutza. He will create the atmosphere and the spirit; he will develop-or fail to developall the individuals who come to Kvutza. If his role is important in the city, it is absolutely vital in the Kvutza. For in

the city, the madrich sees his haverim only once or twice a week, but at Kvutza he is With them during all their waking and sleeping hours. Now there are no "company manners" between them. Now there is only day-by-day living. The madrich must come to Kvutza prepared for his duties. If possible, he should be ready with his discussion material, games, songs, and rainy-day activities. At the very least, he must be preared with the proper attitude. For no one in Kvutza is on a vacation; it is our training ground for the tomorrow of our people. The madrich directs the training. He faces a serious task, and only one who understands the responsibility should be entrusted with it. Exactly what is his responsibility? First, he is responsible for the physical well-being of his haverim. He sees that they sleep enough, eat enough, keep themselves and and their sleeping quarters clean. Second, he is responsible for their psychological well-being. He helps them adjust to their surroundings, promotes friendly relations among them, wins their confidences, and spends many hours in just speaking with them about all the big problems we face together and all their personal problems. Third, be is responsible for their development as individuals. He explains Kvutza and people to them; he draws them into every activity; he discovers their hidden talents and interests; he makes them aware of the role they play in their group. The madrich must be wide awake. He must foresee problems before his youngsters create them so that he can divert energies to other channels. He must be a good pal and know how to have f un with them. At the same time, lie, must know how to put across his way of thinking and the desired way of acting. Freedom with a Pattern Herein lies a real problem for all madrichim. How far can we go in allowing the haverim of Camp Kvutza to go their own way in managing Kvutza? Will we create any sins against progressive education and against individual freedom if we guide all activities and if we are, at times, "firm" in stating our point of view? The rosh of every Kvutza, together with the marichim, must understand that Kvutza is not merely an educational experiment. We do not bring together a group of youngsters, turn them loose, and then, with notebook in hand, write up our scientific observations. The luxury of experiinents in education for their own sake we must leave for people more fortunate than we. We are trying to "turn men into a nation and sand into a country." Camp Kvutza is our instrument for inspiring and remaking individual young Jewish lives. We want our youngsters to create their summer Kvutza because that is the way to teach them that they must build the real Kvutza in Eretz Yisrael. Kvutza must be a symbol to us-a symbol that we will eventually make real. That symbol and its realization are the prime forces behind Kvutza. The rosh and madrichim must keep them in mind always. No amount of "freedom" is real or desirabTe if it destroys our Kvutza spirit or discolors our Kvutza design. Staying awake until all hours of the night is ruinous to health and humor-it is not freedom. Failure to participate in discussions, in work, in any group activity, is not freedom but a weakening of Kvutza spirit. The rosh and madrichim are entrusted with young lives and young minds; they are likewise entrusted with a great responsibilty to the Labor Zionist movement. Let them not be frightened by terms or by name-calling. Our only sin can be the failure to make Kvutza what it must be: a pattern of life for our baverim.

An Orderly Society Kvutza must be an orderly society. Haverim must live on schedule. Rising, meals, the day's program-all must add up to steady living. The program should be full so that haverim know that one activity follows another regularly. We need this for the education as well as for the spirit of the Kvutza. A day filled with activity, each thing in its place, goes far toward creating the orderly society, but more is needed to make this orderliness complete. The appearance of Kvutza must be orderly-clean grounds, clean buildings that are nicely decorated, neat haverim. There should be clean-up committees of campers; other institutions may be created to assist in the order of the

Kvutza or in the handling of haverim who refuse to be a part of the general orderliness. The better the madricb, the fewer problems will arise. Insofar as possible, all these problems should be settled between the madrich and the individual concerned through talks. No general rule may be given for "order" or "discipline," since each case and the individuals concerned must be considered. Setting Goals Each Kvutza is a reflection of the city from which its people come. Poor enrollment of movement members, poor participation, lack of understanding of Kvutza, lack of discipline, a broken common fund-these reflect the city activities. Therefore, it cannot be stressed too much: Prepare your members for Kvutza. Summer Kvutza can do much, not only for the development of our haverim individually, but beyond that and greater than that, Kvutza should develop the mahaneh. Before going out to Kvutza, rosh and madrichim should have discussions oil the weaknesses and strengths of the mahaneh and its needs. From these discussions, should come the specific aims of that Kvutza for the season. Thus there will be an understanding among those who will lead the Kvutza, as well as a goal toward wilich they will work. For example, the mahaneh in which I am now living has chosen its Kvutza committee; with this committee I have h had one discussion from which we concluded: 1. Our mahaneh has expanded rapidly so that only about half of our haverim have been to Kvutza and have an understanding of the movement. Therefore, our first aim for Kvutza is to integrate these new haverim into t the movement. 2. Our mahaneh has a good group of Kvutza "vet-' erans." They are actually the "backbone" of the mahaneh. Our second aim of Kvutza is to prepare these sixteen-year-old giveterans" to assume, wherever necessary, complete leadership within the Kvutza and within the mahaneh. This year, like last, our movement faces a serious lack of leadership for our summer Kvutzot. This will mean that all who are madrichim must become well acquainted with the objectives of Kvutza before they go, must think a great deal about Kvutza as an educational institution and as a symbol, and must prepare as much as possible for the season. With our awarenes of what is happening to our people in Europe and in Eretz Yisrael, we become more certain that we will face still greater responsibilities in the movement here and abroad. Therefore, our haverim. must feel that in Kvutza they are undergoing training for their role tomorrow. Miriam Biderman, 1935

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COMING OF AGE The thirteenth consecutive year of Habonim summer camping has rolled around. We have been so occupied in actually preparing for Kvutza, so immersed in the every-day workings, worries, and business of the the camp, that we have hardly had time to notice the years creeping up on us. It was only when I sat down and began to count that I suddenly realized, to my amazement, that Bar Mitzva is upon us. For although thirteen years is a relatively short period of time in the life of an individual, at that age, an institution such as camp is considered old and established, entitled to a sedate, thoughtful, and talkative "Bar Mitzva dinner. " What have we accomplished in these thirteen summers? What institutions can we point to? What have we established, created, contributed? The first Habonim Camp Kvutza was started thirteen years ago, even before the official beginning of Habonim as an organization, by a small group of stubborn young people who were dissatisfied with Jewish isummer camping as they knew it. They felt it was too occupied with trivialities, gave too little room for the expression of the creative abilities of campers, and paid too little attention to intelligent discussion and teaebing of Jewish attitudes and heritage. They had the impudence to believe that they could operate a camp which could change these things, change them for the better. They decided to devote some time each day to discussion of Jewish current affairs, Jewish history, Jewish problems. They decided that they, the campers, should work several hours a day in and about the camp. They felt that the camp should be run democratically with each camper baving a choice in decisions affecting programs and work. They were determined that the spirit of modern Eretz Yisrael should permeate the camp. They called the camp "Kvutza." Today, thirteen years later, Habonim is operating eight summer camps throughout the United States and Canada, and preparing to operate nine next summer, as it did last. Whereas thirteen years ago the first campers "squatted" on a piece of land loaned to them, we now own all but one of our camps, and are constantly expanding our facilities. Whereas thirteen years ago there was a group of some ten to fifteen campers, we now have an average of 1,400 or more each summer. Whereas thirteen years ago all the principles listed above were dreams-according to some, dreams incapable of realization-today they are part and parcel, in a highly developed form, of our camping system. Today Camp Kvutza is integrally bound up with the life blood of Habonim as a movement. It is undoubtedly the strongest educational instrument which we have succeeded in developing. It is almost a truism that those cities which have a good Camp Kvutza in the vicinity have the strongest, most alert, most Jewish-conscious and responsible Habonim groups. We have found no better way to develop youth toward an intelligent understanding of Zionism than the twenty-four-hour-a-day, two-month living course presented by Camp Kvutza. Despite our realization of these things, we are reticent about pointing to our accomplishments. There are several reasons for this. By their very nature our camps become institutionalized according to a given pattern. The nature of our purpose makes for an extremely high rate of chanfre and adaption to circumstance. The fact that we are interested in retaining a permanent hold on the camper through the year as well as in the summer months, that we want him to assume responsibility, to become vitally concerned with our problems, conditions the type of camp we, have. We cannot, like others, be concerned simply with supplying a staff for our camps. Our staff must consist of a certain type of individual, with a certain type of background, and with roots in Habonim. Thus we have been hit more than ordinary camps by the current war situation. The eighteen- and nineteen-year-old haverim who would normally assume positions of leadership are to a large extent unavailable. The fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who in the normal course of events would not be groomed for leadership and responsibility have been forced to become the physical and intellectual core of Kvutza, and it is increasingly difficult for even them to devote themselves to camp. Programs have to be adjusted to their level of preparation. New systems for activity have to be worked out. Ways must be found to draw them actively into the cause which circumstance dictates they must fight for though they be unprepared. The inner strength of our camps is showing itself in the way this crisis is being met. Perhaps it is because younger

11

people all over are becoming accustomed to a greater degree of responsibility; perhaps it is because to an increasing extent they are concerning themselves with problems which have hitherto been considered the domain of their elders. Whatever the reasons, our younger haverim have reacted in a way which leaves no doubt as to the future of Habonim camping. We have continued to develop during the last two difficult summers. Three new permanent sites have been acquired, camps are being expanded, new ideas are being contributed, plans for new camps are under serious consideration. So far, so good. All that I have mentioned can definitely be considered on the credit side of the Camp Kvutza ledger. But there is another angle from which the whole picture can be viewed. Given the conviction that Camp Kvutza is a good instrument for the advancement of our approach to Jewish life, have we exploited as fully as we could have and should have? Have we succeeded in getting the Labor Zionist movement as a whole to recognize it and actively support it? Have we succeeded in bringing it to the attention of the Jewish public as a whole? The answers to these questions are doubtful. We have encountered many problems along these lines and to this day, we have not succeeded in completely solving them. In some cities Kvutza is the summer camp of our entire movement, receiving enthusiastic backing of all its segments; In others, the Labor Zionist movement as a whole has failed to recognize its value and gives it no more than perfunctory backing. In others, there exists no Kvutza because the movement there has failed to become enthusiastic enough about it to undertake the establishment of one. On the other band, in those places where the senior movement has become interested, other ticklish problems arise. The extent to which Habonim should actually run the camp, the advisability of younger people being entrusted with financial and physical responsibility for what in some cases is a big business, comes into question. We have always felt that an important element in shaping the character and initiative of the campers would be lost were these and other responsibilities removed from us and given to our senior haverim. The extent to which the traditional element in Kvutza should be stressed is something which has caused much discussion. In general, it has been left up to the individual city to decide on this question although certain minimum principles such as no work on Shabbat have been adopted nationally. The extent to which non-members of Habonim should be permitted to come to camp is also debatable. That nonmembers should attend Kvutza, thus acquiring contact with our ideas and principles, is naturally desirable. But it is the general feeling that their number should be limited to a certain percentage of the campers in order to preserve the Habonim character. All these questions must eventually be resolved. Concerted attempts must be made to acquire the greatest moral and material backing possible. I, for one, am convinced that Camp Kvutza is the most powerful instrument Habonim has created for the attraction of young American Jews to its cause. It is more powerful than city propaganda, more powerful than Hebrew schools, and its preservation and strengthening is perhaps the greatest contribution Habonim can make to the cause of Labor Zionist youth in this country. In the establishment of a network of twice and thrice the number of Kvutzot we now have, lies the road to the establishment of a really alert Labor Zionist youth. Murray Weingarten, 1944

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PRINCIPLES AND PHILOSOPHY I I. Social Justice A. Self-Labor-In Kvutza, there is never hired labor except where necessary-the cook and the nurse). The maintenance work is done by the camper: kitchen duty, sanitation, cleaning, and where necessary and possible, even construction of buildings. This is in keeping with our belief in the dignity of labor and with t the ideal and policy of the Histadrut-that a man must not be exploited and that he, in turn, exploit no one. B. Cooperative Living-In Kvutza, each camper learns to live with a large group of individuals and to handle the problems of such a life together with the others in a way most efficient and beneficial to the group, and at the same time, to each individual. We have, for example, our common fund of money and food from home. Each person at Kvutza puts in as much money as he can and whatever food he may bring or receive from home. No individual accounts are kept. Each person receives what he needs from the common fund. The food is distributed equally. This is in keeping with our cooperative ideal: from each a according to his ability, to each according to his need. C. Self-Government-Here, perhaps for the first time, the haver becomes a full-fledged member of a community with duties, responsibilities, and privileges that carry consequences affecting him directly. We have a meeting of the entire camp community to discuss its philosophy, program, needs, and ways of meeting these needs. We discuss the desires, suggestions, and interests of the campers in regard to the Kvutza program. And we elect our committees and our officers. II. I Judaism A. We strive to develop a historical sense and an identification with the past and present struggle of the Jewish people. The Haggada says that as we read at the Seder Pesah of the Exodus from Egypt, we must regard it as if we, personally, in our lives, are experiencing these things. We want to develop in our people a feeling of belonging to all that ever was and is Jewish. B. We want to develop or intensify an appreciation of the Jewish tradition and a desire for participation in and perpetuation of this culture. We approach this through our Shabbat and holiday celebrations, singing, d dancing, reading circles, Hebrew study. C. We want to develop in Kvutza, and in our haverim through Kvutza, that intangible Jewish spirit-the folkways of our people. This, though it is hardest to define in -words, is perhaps the most important part of Kvutza life. Into this spirit goes the appreciation of the culture and tradition, the identification with the people and its struggle, and a positive, comfortable feeling of being Jewish. III. Zionism It is our purpose in Kvutza, as in our mahanot, to give the haver an intellectual understanding of Zionism and an emotional feeling of healthy nationalism. We want to develop the desire to participate personally in the upbuilding of Eretz Yisrael. Camp Kvutza and the Movement I I. The Individual A. We desire to aid each individual to become self-sufficient, to be able to make decisions, carry responsi bility, a and use privileges well. We want to make him realize his own worth, to have a healthy self-respect. B. We strive to develop within him a community mindedness: the ability to live within a group, to conform ,without losing his individuality, and to be able to influence without becoming domineering. We want to develop within the individual a respect and regard for his haverim in the group and a successful method of c cooperating with them for the general good. C. We expect the haver to develop intellectually during the course of the summer. Through self-study, discussion groups, reading circles, discussions with other haverim and with madrichim, one has a real o opportunity to increase his knowledge, general and Jewish. D. Through the achievement of all the above, a haver is more willing and able to be active in the movement during the course of the organizational year. II. The Group

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A. The individual and the group are closely interrelated. Every person needs a sense of belonging. There are satisfactions which an individual cannot obtain alone. "In unity there is strength." An individual gains significance, courage, and stimulation in a group. In the course of such participation, his personality develops and a socializing takes place. He develops loyalties, group attitudes, and standards. This is especially important for us because it makes for strong ties among members of Habonim and for cohesive g groups. B. All of the foregoing is important to the mahaneh. When people have a place in the social setup of the movement, they are more willing to devote time and energy to the movement. For many of our people, Habonim becomes the social group. Meetings, KM, and the hanhaga, become an integral and pleasant part of their lives because it is so for their friends also. III. I The Mahaneh A. Kvutza is a stimulant to movement work -When haverim come from Kvutza, having had a full, stimulating, and enjoyable summer, and having formed strong group ties, they are usually anxious to get started on m mahaneh activities and have a lot to offer intellectually and spiritually. B. Leadership qualities are developed Through opportunities for leadership, committee work, or simply through t the group experience, many return from Kvutza in a position to influence and lead others. C. Kvutza offers an excellent opportunity to attract, educate and induct new members. IV. I The Movement A. The movement is strengthened by the activities and stimulation of Camp Kvutza. " The whole is greater than its parts. " Kvutza Is a Living Community I I. Kvutza Is a Living Community A. It is not a vacation from our "real" lives. We come together and have an opportunity to live a portion of our lives as we believe and desire. Kvutza is a democratic, cooperative community. The campers, madrichim, a and rosh are integral parts of this group. B. The madrichim are perhaps the equivalent to elected officers in a democratic society. They have been assigned their roles by virtue of their wider experience and greater insight and understanding. This gives them a greater responsibility to the group. Their function is within the group and not above and outside of i it. C. The rosh, like the madrichim, is a vital part of the community. He is responsible for Kvutza as a whole and for each of its facets. He can influence the entire atmosphere of a Camp Kvutza. It is his responsibility to be sensitive to the needs of the Kvutza and its people, to make a quick decision where necessary-in other words, to feel and understand the tempo of the camp. II I Relationships in Camp Kvutza A. The rosh and madrichim must work closely together in order to achieve the best possible results for the group. The relationship between rosh and madrichim is important in forming attitudes and understanding in madrichcamper relations. There is a definite carry-over of attitudes. The rosh, however, because of his particular position, has veto power over decisions of madrichim and campers in matters of health and s safety. He also has the job of making decisions necessary for the best functioning of the Kvutza. B. The madrichim in a Kvutza are not counselors in the usual sense. They are not technicians functioning in the limited sphere of their specialties. It is in all of the madrich's behavior as a social being, in relation to all others -madrichim and campers alike-that he influences people. The madrich that works with a group must be part of that group. He stimulates the group and, in turn, the group stimulates him, intellectually, socially, and in a creative manner. If we are successful, we enrich our lives through this relationship. The First Day I. The first day of camp sets the tone for the entire period. Future relationships between madrichim and campers can stem from impressions received on the first day. The madrichim must exert every effort to make the campers feel at home and must be with the campers every minute of the day to aid in their personal adjustment and orientation to new faces and new surroundings.

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A. The Meeting-The first meeting is the most important one of the season. It is also one of the biggest factors in the tone and atmosphere of the camps. This is the first community expression of the campers. There we will determine the policy and principles of Kvutza. There we put into practice our theory that Kvutza is a "living community. " We want the haverim to understand that, though it is natural that the rosh and the youngest tzofeh are not equal in influence, they are equal in right of expression. The madrichim also are an integral part of this community meeting, with full voting rights and complete freedom of expression. Let us clarify the question of jurisdiction which will arise in some form. The madrichim will deal with our general educational policy and health and safety measures. The madrichim must have an appreciation and an understanding of all other camp problems. The primary function of the goneral meeting, on the other hand, is to discuss the group life-the community life such as common fund, work committee, evening programs, and daily schedule. It is clear, however, that an explanation of the guiding principles of our health and safety measures is necessary, that a discussion on the educational aspects of camp can be a positive thing. If the thoughts of the campers on this aspect of camp life are feasible, then they c certainly are acceptable. B. Common Fund-Our purpose in advocating the common fund is to teach the first fundamental principle of a Labor Zionist life. It is not advisable, however, to impose such a decision on Kvutza. Our job must be to educate in such a fashion that the haverim will decide themselves that it is practical and necessary. Our approach should be: How do you want to handle spending money and food packages? We can get across the point that beside the educational value, it is practical, pleasurable (isn't it more fun to do things together as friends?), and is wanted. Educational Tools I. We have, in our movement and in Kvutza, established certain definite and characteristic methods of "getting things across. " We utilize the discussion, the reading circle, creative group activities, and Shabbat and holiday p programs. These are our educational tools. A. The Discussion-The discussion has traditionally been our way of disseminating information. We have considered it our chief "tool." We realize that informational lectures seldom move a young person or change his attitudes or ideas. Our discussions have often been reduced to information-giving periods, and only by carefully planning and preparing them, can we avoid making lectures of the discussions. Methods t that are interesting, provocative, and attractive must be utilized. B. The Reading Circle-The reading circle is a pliable "tool. " It can be used in connection with the discussions, as well as independent of them (Zionist classics, for instance). It can also be a device for transmitting certain attitudes and feelings. As an example of this last, reading stories and poetry from Hebrew and Yiddish literature in the orig- inal or translation may help in developing an understanding of and feeling for the literature and folkways of our people. In Camp Kvutza, where there are a number of Hebrew-speaking haverim, there is certainly an opportunity for a reading in circle. Personal Preparation I. This coming summer, madrichim in our Kvutzot, on the average, will be younger than ever before. In many cases, this means that the madrich will be lacking in experience and background. We must be prepared to conduct more extensive and intensive training in the city for our madrichim prior to their going out to Kvutza. This c can be accomplished in various ways. A. The madrichim responsible for camp work should begin to meet once a week. What does such a group hope to accomplish? The group should aim to have a clear understanding of what Camp Kvutza is, how it differs from the average camp in this country, what we hope to accomplish with our campers, and what the ideas of Habonim are. It should aim to have an understanding of what to do with children and how to m make decisions on practical and technical problems of Kvutza. B. This "workshop" is to serve as the instrument whereby the madrichim obtain basic attitudes and ideas for camp work. After concentrated discussion, the madrich should be ready for the necessary personal preparation. Conferences with individuals and supervision of individual assignments is an important aspect of our training. The facilities of the city can be utilized, and various haverim can be assigned to take courses in first aid, dramatics, crafts, carpentry, cooking, sports, swimming, office work, scouteraft, etc. Others can begin to think in terms of preparing for the discussion groups, evening programs, Shabbat c celebrations, rainy-day programs, and the work program. C. The "workshop" and individual preparation do not rule out the necessity for frequent meetings of all the m madrichim. The following items must be understood thoroughly: 1. Health and safety requirements and standards

15 1

2 2. Kitchen setup and rules 3 3. Daily program 4 4. General educational work 5 5. Role of the madrich in Camp Kvutza 6 6. Discipline D. From the beginning we should strive to create the feeling that the madrichim are working as a group, thrashing out plans, discussing theory and practice, and helping establish the basic principles which govern their tasks. The job of this group becomes increasingly important since training and supervision are paramount to achieve the necessary continuity of program and stability of approach. Handbook for Madrichim, 1952

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THE TURNING POINT Habonim camps, at their inception, introduced new and revolutionary methods and concepts into the field of camping generally, and Jewish camping in particular. Perhaps we, not to speak of authorities in the field of Jewish camping, have never fully evaluated or appreciated the new and progressive approaches we developed in our first camps. Our program was outstandingly different from other Jewish camping programs; in most phases of camping, we led the way and were far ahead of other camps. Alongside the most progressive educational techniques and values, our camps, from the physical point of view, operated on a most primitive level. Campers were generally housed in tents. Outdoor plumbing was the rule and not the exception. Dining halls were small, kitchens totally inadequate. There were no special facilities for infirmaries. Frequently, camps were situated in virtually inaccessible sites. There were no si)ecial technical personnel; an older havera with relatively limited experience might well be the cook or nurse, and an older haver, the business manager. And no camp season was complete without at least one good epidemic, fire, or accident, which created the material for "chizbatim" told to this very day. In fact, the more primitive the camp, the more enjoyable and satisfying the camp season appeared to have been. And, surprisingly enough, parents sent their children to such camps. Perhaps it was that in the late thirties and early forties the Jewish community had not as yet reached its present economic middle-class level, with corresponding middle-class standards in regard to the camps. Perhaps parents-and especially those from socalled "Jewish homes" -felt that the uniquely Jewish content which we had to offer their children in such a creative and dynamic manner more than offset the primitive environment to which their children were exposed. Whatever the reason, though they complained, parents sent their children to our camps, and their children returned from camp none the worse for wear and full of enthusiasm for the type of creative Jewish camping which they had experienced over the summer-an enthusiasm which to varying degrees was communicated to, and shared by, the parents themselves. Today, from the point of view of progressive educational techniques and values, our camps are no longer unique. Every year, new camps come into being which stress similar approaches to the very ideals in camping which were once almost exclusively ours. For instance, one can find a strikingly familiar description of a day at camp in the March 14, 1954, issue of The Reconstructionist, in an article entitled, "At a Work Camp of the American Jewish Society for Service, " by Hyman R. Sankel. " The day's work is beginning ... Two boys and a girl start to saw wood for the flooring of the house they are erecting ... Others are busily mixing mortar and cement for the foundation of the house . - . Still others are digging a ditch to lay the sewer pipe. The cement is ready. The foundation is about to be laid. Now the plumb line and the level go into action. This is a key job, Cooperation is essential. The camp individualist, Emanuel, cannot do the job alone. He must ask for help. He begins to see the value of working together with his fellow camper for a common goal." This could be a description of a very successful work project at a Habonim camp, with its emphasis on the dignity of labor and cooperation among men. It is actually a description of a typical "work camp" of which there are many, ranging from agency camps, such as the one described above, to private camps charging high tuition rates. The monopoly we once had in the field of creative Jewish living" is no longer ours either. Here, for example, is a description of a B'nai B'rith camp: " The most popular of the subjects studied was the imaginary trip to Israel . . . The children were started on this imaginary trip by applying, realistically enough, for visas at the Israel Consul's office. They visited the cities, famous settlements, and landmarks of the country. Each site was investigated for its ancient and modern significance. When they entered the kibbutz Yizr'el, which is on the Gilboa, f acing the Arab Triangle, they could sense the immense drama which has taken place and is taking place around this famous mountain . . . " While we may take pride in the fact that a B'nai B'rith camp here employs so successfully a technique long known to Habonim, an even more important conclusion, which can be drawn from this and other examples, is that we are no longer alone, or among the few, using the approach to Jewish camping which such an activity typifies. So now, in 1954, we find that we are not the only progressive Jewish camp on the scene. On the other hand, though educationally Jewish camping has caught up to us, technically we have f ailed to keep pace with the other camps. And today, more than ever before, the Jewish parent pays increasing attention to the physical setup of the camp to which lie sends his child; there are so many Jewish camps from which to choose that he may well be

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particular as to the one he finally decides upon. The physical setup and technical funetioning of the camp finally chosen may well be the deciding factors. Let no one conclude from my foregoing remarks that our particular type of camping has outlived its usefulliess; on the contrary, in terms of our movement's needs, Habonim camping is as necessary and important to us as it ever was. For in Habonim, unlike other Jewish organizations, we want to create halutzim, and only our camps can educate towards that aim. But one need not have a technically primitive, illmanaged camp in order to educate towards that goal. A good madrich should be able to educate towards the aims of Habonim in a modern, well-equipped, well-run camp as well as, if not better than, in a primitive one; on the contrary, in a modern, well-operated camp, the madrich has more tools and materials at his disposal to aid him in his job. To defend the primitive camp on ideological terms is to distort the entire meaning of our ideology. The need then is to bring our camps up to date in the physical, technical, and administrative spheres so that we can once again compete with other Jewish camps and be acceptable to the modern Jewish parent, whose first concern is with his child's health and safety. Habonim camping is now at a crucial turning point. If we do not advance technically, a time will come when our camps will be empty. If we do advance, as we have set out to do, we may once again find ourselves in a leading position in the field of Jewish camping in America. We must face up to the realities of the situation and solve the problems confronting us in a responsible and mature manner. Dex Srauss, 1954

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Review of Twenty-Five Years It all began in 1932, with fourteen haverim in a tent, living and studying together for a month. The following year, Habonim established its first Camp Kvutza at Accord, New York. Accord stands out in the memories of all the oldtimers for its sheer physical beauty and difficult pioneering conditions. During that first summer, the fundamentals of Camp Kvutza were developed: 1) collective-democratic living, 2) a full Jewish life, 3) self-labor. Inspired by Accord, two more Kvutzot were opened in 1935-in Montreal, and in Chicago at Camp Tel Hai. In 1936, Los Angeles had its first camp. By 1939, Moshava (Baltimore) and Kinneret (Detroit) were founded. Close to 1500 haverim attended the camps in 1940, and in preparation for the 1941 season, new camps were projected for Texas and Winnipeg. The summer Kvutza had become Habonim's most powerful and most effective educational weapon and had also become a "big business" operation. With the development and expansion of the camps came a need for better planning and direction of both their educational and administrative aspects. As a result, the Cincinnati Habonim convention in December, 1940, called for the organization of a Habonim Kvutza Committee. This committee established a series of minimum requirements, began to work on the first Kvutza Manual, and set up a systematic program for selecting the volunteers to staff the camps. This by no means meant that our camps were becoming standardized. In educational methodology, they ran the gamut from experiments in Lieberman's Creative Camping to semi-military discipline. Only a few of the camps were on permanent sites; most sites were rented. In many cases permission was secured to use the site for an indefinite period of time, but there was already a feeling that means must be found of assuring permanency and continuity in the operation of our camps. In 1943, Camp Avoda was operated for the first time at the Hehalutz training farm in Creamridge, New Jersey. The objective of this experiment was to create a positive attitude toward collective living and halutziut among nonaffiliated American Jewish youth. The primary educational factor in Camp Avoda was its proximity to the collective group and the farm. In later years, a number of highly successful Camp Avoda seasons were conducted at the farms with groups drawn from within the movement. In 1945, 1600 youngsters spent the summer at eleven camps, in Killingworth, Connecticut (for New York), Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and at Creamridge. 1946 saw perhaps one of the peak years in Habonim camping when over two thousand campers attended Kvutza. Later, Philadelphia founded its own camp (Galil). St. Louis had its Kvutza, Tel Natan, for several years, but the collapse of the movement in the city brought about the demise of the camp as well. New York bought a new camp site at Amenia, New York. For several seasons this was a work camp in the process of construction. During the years, there have been a number of sig nificant experiments in Habonim camping. Foremost among these was the national Hebrew camp, Amal. Its first season in 1948 opened on a rented site in Vermont with 26 campers. At Amenia (1949) and Killingworth - (1950), the camp accom modated fifty campers, gained the backing of six bureaus of education in various cities which sent scholarship students, and became established as one of the foremost Hebrew camps in the country. Habonim was the only Zionist organization to sponsor a Hebrew camp. Influenced and sparked by Amal alumni, in 1951, a number of interesting and important Hebrew programs were planned at Kinneret and Moshava. Amal itself was at Creamridge. One of the significant results of Amal has been the proof that under proper conditions, fairly large numbers of non-movement people can be attracted to our camps and integrated into the movement. In 1952, Amal was conducted at Moshava, and during the summer of 1953, at Galil. At the 1953 convention of Habonim, it was decided to discontinue Amal as a separate institution and to stress Hebrew at all Habonim camps. Mahaneh madrichim is an experiment in the realm of leadership training rather than strictly camping. The first national mahaneh madrichim. was held in the summer of 1940 at Galil for the training of madrichei tzofim. In 1948, two madrichim camps were held, one in Vermont for the East and one in Detroit for the West. This pattern was followed the next year at Montreal and St. Louis. In 1950, one national madrichim camp was conducted at

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Kinneret. Each subsequent summer has witnessed large seminars of madrichim, bonim, and noar, and preembarkation seminars for the Habonim Youth Workshop in Israel. In addition, most camps have conducted training programs for prospective madrichim. 1950 also saw another experiment long under consideration. Toronto conducted a "rambling camp." A number of haverim inade a long trip by truck, carrying full supplies and equipment and camping nights at previously selected sites. The three camps in the East have conducted an annual Maccabia, the sports and cultural festival, in which all the campers participate. The past few years, too, have seen a number of interesting variations and experiments in the Habonim camping picture. There has been an awareness that existing Habonim camps must be put on a more efficient and permanent basis. Many more camps are on permanent sites into which large investments have been put by the local Labor Zionist movements and Merkaz Habonim. There has been a trend to put the administration of our camps on a semi-commercial basis. The national Habonim Camping Association has been showing steady but slow improvement in the handling of national aspects of camp. The permanent New York Kvutza at Red Hook, New York, was purchased in 1953. New camp sites were purchased for the Midwest in 1956 and for Camp Miriam in Vancouver in 1956. We are aware that Camp Kvutza is our most effective educational instrument, and increasingly aware of its potentiality as an instrument for expansion. During 1957, the following seven Kvutzot, all on permanent sites, will be conducted: Camp Habonim, Red Hook, New York; Camp Kvutza Galil, Ottsville, Pennsylvania; Camp Moshava, Annapolis, Maryland; Midwest Camp Habonim, Three Rivers, Michigan; Camp Naame, Saugus, California; Camp Kvutza, St. Faustin, Quebec; Camp Miriam, Gabriola Island, British Columbia. Kvutza Manual, 1957

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CAMP KVUTZA IS BORN The last days of August, 1932 ... The first Young Poale Zion Kvutza is winding up its four-week session at Unser Camp, Farband summer colony at Highland Mills, New York. The closing hours are devoted to evaluation and self-criticism. The fourteen pioneers have been together for a full month and have valiantly tried to imbibe three lecture and discussion periods a day, with two or three lectures in each period. The haverim have learned much and have had a lot of fun, too. Life in the big tent has been most congenial, yet everyone feels that something was missing . . . Unser Camp offered too many comforts and too many distractions. Somehow, it was a camp and not a Kvutza, it wasn't our own, the product of our own labors, efforts, and ingenuity. We were guests and not creators ... Next year we must have a real Kvutza, no matter what the difficulties, and the more primitive the better! Next year we must learn not only theory but also how to provide for ourselves. Mid-June, 1933 ... Summer is knocking at the door and still no Kvutza site. We are getting panicky. Suddenly, and from an unexpected quarter, an undreamed of opportunity. A bavera in California met Golda Meir and told her of a sister in New York who is part-owner of some land in the Catskill Mountains. The sister would like to do something for "the Jewish people." For lack of a more speciflc address, we accept this bid as meaning us. A series of interviews, enthusiasm waxes high ... Finally one morning we are off to the Catskills: Accord, Granite, Kerhonkson-never beard of the places. Three hours, four hours, we have lost our way a half-dozen times, but the country gets more and more beautiful as the road becomes steeper and the hairpin curves sharper. Soon there is no highway at all, only a deep-rutted, bumpy, dusty, farmers' dirt road into a wilderness. Our hearts sink, spirits flag. A few more minutes and we find ourselves on the summit of a hill, a beautiful valley below, and in the near distance, a ring of mountains that seems to change color before your eyes. A singing brook cascades over the rock ledges forming crystal pools every few hundred feet-and on "our" land! We are filled with joy at the sight of all this beauty, but also with sadness when we see how the land lies waste and neglected-grass and weeds waisthigh, the earth is parched, no house (it burned down when the place was abandoned seven years before). There is only an indescribable shack occupied by our benefactress and her partner in the summer . . . The next day, back in the city, a meeting of the National Executive is hastily convened. This is the place, the answer to our prayers. Far? What of it? Wild? We've got a job to do. No shelter? We'll build our own. No money? We'll beg, we'll borrow, we'll owe . . . Feverish days and nights . . . So much to do . . . Raise money, get lumber ... We need a car ... Ten haverim want to build a dining room and platforms for the tents . . . What will they eat? Who will cook for them? ... Buy tents, cots . . . Can you borrow dishes, silverware? . . . How are registrations coming? . . . Haven't heard from Buffalo . . . Two coming from Rochester . . . Persuade some Pioneer Women to come out as "cookies." . . . And how about the program? . . . And how about discussion leaders? ... Time is short-so short! A matter of days now . And through it all, a glorious tingle in the blood we are building our own Kvutza! Yes, really building! . . . Who can forget the day when the big truck came rumbling across the wooden bridge to unload the first $400 worth of lumber . . . All right now, here is what we have to do. Clear the site on top of the hill. Here, lay it out cross-wise so that the kitchen part will come right over the spring. Take advantage as much as we can of the cement floor of the burnt-down barn. We've got to finish the kitchen first. Over the dining room we can stretch canvas if necessary. Here, we will build platforms for the tents . . . There, down below, the outhouse. Thursday noon. The Kvutza is scheduled to open Sunday, and it seems as if everything is still to be done. Every hour brings one or two more haverim. By nightfall, the original number of the work group is more than doubled. Friday all day they come trekking in. The cookies become more and more exasperated as the number of mouths to feed increases, and the old farmer's stove bought for $4 refuses to get fired. Nerves are on edge . . . Everyone is working against time . . . Every newcomer is pressed into service as soon as he has a bite to eat ... But the cookies work hardest of all.

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In the meantime, miracles have been happening. The seven-year growth of grass and weeds has been cut. The single pyramid tent that had housed the work crew is now joined by three others. They form a thrilling silhouette against the sky. The long tables in the dining room are scrubbed clean, set with dishes and silverware, and decked with flowers, ready for the first Shabbat in our own Kvutza. In the deepening twilight, twenty-four of us, scrubbed clean at the brook and dressed in our "best," sit down to break bread together. The Shabbat, our sages tell us, should be received with rejoicing. We fulfilled the mitzva with overflowing hearts. Jacob Katzman, 1942

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A DECADE OF EXPERIENCE IN COOPERATIVE JEWISH CAMPING Modern educational camping has increasingly emphasized experience in creative group living and learning. The objective is not only to provide a change of physical environment and healthful recreation. The camp setting provides the opportunity to help the camper increase his range of interests, knowledge and skills, develop socialized attitudes and patterns of behavior, and in general, to enrich his personality. Jewish camps conducted under communal or semicommunal auspices have sought, in addition, to provide Jewish educational experiences, conceiving their work as an extension of the program of Jewish group work agencies in the city. This paper describes a type of Jewish camping program which attempts to apply this philosophy and technique of educational camping, and at the same time, to provide satisfying and creative Jewish experiences. These camps, known as Camp Kvutza, have a ten-year history under the auspices of the Labor Zionist Youth Organization, Habonim. Modeled after the Eretz Yisrael collective settlements, the camps are the extension as well as the annual climax of the Habonim program. Educational Objectives of Habonim In order to properly understand the motivation and character of Camp Kvutza, is is essential to know something about the aims of Habonim, which caters to young people of the age level of 14 to 21. These aims were formulated at the 1940 convention of Habonim as follows: As an educational youth movement aiming to develop within its ranks haverim who shall in their own lives realize i its aims, Habonim has the following purposes: 1. To strengthen the bonds between American Jewry and Eretz Yisrael, and actively to support the rebuilding of t the Jewish National Home. 2. To train young Jews to become halutzim. in Eretz Yisrael and, as members of the Histadrut Haovdim. ( (General Federation of Jewish Labor of Eretz Yisrael), to create a cooperative Jewish Commonwealth. 3. To prepare young Jews for" participation in the upbuilding of a new social order throughout the world, based o on the principles of economic and political democracy. 4. To educate young Jews toward the revitalization of traditional Jewish values; for the study of Jewish life, h history, and culture; toward a feeling of identification with the Jewish rights everywhere. 5 5. To prepare young Jews for the defense of Jewish rights everywhere. 6. To prepare young Jews for active participation in American Jewish community life. The reader must not overlook the importance of the words, "who shall in their own lives realize its aims." This is a central concept in the educational program of the movement. At Camp Kvutza, Habonim members live according to the principles they have been studying and, in a sense, test their validity. Principles of Camp Program Although all the camps are the expression of a similar social and educational outlook, it does not follow that they are identical in character. Differences exist which are based on local circumstances, physical environment, and personnel. Each camp has developed in time a distinctive character. Thus, where a camp is located on rented property, it is deemed inadvisable to put too much effort into construction projects. The vegetable garden is a bigger undertaking in California than in Winnipeg for obvious climatic reasons. Experimentation in methods and program materials varies with the personal predilections of the camp leaders. In one camp there may be more free choice of activity than in an other. The Montreal camp, for instance, reflects the Yiddish school influences under which the campers live during the year. Nevertheless, the camps conform within the limits indicated to certain principles and patterns. Equality of all persons in the camp is a cardinal principle. The camp director enjoys no privileges not available to the youngest camper. Neither is he exempt from any of the chores which are a, part of the maintenance of the camp. In keeping with the practice of the collectives and cooperatives in Eretz Yisrael, an effort is made to have no hired labor in camp. The staff and leaders are all members of the organization who contribute their services and regard

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themselves as members of the camp community. Exceptions are made when it is not possible to secure the services of a competent physician or nurse or when, on rare occasions, a cook has to be engaged. Workmen are also hired when, particularly at the establishment of a new site, it is impractical to rely entirely on the campers to build the necessary structures. Self-government is a third basic principle. The regular camp meetings discuss administrative problems, programs, and daily routine, and elect various committees which are responsible for specific phases of camp life. The executive committee meets often with the director and staff members to act upon various problems. Disciplinary cases which are not easily adjusted may be brought to the attention of the designated committee. The functions of the staff members and leaders are to direct the educational activities -the discussion and study groups, the singing, dramatics, reading circles, arts and crafts, scoutcraft, nature study, and sports. Staff and Organization Before any Camp Kvutza opens for the summer, considerable preparations have to be made. A camp committee is established by the local organization. Where several cities in a region cooperate in conducting a camp, such committees are established in each community and contacts are made by correspondence and personal visits by their members. Representatives of Habonim and the adult Labor Zionist organizations constitute the committees. The committees assist in raising funds, recruiting campers, purchasing food staples, and in other ways. The local Habonim take the initiative in all this work and carry the burden of responsibility. They determine the fees to be charged and establish the differential in tuition as between members and nonmembers of the organization. Campers may register for varying periods, the minimum being two weeks. Prior to the arrival of the first group of campers, an advance crew arrives at camp to prepare for the opening of the season. This is a group of members who generally remain as staff members and leaders. They open the buildings, set up the tents, clear the grounds, repair the plumbing, and get the camp generally ready. No attempt is made to do a complete job of renovation, as one of the major activities of camp is to carry forward the program of improving facilities, enlarging the camp, putting up new structures, and beautifying the grounds. In addition, the advance crew spends the evenings outlining plans for the summer, outlining projects, and preparing for the discussions and activities they will conduct. With the arrival of the campers, the full program is initiated. At a meeting of the entire camp, the director or an experienced camper outlines the purposes of Camp Kvutza and indicates some of the specific objectives for the summer. The executive committe is elected, its responsibilities and functions are discussed, and the various functional committees are named. In speaking of staff and leaders, it is necessary to bear in mind that we are considering here individuals generally much younger than their "opposite numbers" in other camps, both communal and private. The year-round program of the Habonim organization provides for the continual preparation of members for or leaders of groups of younger children. It is very general, then, to find, both in the cities and in the camps, boys and girls taking responsibility for the leadership of groups of younger children. These leaders are themselves active members of groups of their own age at the same time that they are leading the younger children. Work Projects Some aspects of the camp program and some of the "institutions" which have developed in the course of years merit detailed description. Work projects are a consistent feature of every Camp Kvutza. The nature of these projects varies, as has been suggested, with the local circumstances. In the kitchen work, the cook, who is usually a member of an adult Labor Zionist group, is assisted by campers, designated daily by the committee in charge of assigning individuals to various tasks. The campers help prepare meals, wait on tables, and clean up after meals. In the process they learn menu planning, some elements of nutrition, and problems involved in maintaining the camp within budgetary limits. No one at camp is exempt from taking his or her turn at this work. The maintenance of the grounds, buildings, and tents is likewise the responsibility of the campers. Building projects are planned and executed sometimes within one season, and in some cases, over a period of years.: This phase of the program has been one of the most fruitful sources of creative expression. There have been instances where it was necessary to curb the eagerness of the campers to devote themselves to work projects to the virtual exclusion of other activities. This has been particularly true where the camp was established on a new site and had to be built "out of nothing." Using hired workmen only where the tasks made this

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unavoidable, trees have been cut down, ground cleared and ploughed, and buildings erected. In a four-week period one summer at Kinneret in Michigan, the group finished waterproofing the roof of the dining room and kitchen, dug a tile tunnel for the water pump, put up screens and shutters on the doors and windows of the dining room, built shelves and drawers for kitchen equipment. The girls painted the dining room and screens. The following year they added a shower house, new tent platforms, sheds to cover the pump and washing machine (the campers conducted a cooperative laundry), new garbage pits, and the beginning of a storage bin. The greatest adventure was that of "bringing light to Kinneret." Five trees were cut down, trimmed, painted and erected so that electric cables could be drawn from the nearest sources of power. The complete electrification job was done and celebrated late in the summer when the lights were turned on in the dining room, shower house, and recreation hall with impressive ceremonies. I have watched the camp at Killingworth, Connecticut, acquire an enlarged dining room, infirmary, shower house, log bridge and dam over a stream which fed the swimming pool, an outdoor amphitheater dug out of a low hill and furnished with a stage platform, and the beginnings of a small building intended for use by activity groups in bad weather. All this was done in addition to clearing two large wooded areas to accommodate the tents. This emphasis on work has several motivations. It is an end in itself inasmuch as it fills immediate needs and serves to beautify the camp. The campers acquire considerable information and numerous skills. Moreover, it serves to inculcate in the campers a positive attitude toward work and collective self-sufficiency. It is a real-life demonstration of the values inherent in socially useful labor. In recent years, efforts have been made to introduce gardening with varying success. Girls have taken to this activity particularly. The advance crew usually prepares the soil and plants a variety of vegetables which mature during July and August. During the weeks of camp, the produce from the garden is used in the kitchen. In some of the camps, the practice has developed to sell produce to visitors, the income being contributed to the Jewish National Fund. During the 1942 season, interest in gardening was heightened by associating this activity with the need for maximum food in this country. Study Activities The casual visitor to any Camp Kvutza would probably be struck by the amount of time devoted to more or less formal study. Definite periods are set aside for this in the daily schedule, but an atmosphere of purposeful learning permeates the camp at all times. The subject matter, derived from the basic aims of Habonim, covers a wide range of topics of Jewish and general interest. Group discussion is the dominant method, with projects involving related activities being used to a fair degree, particularly among the younger age groups. Talks by visitors from nearby communities, representatives of the Eretz Yisrael Labor Movement, and staff members serve frequently as points of departure for discussions. Reading of relevant materials goes on simultaneously. The topics range from the aims and organizational forms of Habonim, to the causes of war and the prospects for permanent peace, from vocational problems of American Jewish youth, to the effect of rainfall on the economy of Eretz Yisrael. Groups have discussed and read about Jewish historical subjects, anti-Semitism, problems of Jewish adjustment, Jewish community organization, personalities from Jewish and Socialist history, "famous unknowns," phases and problems of life in Eretz Yisrael, Jewish migrations and refugees, the Bible and modern Jewish literature, and elements of Socialism. The subjects keep changing as events suggest the timeliness of various problems. At the end of the 1939 season, when war was imminent in Europe, long and personalized discussions as to the implications of the war took place in all camps. Observance of Shabbat Much attention has been focused upon the observance of Shabbat, holidays, and special occasions. Here the empliasis is on creating new forms of observance which will give meaning and significance to the holidays, and which will be emotionally and aesthetically satisfying. Considerable success has been achieved in this area. The Friday evening at Camp Kvutza is the highlight of the week. Preparations for Sbabbat go on all day. Camp is cleaned up, laundry is done, the dining room is furnished with fresh flowers and ferns, tables are covered with white table cloths, and a special nienu is prepared. The ceremonies may begin at flag-lowering, and continue in the dining room before and after the meal. The use of the traditional Kiddush has spread in recent years, symptomatic of the swing back from an earlier rejection in radical Jewish circles of all that smacks of the old and "outworn. " Groups have prepared special readings from the Bible and the Prophets, and from their extensive repertoire of Hebrew and Yiddish songs, they have drawn those which lit particularly the spirit of Shabbat. Specific themes may be used as the foci of the program, and when this is done the first hint may well appear in the blessing of the candles. These ceremonials, being original, give to the observance a spontaneity which is so often lacking where the traditional orthodox customs are practiced. At the same time, they do not stiffer from that coldness and remoteness which so often characterize the reformist or "non-sectarian" services in vogue in many Jewish camps.

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After the meal the singing normally continues, with or without choral group to provide direction. There may be also a story or brief talk on a subject related to Shabbat. Invariably, the evening closes with folk dancing in the open or in the cleared dining room. On Saturday, all work projects are in abeyance. The day is characterized by more leisure, reading circles, discussions of current events, sports and swimming for longer periods than usual. Some experiments have been made with developing new forms for Saturday morning and with the Havdala services at sunset. The Saturday night campfire, where the diary of the week is reviewed, has become a traditional event. Other Celebrations The anniversaries of Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, and Hayim Nahman Bialik, the Hebrew poet, which occur during the summer, are observed regularly with special programs. Tisha B'Av (Ninth of Av-date of the destruction of the Temple), too, is observed, and here the tendency to create new ways of observing old holy days finds expression. In all the camps, breakfast is foregone on Tisha B'Av, and the money normally spent on the meal is contributed to the Jewish National Fund. The effect of such practices is illustrated in the incident reported from Los Angeles where, after the campers had debated the question of having breakfast or not, it was decided that "only the solelim (the youngest children) were to have some fruit juice. This was on Monday. On Tuesday the solelim rebelled. They refused to drink their juice." Reflecting their interest in the general struggle for human freedom and civil rights, it is interesting to note that some camps have observed the anniversary of the martyrdom of Sacco and Vanzetti. The Common Fund One of the most radical features of Camp Kvutza is the elimination of "private capital." In keeping with the principle of collective living, the camps have always emphasized the concept of keeping all campers and staff on an equal basis with respect to money. This has not been achieved without some difficulty, and every year, each camp takes up anew the question as to how to operate the common fund. The educational value of the discussions is obvious, involving as they do questions of equality, individual rights, group responsibility for the individual, means of curbing excessive demands, and the like. The common fund generally functions as follows: All money in the possession of the campers and staff members is placed in a common fund administered by a committee. All requests for supplies such as stamps, stationary, tooth brushes, and combs are placed with the committee which fills the orders as the finances permit. No accounts are kept of what campers give or get. Where a request is considered to be out of line with the budget or unjustifiable for any other reason, the committee advises the camper accordingly, at the same time enabling him to defend his request if he wishes to do so. The only exception to this general practice is made in situations where the camper deposits with the committee some money to be kept for his return home. Experience has varied. As indicated, the common fund is not instituted without prior discussion and acceptance, frequently over the objections of a minority. Occasionally, difficulties arise, particularly with non-members of Habonim or with new campers. On the whole, however, it has been accepted and has worked out very satisfactorily. Where it includes the agreement to share among the entire camp all foods and candy sent to individual campers, the troublesome problems associated with these gifts, problems familiar to all camp directors, are virtually non-existent. How well it has been accepted by the campers is illustrated in the anecdote about the boy who, in a discussion as to whether or not there should be a common fund, asked: "If we don't have one, how will we be able to get stamps and batteries?" After ten years Camp Kvutza has remained true to its original principles. Those who have been identified with it from the beginning have grown with their experiences and have demonstrated the soundness of the theories with which they began to work. (A goodly number of former campers are now living in collective settlements in Eretz Yisrael, or, as members of the American Hehalutz, are being trained in agriculture or trades for settlement there.) The camps remain physically primitive and unadorned, small tent villages with a few "communal" structures, so that the pioneering spirit may not be lost. Camp Kvutza is the climax of an organic educational experience, forming a part of a continuous yearround program of a youth movement, rather than a single -unrelated event in the life of a boy or a girl. The emphasis continues to be on translating into personal experience the concepts of individual and social living of the movement and on providing a wholesome and stimulating Jewish environment. Through such experience the campers learn how satisfying and enriching a cooperative society can be. Concurrently they acquire information and emotional attitudes toward their Jewish heritage and contemporary Jewish life which belp to make of them healthy mid creative Jewish persoiialities. Abraham Cohen, 1943

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TEL YOHANAN AND RED HOOK That summer, I was a still-wet-behind-the-ears tzofa, spending my first year in Camp Kvutza. The name of Yohanan Tartakower was completely unknown to me, but Mabaneh Tel Yohanan was a living thing, not a memorial. I'd say that many of us did not know at the time who Yohanan was, but we lived in such a way that he continued to exist in us. That summer of 1951 in Tel Yohanan was a six-week honeymoon with the movement for all of us. When we returned to the city, the great tales of "adventure" found willing ears, and the registration of Tel Yohanan promised to expand enormously. In June, the shock of hearing that Tel Yohanan had been wrecked by vandals was numbing. Who wanted to go anywhere but to our own Tel Yohanan for the summer? Nonetheless, we went to Galil. Since the inajority of the New Yorkers were of bonim age, and the majority of the Galilniks were of solelimtzofim age, the division between the two groups was extremely sharp. The fact that the Galil campers were living in the cabins and most of the New Yorkers in a separate tent-camp, did not help the situation at all. During the summer of 1952, it often seemed as if we New Yorkers were marking time. Despite this attitude, the many friendships and traditions which developed during the course of eight short weeks were to have an important effect on the future of the New York movement. New York was determined to build a Kvutza of its own once again. The Merkaz wore out tempers and tires in everlasting jaunts around New York State looking for a new camp site. Finally, in the early spring of 1953, the news was announced: New York Habonim had a new home-at the (then stupendous) cost of almost fifty thousand dollars. The mahaneh in Red Hook, New York, faced its first meeting with Habonim during a spring session in 1953. The first reaction: We were appalled! It was all too civilized for our tastes. Gone were the days of cold water only, a separate showerhouse, outhouses, no electricity, and (we thought) no halutziut. The first summer in Camp Habonim, Red Hook, served to dispel a few illusions. We had not only to adapt ourselves to a new concept of camping with its attendant responsibilities, but were also faced with a previously unknown problem of incorporating a large percentage of nonmembers. This perhaps was the more serious of the two. In accepting the "luxury" of our new home, we could not afford to let our ideals go by the board. At the same time, active Habonim within the camp did not exceed forty percent of the total population. In Tel Yohanan and again in Galil, the number of Habonim campers from the New York region was under fifty. The population at Red Hook climbed to more than double that number, while the Habonim population remained at roughly the same level. 1954 was the "honeymoon" season at Red Hook. Habonim had arrived at an understanding of the needs of this new type of camp and gathered a staff of the highest possible caliber from every part of the movement. The campers responded. It became as natural for some madrichim to converse in Hebrew as for the campers to try to emulate the actions of the staff. There was a Habonim atmosphere. It was felt in the unfolding of the daily program and in the Shabbat celebrations which were real "productions" complete with interpretive dance and special effects. It was felt, too, in the activities run by the campers themselves. The next summer was somewhat less of a memorable experience-perhaps because the previous season had been so overwhelmingly successful. It will be remembered as the year of the Habonim Maccabia with the summer camp of Hanoar Hatzioni, Camp Hatzofeh. It was a wonderful experience for both camps. A comradely atmosphere from the outset even cheers were carefully censored to exclude any derogatory material about the opposing camp. The spirit of the entire competition may be imagined from the unanimous protest of the two camps directly before the close of the Maecabia-both wanted to "rip up the score sheets." 1955 saw a new venture in Habonim camping-that of a successful Leaders' Training program, with a large number of participants, at camp. 1956 saw the revival of the Habonim Inter-Kvutza Maccabia. Once again held at Galil, it was the high point of the

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season. Remember the afternoon spent in track events, with people from all three camps cheering the competitors impartially? Each camp had a theme-Yehuda for Red Hook, Galil for Galil, and Negev for Moshavaupon which the cheers, evening program presentation, and songs were based. In addition to the spirit of comradeship which grew up in the three days, a new dimension of education had been added to the Maccabia which made its meaning even fuller for the participants. As usual, the New Yorkers won, though not until a contest had been waged in which every point was in doubt. What is to happen to New York camping in the future? That is in the hands of the haverim themselves. Each summer has seen the development of the concept of Habonim camping-from the tents- cold-water stage to the cabins-hotwater stage; from the concept of halutziut "in the raw" to a more mature understanding of our role in the community and of how we must fill it. Ziffy Entin, 1957

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KENDALL Camp Kvutza at Kendall, New York, opened in 1937 and ran through 1941. It was situated on farm land along.Lake Ontario, thirty miles west of Rochester. A large two story barn served as the kitchen and recreation hall. The woods behind the tents and the hay loft behind the barn served as "rooms" for discussions and Hebrew lessons. The burned-out remains of a house nearby, inhabited by the ghost of two-fingered, one-eyed Pete, and the empty "haunted house" down the road gave the camp additional atmosphere. I was only thirteen in 1937 when I spent one week at Camp Kvutza, and as a result, I cannot comment on the feverish activity involved in trying to set up the camp for the first time. From my experience on pre-registration camp committees in later years, however, I can fully appreciate the time and effort expended by the "older haverim." Camp Kvutza catered to the Habonim of Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse, and was responsible for many lasting friendships. Permanent fixtures at the camp, aside from many of the Habonim members, were the cook, Havera Atlas, and Mark B. Hanopolsky, our departed haver and teacher. Our camp was not a large-one. It handled thirty to flfty-flve children per week. Many new Habonim members were obtained through the camp. It is not difficult to measure the importance of Camp Kvutza to upstate New York. Had it not been for the camp, the Habonim camping experience would have been denied to most of the Habonim in this region. 1941 was the last year of Camp Kvutza. However, the loyalties it helped cement bore fruit after the war years in 1946. Several ex-G.I.'s (and ex-Habonim) formed the Enzo Sereni Labor Zionist group in Rochester. This group existed from 1946 to 1949 and was probably as active a Zionist group as existed in this country. Some of the baverim. who were campers are now in Israel. Many of the members of the Poale Zion and the Pioneer Women in the area are people who were campers in those years at Kendell. Danny Owerbach, 1957

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"KVUTZIE" It was a hot June day in 1936, and down Douglas Boulevard in Chicago, three "big shots" were pushing an old, dilapidated, rusty-looking, tire-deflated 1926 Dodge truck. It was hard, even for members of Habonim, to realize that the three were none other than Nahum Guttman, rosh Kvutza; Julius Cohen, business manager; and myself, the super truck driver-to-be, and that this little scene was actually the first practical beginning of Habonim's second Kvutza in America at New Buffalo, Michigan. Only three weeks remained before the opening of Kvutza. The previous week, we had received our first application with $1 deposit. In these three weeks, we had to revive a place which was once a beautiful Farband camp, Tel Hai, but which had been ravaged by fire. The fire had left a desolate spot, now overgrown with weeds and grass and ruins all about. The advance crew would have three weeks of unceasing work to get the place in shape for the opening, and we were pushing that truck to a garage to get her running, for upon her depended all the transportation of haverim and materials for this crucial period and for the Kvutza season itself. She had been given to us for nothing. The haver in whose lumber yard she was stationed after serving some time at our short-lived Hehalutz training farm in Indiana was glad to see her go. But we knew she would run again, and so we pushed her slowly to the garage and told the mechanic to get her in running condition for that evening. He looked at us and grinned, shook his head, and said he'd see what he could do. In the evening when we returned, she was indeed able to run-but no telling how. She needed a new generator and new battery. We could take the chance of using her that night if we wanted, but he wouldn't advise it. We decided to take the chance. Trembling, I got into the driver's seat. The Dodge was old, the driver completely new. Julie and Nahum, fearlessly risking their lives, got into the. seat next to me. We started her up, and then somehow managed to drive to the center. Here we picked up fourteen brave souls and were on our way. The streets of Chicago are renowned for their holes and bumps and I didn't miss one of them. Cries of "ouch" rang out and the people along Western Avenue stared. After a harrowing hour and a half we were finally out of the city, when the battery went completely dead. We had no lights. What should we do? Turning back would mean another precious day wasted. We looked up at the sky and saw that the moon was full. It was now about midnight and the traffic was not very heavy. We decided to continue. One of the haverim climbed up on top of the cab and shone his flashlight down on the road in front of the truck. With the aid of that flashlight and the full moon, and through the grace of an inefficient police force, we finally reached Tel Hai. Those in the back were frozen from the cold night air, those in front roasted from the heat of the motor, but all the way, there was spirited singing and joking. After a few hours' sleep and a little more pushing, we got the Dodge started on her way back to Chicago-just Julie and I. Before we left, we tried to think of a name for our truck because we could already see that she was to be an important factor in the life of Kvutza. Then on the way, when she began sputtering over a little hill, I urged her on by calling out, "Come on, Kvutzie! " and thus she was named. Kvutzie was the cause of most of the joy and sorrow of that first season. Her every arrival was the source of the greatest excitement; her every departure, the source of the greatest fear, for who could tell when or if she would return? The most spirited singing of the summer and the most gleeful laughter took place aboard her on trips to the beach and back. Kvutzie became a legend. Songs were written about her. We played guessing games as to what time she would return from a trip, how many flats she would have, and whom and what she would bring back with her. Miraculously, she served us through the entire summer. Then we decided to take a number of haverim 1000 miles to the seminar at Accord, our New York Kvutza. "What? With Kvutzie? Never!" Well, we'd see. We had her gear fixed so it would stay in high. Then we went to buy her new shoes at an old junk yard about two miles from Michigan City. There, aided by a Jewish girl of about twenty, who had inherited the junk yard from her father and

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who was sitting among old rims and tires and spare parts writing a book, we found four almost new tires for Kvutzie. What a night that was! We packed eighteen haverim into the back of Kvutzie and started the trip! It thundered and rained, and everything was against our getting there. Frightened parents trembled as Kvutzie pulled out of the dirt road onto the highway at three in the morning. But we survived the trip, the rain, the mountains, and the sixty hours of traveling. We arrived at Accord amid great celebrating (and without a single flat tire on the entire trip). There, at Accord, we sold Kvutzie to the Hehalutz farm at Creamridge, New Jersey. But Kvutzie had been run ning on love and sympathy. Without them, she soon died. They dismantled her and used her parts on other trucks. Others may remember the camp fires, the overnight hikes, the discussion, the comradeship, the wonderful spirit, that first season of Kvutzat Tel Hai. I remember Kvutzie for she was the creator of that spirit, a spirit which could take a dead object and give it the soul that Kvutzie had. Only in the wonderful life that is ours at Kvutza could such a spirit come to be. Moshe Goldberg, 1942

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KVUTZA, KVUTZA, WHO'S GOT A KVUTZA? When we left Tel Hai at the close of the Kvutza season last summer, little did we expect that it would be our last summer there. But it was. When at the winter seminar it was decided to leave Tel Hai and look for a new site for the Midwest Kvutza, none of us were too sad. It was decided that Wisconsin would be the lucky state containing the new Habonim Kvutza. A committee was elected to look for a site, and an official title was given the committee, the Meshugoyim (mad ones). How should we go about it? Where should we start? Whom should we contact? The method we used was quite simple. We took out the trusty telephone book and began paging through it. R-Radiators-Radios-ah, Real Estate. With eyes closed, I spun around three times and placed my finger on the page. I phoned that number. "Yes," said the man on the other side of the line, "I have just what you want. And it's only 9,762 1/2 miles from Milwaukee." I hung up. Again I went through the same procedure. "Sure enough," said a bass voice, "I have just the place for you. None other like it in the whole state. All you have to do is put a dozen steamshovels to work for two years and you've got it, see? Nothing to worry about, I supply the blasting powder." I thanked the gentleman for his kind offer and consideration and hung up. Well, after calling for enough times to have lost count, a place with real possibilities turned up, only thirty-five miles from Milwaukee, high land, heavy woods, hilly, and level. It meets all the requirements and we are awaiting word as to the possibities of our developing the lake into a swimming pool. Nevertheless, by the time you'll be reading this article, we will probably be building for the 1944 Kvutza season. Armon Kamesar, 1944

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KINNERET In the summer of 1938, a small group of Detroit Habonim, among them Ben Kaminker, Mordecai Salinger, and Danny Ginsburg, pooled their resources to purchase a couple of tents which they pitched on the side of a hill overlooking Waterloo Road near Chelsea, Michigan. A patch of grass surrounded by a D-shaped trench formed the open-air dining table, but for all other facilities, the hardy group turned to Farband Camp, their neighbors across the road and owners of their camp site. While exploring the area south of their encampment, a few members of the group waded through a swamp to find a large tract of unused ground, twenty acres of which belonged to the Farband. This they immediately staked out as the perfect spot for their future ventures. That winter, they enlisted the moral and financial assistance of active seniors who helped plan construction of the new Habonim camp to be known as Kinneret. During the summer of 1939, under the leadership of Ben Kaminker, and with the assistance of a professional carpenter, our haverim cleared a road through the swamp, erected platforms for the tents, built a dining hall and kitchen, and sank a shallow well. Kinneret was a success and ready for further expansion when Mordecai Salinger took over as rosh Kvutza in 1940. A large group of Cincinnati haverim joined the Detroiters, raising the number of campers to an average of sixty during that summer. Shalom Wurm set the pattern for cultural activities at camp, while Aharon Remez was the fair-haired boy whose experience and muscle were relied on to continue with the building program. New tent platforms, the Ashkenazy building, a migdal, and last but not least, separate outhouses were under way. 1941 was a quiet year, with Ettie Skidell in charge of camp and the boys hard at work moving mountains of dirt to lay the sanitation distribution field. Electricity was installed, and the arrival of four girls from Cleveland marked the beginning of Kinneret as a regional camp. 1942 was another year of big construction - at Kinneret. The washing facilities were enclosed and work began on a real outhouse. We built a cabin, enlarged the dining room by moving the kitchen to a new addition. The rosh was Paul Milgrom (Pinhas Rimon), with Shirley Milgrom who came along for the honeymoon. In 1943, Leon Adler became rosh, and all became sweetness and light at Kinneret-for once we were genteel. We began work on the hospital, which was dedicated to Donny Lee of Cleveland, and dug another distribution field for the modern improved shower house. In 1944, under the tutelage of Yosef Israeli, work was again the watchword. The hospital was nominally finished and we began our eternal project, the storage cellar. Artie Goldberg was rosh Kvutza, and the hills around Kinneret resounded with labor songs. 1944 also saw the end of the beloved tower-the termites and old age finally beat the creosote and supports. In 1945, the rosh, Harry Spoon, arrived late, but the campers carried on valiantly under the expert whistle blowing of Esty Carson. We added our annual brick to the storage cellar and spent the rest of the season looking for work. Murray Weingarten, with Dave Katz as his righthand man, was rosh in 1946. That was the year of Doris Dombey's bouncing bed, the greatest stunt ever at Kinneret. 1947 was the year of Joey Criden. Joey brought the overnight hike back to Kinneret and the innovation of naming the tents-remember the famous Dorot and Mishmar HaNegev? And not to be outdone, Joey named his quarters, Pipeline HaNegev, in honor of sixteen-month-old Donny. Several more cabins were built, and Evvy Weingarten made her famous leap from rooftop to Ann Arbor hospital.

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In 1948, Haim Stopak was rosh. This was the year of the "flexible schedule," and also a year of strong emphasis on scoutcraft. There were many midnight "Arab attacks," and Blue-White Day was distinguished by its blood and gore. Dvora Frankel was rosh in 1949. A madrichim camp was held after the regular season. In 1950, Abba (Cherniak) Tzuriel was rosh. The season gushed with culture, art, modern dance, drama, In 1951, Doodle Horowitz led Kinneret in its first year as a Hebrew-speaking camp. Detroit's United Hebrew Schools provided a number of full scholarships and there was a large enrollment, including many younger chidren. Camp doubled its enrollment on weekends-an ambitious weekend program. The emphasis was on speaking Hebrew, and the discussion program centered about the False Messiahs. There was an ambitious work program mainly centered about maintenance-there were no new projects.. Of the season, the Detroit United Hebrew Schools said that more Hebrew was learned by their students that year than any other. 1952 opened with a low registration, but things picked up. Dani Kerman was rosh and Kinneret was still a Hebrew-speaking camp. There was no big construction projects because of the lack of people, but a marvelous business manager, Jerry Katz, managed to make money even on only twenty campers. Dani Kerman returned in 1953. Detroit had had a very successful year and camp registration was up, again including younger children. Prior to opening, a group of 9 'old-timers" packed box-lunches, baby carriages, and assorted spouses and progeny, and spent a day of labor at Kinneret. The foundation for the wash house was laid that day and work for the rest of the season had a concrete basis-repairing the efforts of the old folks. In 1954, Abbie Haklay was rosh. 1955 was Kinneret's last year. Geli Gelfond was rosh. Chicago and Detroit combined efforts in staff and campers. A new truck was purchased, and the last year of Kinneret closed with a Bonim Seminar. Esther Goldberg, Seymour Salinger, Harriet Gelfond, 1957

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TEL NATAN Tel Natan was the Camp Kvutza for the St. Louis and Cincinnati mahanot in 1947 and 1948. It was unique in having complete facilities. Tel Natan was named for our dear haver, Nathan Kanter, who was one of the most sincere and dedicated members of the Labor Zionist movement and represented the best that is found in Habonim. Nate was killed in an automobile accident at about the time we were beginning to work on the idea of a camp for our area. Tel Natan, which we had dreamed of for many years and talked about for several months came into existence early in 1947 when we found that there would be no camp in the Chicago area to serve the St. Louis mahaneh. In a matter of days, we contacted the movement in Cincinnati, formed the Habonim Camping Association of Missouri, examined and leased the camp site sixty miles west of St. Louis, bought a truck, two tons of dishes and pots, and printed application blanks. The camp, known to the Missouri State Park Commission as Camp C-1, Quiure River State Park, Troy, Missouri, was located on a high hill in the heart of a 6,000 acre park. The camp and the setting were beautiful and the facilities excellent (two stoves, four sinks, an electric refrigerator, a walk-in icebox, plenty of hot and cold water, a large dining room, shower house, a recreation hall, office, guest house, hospital, ten large cabins, and several buildings we never used. The first season was a success. Forty haverim spent four satisfying weeks at Tel Natan. We broke even, no one lost any weight (thanks to Havera Kanter, Nate's mother, who was our cook), and the two tons of dishes and pots did not arrive till fall. We returned to Tel Natan for a winter conference. This was even more successful than the summer session. The cabins were warm, the food was good, and the activities and discussions excellent. All that we missed was the swimming, and since the swimming at Cheetham Pond was not too good anyway, no one complained. After we shut down the camp for the winter, we were convinced that we had made a wonderful beginning as the first year-round Camp Kvutza in history. We were wrong, and after one more season, the camp discontinued operation. I'm not sure why the camp failed or what lesson other camps can learn from Tel Natan. Perhaps it was too easy. We did not have to struggle and fight to establish our camp. Perhaps St. Louis was just not ready to conduct and sustain its own camp. I believe that Tel Natan failed because the leadership in the mahaneh, which was mainly older, went on aliya, to other movement assignments, or moved on to other personal activity, and left a void. This void, created by a slowdown in activity during the war, was probably the main cause of failure. All that is left of Tel Natan is fond memories, some photographs, and a feeling of deep regret that the monument we began to erect in memory of Nate Kanter in 1947 was never finished. Wil Schoomer, 1957

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MIDWEST CAMP HABONIM Midwest Camp Habonim! A rather plain, innocuous name. Nothing romantic or exciting or exotic or even emotional about this name. And yet this name holds for us twenty-five years of memories-memories of other camps with other names, names such Tel Hai, Kinneret, Yad Ari. These are names that really bring back memories of our youth, of exciting days and romantic nights, of work and love and devotion, of singing and dancing, of bonfires and Sbabbat celebrations, memories of a glorious, carefree period in our lives where we learned and lived the principles of Labor Zionism upon which we today base our lives and our work for Israel. For Midwest Camp Habonim is today the culmination of our work and our dreams of twenty-five years ago when the concept of Camp Kvutza first took shape in the minds of a few young people who were to be the nucleus a few years later of Habonim-tbe Labor Zionist Youth. It was a concept of a place where young Labor Zionists would build their own camp with their own hands from the ground up, where they would govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion and work out their plans for building a new Eretz Yisrael. This was a new idea, a bold, thrilling one for our haverim of those early years. It was a good idea, for it has endured (with a few changes to meet the changing times) to this very day and has grown stronger with the passage of time, and will continue to go on for many, many years. The first Habonim camp in the Midwest (and the second to be established in the United States) was Tel Hai, near New Buffalo, Michigan. The name, Tel, Hai, today stirs beautiful memories among many of our senior haverim, who recall those days with love and tenderness. Its tenure came to an abrupt end, however, when it was destroyed by fire. Then followed an interim period of three years, two of which were spent at a rented camp near Savannah, Illinois. In 1948, 160 acres of land were purchased near Waupaca, in north-central Wisconsin. This was camp Yad Ari, which served the Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis area. Here the ideals of Camp Kvutza could really flourish. Here was the opportunity for Habonim to truly build its own camp, and they did! They built a big, beautiful dining room, which doubled as a recreation room, and a modern shower house, containing all the necessary facilities. They planted a pine forest, which has since proven to be the most memorable part of the whole camp. No other buildings, except for a dispensary, were built, and so it remained a tent camp. The tents, however, were spacious and comfortable, and the camp itself was always clean and well kept. Most important of all, however, was the fact that the campers and the staff were satisfied and happy. Many fine and beautiful traditions were built here. The physical facilities were not always of the best or the most modern we had our difficulties and tribulations-our lake dried up after the second year, so we had to travel ten miles to go swimming; occasionally someone would get wet at night when he forgot to close the tent flaps; or perhaps he would forget to loosen the ropes so that the tent pegs could come out of the ground and cause the tent to partially collapsebut nothing, not even the finest of facilities or the most beautiful buildings and grounds, could ever be a substitute for the most wonderful of intangibles, the true Habonim spirit, the feeling of real group living, of a closeness and oneness that could be achieved nowhere else-the indomitable spirit of Habonim, that resiliency which can change disaster to triumph, turn tears into laughter. This was Yad Ari; this was Camp Habonim. Can you remember, haverim, the dignity of the flag raising, or the simple beauty of a Friday evening meal by candlelight, with everyone in white, with the singing and the dancing afterwards? Those of you who ever attended Camp Habonim, wherever or whenever it might have been, can never forget. But, as all good things do, this also came to an end. At the end of the 1954 season, Yad Ari was abandoned, and 1955 saw Camp Yad Ari and Camp Kinneret combined at Camp Kinneret near Chelsea, Michigan. A new concept of camping had been born in the minds of the leadership of Habonim. A good concept, a more modern one, and one that has proven itself. This was the idea that the very small, more intimate type of camp was no longer feasible. We had to have fewer but much larger and better (physically speaking) camps. The changing times and the change in the type of youth now coming into Habonim made it mandatory that Habonim go along with these changes insofar as the physical plant was concerned. Thus, the combining of the two small camps into one large camp at Kinneret. Why choose Kinneret over Yad Ari? Mainly because of the location, The combined areas would now extend as far east as Pittsburgh and as far south and west as St. Louis and Minneapolis. Obviously, central

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Michigan was much nearer the center of this region than northern Wisconsin-therefore, Kinneret was the choice. Kinneret was never meant to be the permanent new home of the large, modern Camp Habonim. It was too small and lacked the proper facilities for a large number of campers. It was to serve merely for the transition period until a new site would be found. It did just that, and did it well. The next season found us in the new camp. We now come to the current chapter, the new Midwest Camp Habonim. In the spring of 1956, eighty acres of beautiful grounds near Three Rivers, Michigan, were purchased by Habonim. The purchase itself marked a new phase of Habonim camping in the Midwest because this was the first time that Habonim had used its own resources to purchase a camp site in this region. This camp had been a farm resort and was situated on beautiful Kaiser Lake. Negotiations were completed early in May and two additional cabins were begun. With the new buildings we can now house seventy-five campers comfortably and we have enough room to expand to a hundred and fifty. The dining hall is probably one of the most ideally situated spots in camp. Its many high windows overlook the lake and present a truly scenic picture for the diners. Midwest Camp Habonim today is, we believe, a combination of the best of the old and of the new. We have not lost sight of the unique Habonim camping program and we retain that spirit that typifies Habonim. But to go along with more modern practices, we have improved upon many of the primitive physical facilities. The campers are now housed in cabins rather than in tents (although some of the older bonim may still live in tents at their own request). All toilet facilities are indoors-in fact, the new cabins come equipped with these appurtenances. The good old flashlight, with which all Habonim campers are so familiar, is now almost a thing of the past. The cabins are all equipped with electric lights and even the grounds are illuminated at night. In short, all the modern conveniences that one associates with the best in modern camps are present at our new Midwest Camp Habonim. Does this mean, however, that we are giving up the old idea of Camp Kvutza? Not at all. The most important features remain-self-labor, self-government, democracy, the concept of a common fund, and of course, that feeling of kinship and real comradely spirit. We feel that we now have a camp, that can compare favorably with any in the area, and a program superior to most. For the first time, the physical plant of the camp, as well as the program, becomes an attraction for newcomers to our movement, and once a child has had a positive camping experience at camp, his chances of remaining in Habonim are excellent. In looking back upon twenty-five years of Habonim camping, we can honestly say that we have compiled a tradition of living Judaism which would be difficult for any group or organization to match. Many graduates of Habonim camp have gone to live in Israel, in kibbutzim, moshavim, and cities, and many others have remained here to become leaders not only in the Labor Zionist movement, but in all parts of the American Jewish community. This is a record that speaks for itself. Lenny Zurakov, 1957

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KVUTZA IN THE WEST A goat farm, twenty sprightly youngsters, and Ben Cherner; these were the ingredients of the first Camp Kvutza in the West in the year 1936. It was during that summer, with Ben's arrival in Los Angeles, that the idea of Habonim camping ripened and the first camp was established. Sleeping was mostly outdoors, cooking in an abandoned shack, and water had to be brought by car from about a mile away. Swimming was in a public pool. But spirits were high, the determination indomitable, and the results were a full camping season which was followed uninterruptedly for the next twentyone years. Old-timers remember the C.C.C. camping experience in 1937 and Azusa in 1938. In 1939, the permanent camp in the Angeles National Forest, fifty-five miles from Los Angeles, was bought and the permanent home for Habonim camping established. The camp has served Los Angeles Jewish youth for twenty years now and several thousand young people have gone through it. Situated, as the camp is, on a hilly and wooded thirty-nine-acre estate, its original owner's home was remodeled into a dining room and kitchen. A swimming pool was built and many other facilities added as late as last year. Last year's camp was a typical Habonim camping year and the following report is characteristic of most of the others: Camp Duration and Composition Habonim Camp opened on July 1st in 1956 and lasted for six weeks until August 12th. Campers could register for a minimum period of two weeks; fifteen percent of the campers stayed for the entire six weeks. During the entire period, 173 campers availed themselves of our facilities and spent with us 498 camper-weeks. Camp Program and Activities Our camp program consisted of a general camp theme, the several activities directly associated with it, as well as some that were specifically camp activities. Our general camp theme was: "Jewish Heroism Through the Ages." Through lectures, discussions, literary trials, models, games, and the arts, the children at camp became acquainted with the heroic moments in Jewish history, beginning with our ancient struggles for freedom and independence and down to the modern deeds of courage and valor of the defenders of the Warsaw Ghetto and of the Hagana. Arts and crafts were integrated into this program. In addition, the following camp activities were open to all campers: swimming, sports, scouting, hiking, arts and crafts, singing, dancing, photography, and other camp diversions which took place regularly. Camp Spirit We would be greatly remiss in our factual report of camp activities and program if we were not to stress the spirit of the camp. Here, and for many campers for the first time, they were in a thoroughly children's atmosphere as well as in a thoroughly Jewish one. The Shabbat celebration, the Shabbat morning Tanach circle, the daily Hebrew classes, the discussion of Jewish problems and of Jewish achievements, the Israel and Zionist spirit of all our activities, all this left an indelible impression upon the campers. We felt it in the expressions of the children at camp; We felt it in the one hundred percent attendance at the first camp reunion; we felt it even more in the conversations with the parents of the campers. Camp accomplished in a very few weeks what efforts by parents could not achieve for years. Future Plans All this progress was made possible through a building expansion program undertaken last spring. Four large new

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cabins were built, including showers, toilets and wash basins. The sports facilities were improved. Much new equipment was purchased. We anticipate doubling our registration this summer. We also extended our camp season to eight weeks. We are beginning to receive campers from other cities on the West Coast and are rapidly becoming an all-Western camp. Our plans for this summer are to build a staff building, an arts and crafts pavilion, to improve the present shower building, to build several new concrete platforms, to enlarge and improve our dining and kitchen facilities. Habonim camping on the West Coast is confidently looking forward to a secure and ever-expanding future along with all Habonim camping in the United States and Canada. David Yaroslovsky, 1957

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THE STORY OF "MOSH" "Half the year you look forward to it-the other half you look back on it." Such is the effect "Mosh" has on its campers. And it is no wonder that we all love it, for not only do we spend some of the happiest weeks of the year there, but the setting is so perfect and the scenery so beautiful that we never want to forget it. In 1935 Mr. Sigfrid Sonniborn of Baltimore gave 162 acres of land near Annapolis to two Zionist groups to be used for a camp site. The two groups were the Hashomer Hatzair and the Gordonia organization of Baltimore. The first month of the summer season, July, Hashomer would use the camp, while Gordonia would have the camp in August. And so Moshava began its flrst season! Needless to say, many changes have occurred since that memorable year, 1935. Mosh has changed from a small camp sponsored by Gordonia-whose tents were pitched on the bare ground, whose dining rom had a canvas top, where there was no electricity whatsoever, and whose campers came from Baltimore only-to a large camp sponsored by Habonim following the amalgamation of Habonim with Gordonia. The capacity is now seventy-five to eighty campers from all over the Atlantic seaboard, with seven tents pitched on platforms, four large airy cabins, an outdoor stage, a well-filled library, a modern hospital with up-to-date equipment, a piano, a large roomy kitchen, a newly reinforced dining room, volleyball and basketball courts, and electrical connections. The picture Moshava presents is truly a beautiful one. Only from the water tower, however, can one see it completely, spreading below. From there, one sees the side road leading from the water tower to the hospital opposite. These two cabins begin the camp proper, for flanking them, the tents and stage are arranged in an almost perfect circle. The center of this circle is the center field, wide and level, where baseball, horseshoe, basketball, and track events take place during sports periods. But this is not all. Following a shady quiet path that starts in back of the kitchen one comes to the crossroads where many a heated discussion can be heard. Following the path further, one arrives at last at the old cliff that overlooks the Sevem River, a popular place for rehearsals or for a nocturnal group wishing to read Edgar Allen Poe in just the proper atmosphere. Scrambling down the side of the cliff, one finds oneself on the bench near the river. In all directions there is green foliage that beckons to you with its coolness in the heat of the day, and far on the distant side of the river, this scene is dimly repeated. One can relax in the mildly cool river water, get an invigorating swim in the deeper cold water further from shore, or go to sleep on the sandy beach while taking a sun bath. Past interesting coves and the beach, we come to the long uneven trail that leads back to the central field. This trail is the most popular of all. It is lined with clinging vines draped around the trees, and here and there, tantalizing monkey vines swing just above your reach. Here on this trail is the well-known "Tree" on whose roots many a couple sit wrapped in the velvety darkness of night, gazing at the stars, and listening to the waves lap on the beach. It is also on this trail that we find the path leading to the new cliff. The central field is not far ahead and soon one can be in the midst of activity again. "Mosh" Diary, 1939

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GALIL'S FIRST YEAR It was after their return from the 1937 Accord season that the Philadelphia haverim realized the necessity for their own Camp Kvutza. It was a crime to travel hundreds of miles for the inspiration and learning we could achieve on our own grounds. So the determined Quakers set to work. They formed committees, printed stationary, contacted sympathizers, and nagged the National Executive. Camp Tax became the byword. They slept and ate and grew gray hair over pledges. But soon the cash thermometer rose and $250 became a realization. And now, a site for camp. Far and wide they traveled. Through mosquito-ridden New Jersey to mosquito-ridden Pennsylvania until they came upon Camp Germinal -former anarchist hangout and spiders' hideout. In May, the Sunday of the 23rd, the first expedition set out armed to the hilt with mops, buckets, brooms, and soap. The scrubbed and rubbed. They screened and painted. They transformed a chicken coop into a habitable shack. Then came the eventful day when fourteen haverim, and a rosh Kvutza set foot on forty acres of poison ivy studded with two outhouses, hot and cold water, and ten stall showers which, influenced by their anarchist background, worked with characteristic irregularity. The manor house after being scrubbed from top to bottom revealed an immense dining room, three kitchens, one of which leaked from the luxurious bath upstairs every time one of the girls decided to miss a discussion, and the other which had a natural waterfall coming from the center roof every time the dishes fell. The six master bedrooms did come in handy when the fourteen pioneers increased to sixty. The office served as a lounge, music room, and dance studio. Who of us can ever forget Sir Ferdinand, named for his predecessor, the bull, who often stopped to admire the flowers by the wayside? He carried our haverim down to the swimming hole in the Shamony, or on a line to the Delaware, and then after a sojourn with the flowers, could be persuaded only by Schmeer up to the hill again to camp. Or can we forget our staff-rising and falling like the stock market? One week ten and the next week four. And their famous idiosyncrasies. Yak and his travels in Ferdy; Cookie and the chocolate pudding; Leslie and his hair washing; Yona and her trying girls; Tzip and her hatred of kitchen duty; Clara's operetta; Aba Kibbile's drama group; Leo and his driving mania; Ernst who drowned you trying to teach life saving; Edi and Brown Betty; Sossy from Chicago; and Shlomo and his hat. Galil Diary, 1938

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GALIL In 1938, at the height of the depression and with much trepidation because of the lack of finances, the Philadelphia haverim. rented the old anarchist Camp Germinal near Jamison, Pennsylvania (for the then large sum of $1,500), for the summer, and the first Camp Galil came into existence. Yak Rycus was imported from the Midwest to act as rosh Kvutza, and staffed mainly by older haverim of Habonim, a very successful summer program was carried out. Our appetites were whetted, and immediately upon the close of the summer, plans were made for finding, a permanent site for a Philadelphia camp. One must recall the times in which this thinking took place. War clouds were gathering. The White Paper was soon to be issued and the horror of Hitler-Europe was soon to be upon us. In 1939, it was impossible to raise the necessary funds or to evoke sufficient interest on the part of the Philadelphia movement to even rent a camp site, let alone talk in terms of developing a permanent camp. During the summer of 1939, as many of our members as possible spent the summer at Moshava near Baltimore. Upon returning from Moshava at the end of the 1939 summer season, we were determined to have a camp of our own. Fortunately, we were able to convince enough members of the senior movement of the importance of a local camp for them to organize a camp committee to seek a site. After much searching, a site was found near Pipersville, Pennsylvania, which could be rented for the summer. It included a well-constructed farm house, a magnificent barn, and a number of cabins which at one time had beeii4 chicken coops. The site, however, had two unfortunate deficiencies. A county highway divided the cabins from the rest of the 'site, and the swimming facilities were reached by climbing a very steep hill at a considerable distance from the cabins. Undaunted, the haverim of Habonim, with the help of some adults, began intensive construction projects to make the site as serviceable as possible for the summer. Irv Sternberg and his wife, Edie, were the roshim. Construction went well, notwithstanding the broken arm of one of our baverim who managed to fall off a roof while shingling it. The summer itself was full of interesting and varied experiences. At that particular period, the GermanAmerican Bund was active in the area. So much so that at the beginning of the summer, it became a nightly occurrence for a truckload of these hooligans to drive slowly through the camp hurling epithets, and frequently more, at the younger haverim. In addition, they managed to deface and almost destroy the dock we had built at the creek. Guard duty became an important job. To counteract these activities, Irv approached the local sheriff and received a permit to carry guns. Word was passed around and fortunately, no further incidents took place. The rampant anti-Semitism which existed and which was manifested so clearly made a deep impression upon our younger haverim. This unpleasantness, however, did not detract from a very fine summer. In retrospect, one recalls a most interesting and unusual Hebrew program. Dr. Meyer Cohen, a principal of a Philadelphia Talmud Torah, was a member of the staff, and daily Hebrew sessions were a part of the program. The group was small-I doubt if there were more than fifty at any one time-but the spirit was high. One remembers nostalgicaBy the first contact with shlihim. The most striking memory of this summer, however, had to do with the last three weeks of camp which was devoted to what, I believe, was the first national mahaneh madrichim. The purpose of this particular mahaneh madrichim was to train madrichei tzofim. Haverim came from all over the country and friendships were created which were to last to this very day. The effectiveness of this endeavor paved the way toward the utilization of the summer camp for serious and intensive discussions of mutual problems which were to transfer themselves to each city and each Camp Kvutza in the country. Conditions brought about by the imminence of war 'unfortunately dictated against a camp of our own in 1941. Most of our haverim spent that summer either at Killingworth, Connecticut, or returned to Moshava. From 1941 through 1945, this pattern was repeated. The movement suffered accordingly, for without a camp, it became clear that the local mahaneh could not really grow. The impetus of the Camp Kvutza, whether as a culmination of a year's work, or as inspiration for a new year's activities cannot be minimized. When the war ended and Habonim haverim, returned from the service, this dedication to the importance of the summer Kvutza soon manifested itself. All efforts were bent toward getting a camp for Philadelphia and vicinity. Happily for Habonim, this dream of

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having a camp of our own, was shared by one haver of the senior movement of Philadelphia, Abe Segal, without whom there would have been no Camp Galil today. Almost singlehandedly, Abe Segal spurred on the efforts of the movement to raise the necessary funds to purchase a most beautiful site at a relatively small cost. The camp was purchased for the sum of $30,000 from the YWCA. The camp was quite primitive-there was no electricity, the kitchen had an old wood-burning stove, and the water supply was dependent upon an old gasoline engine which worked on occasion. The realization that Philadelphia finally had a camp of its own proved a tremendous incentive in the determination of the young adults to create as fine a camp as possible. It can truthfully be said, that the young Labor Zionist movement of Philadelphia grew and was strengthened because of a program which revolved around the camp. The young branches, whose membership came from ex-Habonim members, supplied the necessary labor and technical knowledge to begin improving the camp site. The electrical engineers in the group planned, designed, and installed electricity; the civil engineers in the group directed the building of the necessary footbridge to cross the stream; and the general membership supplied the muscle-power to dig the ditches so that all electric wires would be underground. Interest in the camp was further heightened by the events of 1947-48, during the struggle for Statehood. The next few years were filled with gradual growth and improvement. Because of the weakness of Habonim in the city, it was at first difficult to utilize the camp to its fullest extent. While eighty children could be accommodated, camp rarely, if ever, serviced that number-this, despite the fact that campers came from as far as Wilmington and the Vineland-Toms River areas. The cycle was rather vicious. Few children came to camp-the camp leadership was not from Philadelphia and, consequently, there was no leadership for the winter mahaneh, which would in turn provide children for the summer season. In 1952, the New York mahaneh was having its camp difficulties. Killingworth could no longer be used and the Amenia site was not adequate. To solve this dilemma an arrangement was made whereby the New York haverim registered at Galil for the summer. Interesting results followed. Aside from the fact that Philadelphia haverim acquired Brooklyn accents, they were somewhat overwhelmed by the influx of the New Yorkers. We are all part of one movement, but there are many local differences and loyalties which can be positive. The experience for Philadelphia, however, was somewhat unnerving. The lessons learned that summer were to be utilized during the following year. In 1953, haverim of the Camp Committee were approached by the national office with a proposition to use the site of Camp Galil for the Hebrew-speaking Camp Amal. The idea as finally formulated called for the establishment of two camps on the Galil site; one would retain the name Galil and would accept campers from ages nine through twelve only. Registration would be limited to forty campers. Camp Amal would register children ages thirteen through sixteen who met the Hebraic requirements, and could register up to sixty children. This meant that the facilities of Galil were to be used to their maximum. The idea of two separate camps with separate staffs and differing orientation was too difficult an undertaking to be of any real success. The best that can be said of that summer was that, despite all the handicaps, quite a bit was accomplished in both camps. It was, however, quite clear at the end of the summer that such an arrangement could never be repeated. It was during this year that the movement crystallized its thinking with regard to a central Hebrew-speaking camp. It was agreed that every Habonim camp should have as much Hebrew as possible in its program, and while the eamps might never become completely Hebrew-speaking, they should become Hebrew centered. During our camping history, a great deal of Hebrew was always used. Camp terminology was almost exclusively Hebrew. But this was not enough. The idea now evolved to include, in addition to the everyday terminology, actual classes for study of the language. The Camp Committee of Galil wholeheartedly endorsed this approach and determined upon a course which would make Galil a truly Hebrew-centered camp and, at the same time, make use of its facilities by improving the physical plant so as to be able to attract more children. The future of Habonim in Philadelphia was therefore dependent upon those unaffiliated children who could be brought to spend a summer at camp. Galil was helped considerably in registering children by the fact that because of the emphasized Hebrew program, the Council on Jewish Education of Philadelphia approved Camp

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Galil as one of three Hebrew camps for which it provided scholarships. Being on the approved list of the Council brought help from other quarters. Several of the largest congregations in the city also announced to its membership that it would grant scholarships to children desirous of attending Galil. A Hebrew Educators Advisory Committee was organized and the Hebrew program of Galil approved. In addition, a number of staff members of Galil were employed from the student body of Gratz College, the Hebrew teachers' training institution of Philadelphia. In most cases, the Gratz College students were, if not directly connected with our movement, at least sympathetic to our program and completely cooperative in carrying it out. It should be noted that the national office was never able to supply the total staff needs of Galil, especially in the case of boys. Supplementing the Habonim staff were Gratz College students working to our mutual advantage. During the past three summers many of the campers at Galil have made considerable progress in their Hebraic studies. In some cases, they have covered the equivalent of a full year's work in the city. Many of the youngsters bring with them specific requests from their teachers and principals as to material to be covered. The Hebrew program at Galil is flexible enough to be able to provide for these individual needs. In 1956, for the first time, camp was full, and in 1957, registration was closed by the end of March. Improvements to camp continue. The swimming pool was completely rebuilt. A second well was dug primarily to provide water for the pool and to act as a supplementary water supply for general use, if necessary. In previous years, Galil depended on the creek for water for the swimming pool. During the past few summers, the water level of the creek continued to fall so that there were times when the pool could not be properly filled. Not only will this be avoided in the future, but the well water will be purer and free of algae so that the pool need not be emptied and cleaned as frequently as heretofore. The future of Galil seems assured. It has made its mark in the Philadelphia Jewish community and its prestige is at its highest point. All of this, however, is to no avail unless it leads to an invigorated and expanded youth movement in the city. All members of the Camp Committee are dedicated to this purpose. They are not interested in running a camp just for the sake of a summer business. The Camp Comtnittee has assumed all of the responsibility of a Chay Commission, and every meeting has on its agenda a report from the rosh mahaneh of Philadelphia Habonim, and the problems of the youth movement are an integral part of each camp meeting. Habonim camping has traveled a long road in the past twenty-five years. In the "old days," primitive sites and difficult conditions were almost a matter of principle. " The road of the halutz is a long and difficult one and if it isn't, make it. " This in a sense represented our thinking. We wanted to simulate the life of the Kvutza in Eretz Yisrael as closely as possible. But, the Kvutza in Israel has also undergone some metamorphases and the American Kvutza must reflect these changes. I well remember the heated discussions which took place among haverim in Philadelphia when Galil contemplated installing an automatic dishwashing machine. Haverim cried that this would violate the principle of self-labor. But problems have arisen. We are raising a new generation of children and a new generation of parents. Our parents, immigrants themselves, deeply committed to Labor Zionism, were no less concerned about our welfare during the summer than parents today. But they were neither shocked nor disturbed by "primitive" conditions. Parents today seem more concerned for the material aspects of camp life and, like it or not, those of us now responsible for our camps must take this into account. Educationally, however, the program we offer has been tried and tested for twenty-five years and reflects our philosophy of life. In cannot be changed without destroying the very basis for which our camps were created. Daniel Isaacman, 1957

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GIMLI, MANITOBA Camp Kvutza hit the plains of Manitoba in the summer of 1941 when Canada was already at war and the "United States was still waiting for Pearl Harbor. It was David Biderman who wrought the miracle of Habonim in Winnipeg and set the stage for the first camp. The Winnipeg movement was young and vigorous then, and no one would have suspected that it came about as a sort of by-product of work for the Royal Canadian Air Force. In one of those strange wartime transmutations, David Biderman, who had received a mining engineer's degree from McGill University in Montreal, changed overnight from an explorer of the earth's depths to an inspector of flight. He became a military aircraft inspector for the RCAF stationed in Winnipeg. The only clue to his earthbound past was slyly concealed in his home address: He lived on Burrows Street in Winnipeg. But miner or airman, by temperament David Biderman was no one-job man; when he was through inspecting aircraft for the day, he went out to organize Habonim at night. Once Winnipeg Habonim reached mahaneh status they could settle for nothing less than a Camp Kvutza of their own. Immediately a camp plan was drawn up and presented to the community. Only experienced campers would have balked at such a plan, but happily there were no experienced campers in Winnipeg and no one withheld his enthusiastic approval. Winnipeg's first Kvutza would be held at Calof's cottage in Gimli on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. Gimli has changed considerably in recent years. There is a large RCAF airbase nearby, and the town itself is honeycombed with the cottages of Winnipeg vacationers. There were some summer cottages in 1941, but the town had not yet lost the Icelandic character of its original settlers. Blond, blue-eyed sons and daughters of Iceland dominated the village streets. There was a church of roughhewn stone authentic enough to have been transplanted from the old village back home. And the fishing boats that sailed Lake Winnipeg rather than the saltier North Atlantic nevertheless carried salty sailors and bore names taken from the old Norse sagas. The camp site, Calof's cottage, was at the outskirts of Gimli, about two blocks from the lake and close by a public wooded area. The cottage itself was a one-story wooden building partly enclosed by an L-shaped screened porch. It was in no way distinguished from other cottages in the neighborhood, neither in appearance nor in the quarteracre plot it occupied. Appropriate to the camp site, the staff was small and hybrid. I was imported from New York to be rosh and factotum. Geulah Green was the registered nurse and lifeguard. Aliyah Kare was dean of arts and crafts and second in command of the kitchen. Mrs. Kasedy was cook-and a good one-and as a special dispensation she was permitted to bring along her son, Shimin, a bright-eyed youngster who was under age for camp. The business manager who commuted on weekends was Sully Spector. He used to drive up with David Biderman, special friend of the court. When David and Sully arrived-no matter what the time of day-the whole camp, forty strong, turned out to greet them. The curious campers welcomed the distinguished guests, but special cheers were always reserved for the venerable Bar Mitzva, a black, high-topped Ford that made the weekly pilgrimage. The Ford often faltered but it never failed, and for Winnipeg Habonim it symbolized the indominable halutz spirit. A fact not generally known is that the Gimli camp almost died in embryo and had it not been for the great democratic tradition of Iceland, most assuredly that would have been its fate. One day before the opening, the advance crew of three set to work pitching tents on the Calof lawn. The local constable (there was only one constable in Gimli and only one cell in the jail) dropped by to inform the workers that an ordinance forbade the pitching of tents within town limits. The tents could not go up without the mayor's approval. That day I had a job on my hands. I ran around like Chicken Licken taking a census. The constable sent me to the mayor; the mayor, in his shirt-sleeves trimming a hedge, sent me to garner the opinions of the five councilmen. So, while tent-pegs were held in abeyance, I dashed from one councilman to another, quizzing each on his home ground Nielson in a tractor shed, Thors in a garage, Olafson in the general store, etc.-until the roll call was completed and breathlessly I could report the affirmative vote to the mayor. And from the mayor I brought word to

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the constable-and only then did the pegs go in and the first tent go up. That tent was not simply pitched, it was pitched according to law -democratic Icelandic law. With the tents up and the campers covered, the season got under way. It is unlikely that campers anywhere lived more closely than the campers at Gimli. The advantages in the setup were priceless: No one could be out of earshot of the discussions. Even the cook in the kitchen could not escape them. The camp had the usual trials and triumphs: rains that came and tents that fell, camp fires at the beach, tired kids, parents who were torn between their loyalty to Labor Zionism and their concern for the welfare of their children. There were frenched beds and a pillow fight that covered the grounds with feather-snow. There were earnest daydreams and the stubborn belief that somehow all of this was bringing everyone closer to Eretz Yisrael . . . Strangely enough, somehow it did. Pinhas Rimon, 1957

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AFIKIM The opening of Camp Kvutza at Markham, Ontario, was blessed with the unfaltering benevolence of King Saul. As a result, over 125 haverim and friends packed three trucks and several cars and filled the grounds. At first everything was disorganized as everybody went out exploring. Some inspected the eighty percentfinished dining room and kitchen; others looked around the sleeping quarters, with the iron cots and brand new mattresses; still others were disappointed to find the dam unfinished. But the wisest of all went exploring in the forests, and one found a most beautiful nook for discussions. In fact, he offered to rent the spot for every Sunday in the summer. Moreover, just at that point, one of the rivers (we are at the junction of two streams) brought fond memories of the beautiful showers of that historic site, Accord. The opening was held around the flag poles. After Tehezakna, haverim spoke for the Poale Zion, the Farband, the Pioneer Women, and Habonim. And Harry Spoon gave a talk on the meaning of Camp Kvutza to the movement all over the world as he took over the key to Toronto's Camp Kvutza. In his talk, he stressed the place of America in Labor Zionism in light of the plight of Jewry in Europe. He hoped the Toronto haverim would choose a name for Kvutza in keeping with our ideals, the name of an Eretz; Yisrael Kvutza. Our Kvutza is named "Afikim." Moshe Rubinoff, 1940

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CAMP MIRIAM Camp Miriam was named after Miriam Biderman and is located on Gabriola Island, thirty miles west of Vancouver. It is a nine-acre, heavily-wooded camp site with water frontage on a beautiful little cove. At present, it has a capacity of sixty people. We have been a long time in acquiring it. Vancouver Habonim was first organized by Bert and Marian Waldman in 1948. It was soon realized that as an intensive supplement to the program of the mahaneh in the winter, a Camp Kvutza in the summer was necessary. The first Habonim Camp Kvutza of Vancouver Habonim was held in the summer of 1949 at Camp Wordsworth, the local C.C.F. camp, on Gabriola Island. It was rented for two weeks. About twenty-five attended this first twoweek camp. At that time, Doodle Horowitz was rosh Kvutza. Because of the primitive conditions, Camp Kvutza Miriam was held at Camp Hatikvah, the camp of the Zionist Organization of British Columbia in 1950. This was a two-week camp with the shaliah, Amram Milner, as rosh. Camp Hatikvah, however, suffered from being too close to civilization, and furthermore, it turned out that we would not be able to rent this camp in the future because the Zionist Organization of B.C. itself had extended its own camp period, thus precluding our use of the site. And so in 1951, the site of Camp Miriam moved back again to its primitive Gabriola Island site, which was again rented from the C.C.F. for a period of two weeks. Moishe Loffman of Winnipeg was rosh Kvutza that year. In the fall of 1951, the idea was first brought forward that Habonim should own a camp site. The mahaneh set up a Camp Site Investigation Committee. This committee spent many pleasant weekends traveling around the scenic local fiords hunting camp sites. Although several places were located, lack of adult supervision at that time made the work of the committee abortive. In the summer of 1952, with the growth of the mahaneh, a three-week Camp Kvutza was made possible. At this time there were about eighty-five camperweeks and Abbie Haklay was our rosh. In 1953 Camp Miriam was again held on Gabriola Island for two weeks with Al Linden as rosh. Although we were still unable to purchase a camp, it was felt that an alternative to Gabriola Island had to be found because of the difficulty in transportation to the Island and the primitive, unhygienic conditions existing there. After much hunting, Camp Miriam in 1954 was located at Roberts Creek, on the site of a former girls' camp. This camp ran for three weeks with Asher Wallfish as shaliah and Allen (Geli) Gelfond as rosh. The Roberts Creek camp site was even worse than Camp Miriam on Gabriola Island, and so in 1955, we again crossed the Straits of Georgia to the Gabriola Island camp site. Yehuda "Sam" Weissbach was our rosh for that year's three-week camp. By this time, conditions on the Island had improved from terrible to merely bad and it was with optimism that we looked forward to going back again to Gabriola Island in 1956. However, at about this time, the C.C.F. decided that they would no longer be in the landlord business and that if we wanted to use the camp the following summer, we would have to buy it. Some active parents were approached as well as some seniors of the Labor Zionist movement, and they were told that if there was no camp that summer, the existence of Vancouver Habonim would be seriously threatened. The seniors then formed an incorporated society for the purpose of buying the camp property. Fortunately the C.C.F., being fellow Socialists, sold us the camp on very easy terms. The 1956 camp was a three-week season with Nahman Goldwasser as rosh. This camp was particularly fortunate in having on the staff three Workshoppers. Now that the Gabriola Island camp site is the property of the Habonim Zionist Society, the problem of its development is up to us and the local parents and seniors. The problem of financing this as well as down payments on camp is a problem of magnitude completely beyond anything which the Vancouver mahaneh has previously coped with. In 1957, the camp season will extend to four weeks for the first time in our history. Plans for the development of the site include especially development of kitchen facilities and playground, which are to have priority in the next few years. Max Langer, 1957

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MONTREAL Once upon a time, there was a stable (and it still stands today) which housed horses, not knowing that one day it was destined to house Habonim. There in Prefontaine, many haverim spent wonderful summers at Kvutza and at seminars. Who can forget whitewashing the kitchen (to cover last summer's soot) and dining room until it was sparkling in the sunlight; those who suffered afterwards from lime burn; trudging through the swamp connecting the pipeline bringing water to camp; digging a new garbage pit, and then off to another direction for another pit for another purpose; the little creek behind the kitchen that was our ice box; the haverim who went to Ste. Agathe to get axes sharpened, and sort of forgot to come back; or the famous soups that we had in those days which couldn't be had in the Waldorf Astoria; chasing hornets; the great baseball games at the playing field near the tents; and then a swim in the North River? Who can forget washing the dishes in that quaint sink and lugging hot water from the old stove; those who got many blisters chopping firewood to keep the stove going red hot all summer; the many times the smoke stack shifted a bit and smoke was heavy and thick? Who can forget the overnight hikes; the day one haver climbed over a fence and stepped into a hornet's nest; the many cases of poison ivy? Years have come and gone. Haverim who were at Kvutza in those days have traveled and settled in various parts of the world. Camp Kvutza has changed places, not any more in Prefontaine, but many miles further in the mountains, at a place called Lac Quenoilles. Times have changed and so has Kvutza-not like the old camp, but new and sparkling and full of Habonim, having the same wonderful time. Cocoa Cheifetz, 1957

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CAMP BONIM. TEXAS Ever since the founding of Gordonia in Texas in 1929, the haverim. of the Dallas groups planned for a summer camping program. It was not until ten years later that such an opportunity presented itself. In the summer of 1939, Habonim groups were functioning, in addition to the four groups in Dallas, in Houston and San Antonio, Texas, New Orleans Louisiana, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was then that Moshe Smith, a madrich of the Dallas movement, and Yapha (Jennie) Zesmer, with the writer of this report, acting as a committee for the Southwest Habonim, selected a site on Lake Dallas for a Habonim Camp Kvutza. To everyone's chagrin a polio epidemic made it impossible to open camp in 1940 and necessitated postponement of the program. A Camp Bonim. Association, a group of friends of Habonim dedicated to the precept of Camp Kvutza, was organized in the course of the year. Several of the Association's members who devoted much time, effort, and financial means, should be mentioned. Among these devoted friends were Harry Sigel, I. Zesmer, Jacob Feldman, Maurice Levy, Isaac Goldstein, and Dr. Irving Brodsky, all of Dallas; Herman P. Taubman (currently in Tulsa), I. Nad, M. Gerber, and I. Weiner of Houston; and Abraham Sinkin, Bernard Rubenstein, and Nathan Karin of San Antonio. In each of these communities, and in others throughout Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, committees of friends of Camp Bonim were formed for the purpose of making this decade-old dream a reality. In the summer of 1941, Camp Bonim. opened its first season on a leased site on Lake Dallas. Forty campers from Dallas and several neighboring towns spent a profitable summer in a Kvutza environment and returned to their respective homes in the fall pledged to work for the growth of Habonim. Subsequent years were periods of real Habonim expansion in the region. The camping program was extended to an ever-growing movement, and parents in the communities, particularly in the smaller towns where no Jewish education was possible, called Camp Bonim blessed. The winter of 1945 saw the purchase of a site on Lake Dallas. Some $60,000 was contributed through the Camp Bonim. Association by friends in the three states for the purchase and improvement of the site, and the summer of that year brought two hundred campers to Camp Bonim. A number of Dallas haverim, veterans in Habonim, worked with the writer to make this success possible. Moshe Smith, David Zesmer, Zevi Borofsky, Raphael Levin, Yaakov Ely, Zalman Schneider, Yapha Chesnick, Meir Sigel, Bruno Sigel, Ami Levin, Leah Waltman, Zalman Kahn, Shahna Kahn, all of Dallas, and Yitzhak Groner, Avraham Groner, and Hannah Wiederman of Houston-all did a real halutzic job in planning for Camp Bonim and in implementing these plans. The invaluable assistance of Kalman Shapiro, currently of Minneapolis, then a member of the Dallas Hebrew School faculty, was always considered phenomenal. From the very outset, Camp Bonim observed kashrut (as do all Habonim camps). This was always considered by the founders and madrichim. as an integral must in any Jewish educational program. The implementation of this part of the plan was made possible by mothers of haverim. who gave of themselves so selflessly in order to provide proper supervision. Shabbat at Camp Bonim. was, from the very inception, an occasion for perfect rest, study, and contemplation. From time to time, senior haverim. would visit the camp for Shabbat and sing the praises of the type of education Camp Bonim offered. The entire camp program was geared toward a full and enriching Jewish experience in the spirit of Labor Eretz Yisrael. Yaakov Levin., 1957

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THE COMING SEASON My experience last summer with Kinneret, near Detroit, aided me in formulating and developing certain ideas with regard to the basic principles of Kvutza. Those of us who drew up plans for Kinneret last summer were alike in one respect-we were all inexperienced. We had ideas, however, and we were probably aided by the fact that because of our inexperience we made plans which we might otherwise have rejected as too ambitious. Experience, if anything, would have cramped our style last year, and for this reason, I should not hesitate to give the campers considerable liberty. I am sure that, given the opportunity, the campers will decide to do the right thing at Kvutza meetings. For example, even such a measure as common fund, which no Kvutza f,hould be without, can be discussed at a Kvutza meeting and will undoubtedly be passed with very little opposition. Problems such as bedtime, programs, morning exercise, work, handicrafts, kitchen duty, can certainly be handled in this manner. The campers may talk about staying up late, but if a discussion of the benefits of an earlier day and the harm done by late hours is carefully conducted, no one will want to stay up past a reasonable hour. To my knowledge, work and handicrafts are not being neglected in our Kvutzot. Work, of course, should play a major role in Kvutza activities and, if planned properly, will receive much enthusiasm on the part of the campers. Habonim are builders, and we should certainly be given an opportunity to build, even at the expense of a more professional job. The dining room at Kinneret is by no means a pro- fessional job, but it means a great deal to about ten boys who had a band in building it. The best way to give the camp back to the campers is not by merely giving them a voice in their own government, but by giving them an opportunity to be instrumental in the actual building of the Kvutza. Our camps present a golden opportunity for us to put some of the concepts of halutziut into practice, and such a principle as the "conquest of labor" should be exploited to its limit. Arm in arm with work goes gardening. This may be difficult to carry through in some Kvutzot because of unfavorable natural factors, such as poor soil conditions or extreme drought. However poor these conditions may be, they can be counteracted by artificial means, and the cost and effort expended on such a project will be repaid if plans are carefully laid out and executed. Gardening can and sbould be of two kinds-vegetable aud floral culture. In the case of a permanent Kvutza, it miglit also be wise to plant trees for ornamental purposes as well as for fruit. Both vegetable and flower gardening must be begun in April or May, and in order to carry out this project successfully, it is necessary to take a trip to Kvutza every week and put in several hours of work. On the surface this may seem a disadvantage, even to the extent of killing the idea of a garden. On second thought, however, this is a decided advantage since the Kvutza with a garden begins not in July but in April or May. Those who work on the garden in the spring will naturally be more interested in Kvutza than those whose first connections with camp begin when the season opens. Gardening also furnishes a permanent work project during the season. Other projects can be postponed from day to day, but postponing work on the garden spells failure. In short, gardening entails certain responsibilities which every camper should experience. It is unreasonable to expect a crop for consumption from the vegetable garden the first season. This should rather be spent in gaining experience and learning which crops grow most successfully. Little by little, however, the garden should develop, and there is no reason why it cannot supply a substantial part of the Kvutza's fresh food products during the latter part of the season after a few years of experience. The garden might even be developed to such an extent that after a few years, one or two vegetables could be grown in larger quantities to be sold to neighboring markets. Flowers and landscaping are also of great significance. A feeling for aesthetics should be inculcated in Habonim, and here is a grand opportunity. Flowers and shrubs can transform a barren piece of land into a beautiful scene, and labor is of little significance if it does not go hand in hand with a desire for beauty and freshness. Danny Ginsburg, 1940

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CAMP AVODA, CREAMRIDGE Camp Avoda at the Hehalutz farm in Creamridge, New Jersey, began as an experiment and ended as an established institution. High school-age boys and girls came to Creamridge to live and work with an established collective group. Although we were rather skeptical at the beginning, by the end of last summer, most of us were ready to admit that, within reasonable limits, it is possible to expose successfully young American Jews to collective agricultural life. To our surprise, we found that almost without any conscious guidance on our part, the campers, in the course of the summer, gradu- ally began to adopt the outlook and standards of intimate collective groups. Fifteen boys and girls between the ages of fifteen and seventeen attended the camp. The group was a rather heterogeneous one; a number were students of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, where they received an edu cation along Reconstructionist lines, while several had almost no knowledge of Eretz Yisrael and Zionism, not to mention halutziut. The life of the camp was, of course, built around work. The campers elected their own person to assign the work who, together with us, prepared the daily work schedule. The campers were given an opportunity to participate in the various branches-barn, chickens, garden, cannery, and so on. Working six or seven hours a day under the hot sun was a new experience for all of them and it was occasionally difficult to maintain good standards of work for the group. This was partly due to the assignment of routine jobs to the campers, such as picking tomatoes or cleaning chicken coops, rather than giving them an opportunity to do work which they would find more interesting and which would require a certain degree of skill. The campers participated in both cultural and agricultural discussions. The agricultural discussions were conducted by members of the farm and were intended to give a general picture of the various branches of a farm economy. A good part of the discussions, of course, was in reference to our own farm economy. These discussions aroused considerable h1terest and proved very worthwhile. One evening a week was devoted to a cultural discussion concerning aspects of modern Jewish life throughout the world with particular emphasis on Zionism. Because of the varying backgrounds of the campers, some difficulties were encountered in presenting these discussions, but the group as a whole was an alert one and there were many lively arguments and debates. Five or six times during the summer, the campers met to discuss and to decide about the problems that arose in the maintenance and the functioning of the camp. We naturally tried to have Camp Avoda run as democratically as possible, and except for a few elementary rules upon which we insisted, the campers were given a good deal of freedom of choice and decision. Despite the fact that the group was a small one and that camp life followed a rather simple pattern, there were innumerable small problems, questions, and suggestions brought up at these meetings. Several campers wanted a room in the house to be set aside as a recreation and letter-writing room; there was a discussion about whether boys have to work in the kitchen and clean house as well as girls; an argument ensued as to whether some campers may go to a movie on a day when the others are swimming or whether the whole group must have their recreation together; and so on. Because this was our first experience with a camp of this type and because summertime is always a busy and difficult season at the farm, Camp Avoda in some ways fell short of what it might have been. As mentioned before, the work program was not organized in a manner that would have been most beneficial to the campers; the cultural work was too limited and lacking in intensity-for example, we did not have an adequate library of Zionist and other literature which campers could read at their leisure. During the first few weeks, there were also a good many technical shortcomings which should have been avoided. Yet, we feel that we achieved the basic purposes of Camp Avoda. Purely on the basis of what they saw, heard, and felt, the campers gradually began to realize the advantages of collective living. Most of us thought it likely that they would ridicule, for instance, the idea of keeping clothes collectively, but it was just the opposite. They liked us and they liked the way we lived. After a time, they began to adopt more and more of our methods. When at the beginning of the summer, we

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proposed a common ~und, we met with almost complete opposition; later the campers themselves again brougbt up the suggestion and it was accepted. As happens in every camp, parents sent boxes of candy and cookies. At first the candy was the private property of the particular tent in which the recipient lived, then it was shared among the campers, and finally it was decided that the boxes were to be shared equally among the campers and members of the farm alike. A few weeks before the end of the season, they were asked to analyze collective living, to extol or criticize it, on the basis of their own experience. There was a good deal of disagreement about whether this type of life was possible on a large scale at the present time, but everyone who spoke assumed, as something that did not need further proof, that living collectively was better and preferable to any other way of life. The campers went home with a very real appreciation of the farm and at least an acquaintance with halutziut. During the year, many of them came to visit us for weekends and holidays. Several are returning this summer to participate in a larger, better planned, and better organized Camp Avoda. Al Weingrod, 1944

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AMAL IN RETROSPECT Amal, Habonim's Hebrew-speaking camp, has completed its third season. After three uncertain years of experimentation, Amal has realized the dreams of its founders; it has won national recognition as one of the outstanding Hebrew-speaking camps in America. Habonim has never had an opportunity to determine the future of this nascent institution. We have been too concerned with the very survival of Amal to give adequate consideration to its role within the movement. Institutions, however, do not await official decisions. Amal, in its three years of existence, has established its own camping patterns and set into motion uncertain forces. Even a cursory evaluation would disclose that Amal has fostered the study of Hebrew in our movement, has attracted a considerable number of new haverim, and gained for Habonim new prestige in the Jewish educational world. But it might also be shown that Amal's successes have not been achieved without prejudicing the halutzie character of our camps. It was but three years ago that we hesitantly opened Amal on a rented site in Vermont. The movement greeted this venture with singular indifference. Few haverim expressed interest in attending Amal. In view of the small registration, the Merkaz, on one occasion, nearly decided to abandon the project. But we felt strongly that we had a mission to fulfill in Hebrew camping. We were disturbed by the cloistered atmosphere of many existing camps. They were fostering a native Hebrew-speaking elite. Their educational program bypassed halutziut. They glibly spoke of the national poet, Bialik, and chose to ignore the pressing need of Eretz Yisrael: an American halutz aliya. Therefore, despite the initial movement apathy, we decided in favor of continuing our efforts on behalf of Amal. We opened in the summer of 1948 with a handful of campers. The staff had little Hebrew camping experience and was poorly prepared. This was hardly an auspicious beginning. Haverim. seriously questioned reopening Amal in 1949. They felt that it had failed. Strong arguments were advanced for giving up Amal-our personnel shortage was acute, there were but dim hopes of registering an adequate number of campers, and the national budget could not again sustain a financial loss such as it had in Amal's first season. It was therefore with great trepidation that the Merkaz finally decided in favor of reopening the camp. This was to be its last chance. Amal's partisans were soon active on all fronts. Prominent Hebrew educators were solicited to add their names to our list of sponsors. Several Jewish educational institutions were induced to award scholarships to Amal. This time, the camper response was more encouraging. The season began with forty-five campers who were determined to make it a success. We hoped to create a camp modeled along the lines of our other camps. And, to a large extent, we succeeded. We ended our second season with the realization that Amal had proved itself. It was no longer an experiment. Many observers claimed that our campers spoke more Hebrew than the campers of any other Hebrew-speaking camp in America, and this we had seemingly accomplished without vitiating our halutzic Zionist program. Nor did our work go unnoticed in the Jewish community. During the winter of 1949-1950, the number of sponsoring Jewish educational institutions increased from two to six, and twenty-two scholarships were awarded to Amal by various Hebrew school systems. In recognition of Amal's promise, the Merkaz assigned Tel Meir, in Connecticut, to its fledgling Hebrew camp as its permanent site. This past summer we confidently opened the season with sixty haverim. As evidence of our coming of age, an ambitious program was prepared for the public. On August 9th, a performance of Yitzhak Lamdan's Masada was witnessed and applauded by sixty parents and guests. Hebrew educators from many sections of America visited Amal during the season and were impressed with the serious educational work that we attempted. Daily formal class work had been introduced, and great emphasis in the discussion program was placed upon Jewish history. The 1950 season was most successful. Moshe Margalit, 1950

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NIGHT WATCH Two o'clock The raindrops fall, Soft winds rock The trees, o'er all Is quiet Three o'clock The whippoorwills Softly mock From yonder hills In the quiet Four o'clock The sky is red, A promise of The day ahead Of quiet Five o'clock A sun so bright Has replaced The dim of night In quiet Six o'clock The day is come But at Kvutza Till day is done No quiet! Rita Greenberg, 1937

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Sunday, July 3rd Campers arrive. Amid much excitement, tents and madrichim are assigned. Among last year's haverim, there is great rejoicing over the new outhouse, and the exclamation, " Oh boy, is it swell to be back!" echoes and reechoes to the bewilderment of the newcomers. Washing is over, and everyone, in comfortable camp clothes, leans back (on his neighbor) after a much-needed supper and listens to Dave's welcoming speech. Then a camp fire, with dancing for those who are not too tired after the long train ride, and singing for all. Sleep now, and quiet. Monday, July 4th Today the regular daily program begins: Rise and shine-exercise-washing-breakfast-clean-up-discussion groupsactivities-dip-lunch-rest and correspondencesports-swimming-supper-and one of the many evening activities possible in Kvutza. Tonight we have an amateur hour, under the direction of Benny, to find talent for the Drama Circle-to-be. Stan and Sol are prize kibbitzers, to say nothing of Avram. And so to bed. < July>The regular program again today. This evening we have a hike to Accord via the new route discovered by Benny and Yehiel. First and last stop is the place of business of Mr. Block. Here we are refreshed by popsicles and exactly $.01 worth of candy-no more, no less. Tiptoeing through the metropolis so as not to wake the immense population, we finally reach home, tired but happy, to drop right off to dreamland. Wednesday, July 6th It is agreed that "Harishona" is a suitable name for our Accord Kvutza since we were literally "the first." Thursday, July 7th Looking about this morning, one sees a veritable hive of industry. The library is open, to the great delight of our intelligentsia, and the boys are working on an aquarium in which to keep material for Sammy's dissection mania. The camp paper-The Cookooricoo-is begun under the expert direction of Judy G. We have free time tonight. Struck by the magnificent beauty of the sky and surrounding mountains, we gather together on the grass to sing. As the haverim tear themselves away to bed, they feel that the stars sparkling in the velvet heavens have come nearer to earth and are watching over Kvutza. Friday, July 8th All day today is given over to preparation for Shabbat. We do our laundry in the creek. Two haverim volunteer to wash the dining room and kitchen floors. At lunch the Celibates Club is organized at a special table which excludes haverot. Their motto is: O.F.F.-Off Fems Forever. Sammy and Marvin (who declares that at least he is a confirmed bachelor) are the unworthy specimens of humanity who lead this ridiculous movement. Everyone is dressed in white shorts and blue Habonim shirts for Friday night, and we march down the hill singing happily. At the table the candles are lit and the prayer sung by Edna before we sit down to eat. Gathered on the hill, we hear The Cookooricoo read by Stan and then sing songs of Shabbat. Saturday, July 9th Ah, luxury, we sleep an extra half hour this morning. We have a leisurely breakfast, discussion, and clean up. As the Bible circles in Hebrew and English begin this afternoon, it begins to rain. Sunday, July 10th This morning there is a talk and discussion conducted by Shlomo on the present situation in Eretz Yisrael. Parents begin to arrive. A new batch of haverim come from the city and there is much excitement during the meeting of old friends and new. Tonight we have a camp fire with singing. And then to bed, with one or two people doubling up because some trunks have not yet arrived. Monday, July 11th Today we are settled again. This afternoon it rains and, as on previous days, we gather in the dining room for songs and games. Finally the sun breaks through the clouds just in time to set. Later, stunt night. Each tent presents a skit or a like exhibition. The grass is very wet as we walk up the hill to bed. Tuesday, July 12th We are awakened this morning by reveille blown by Harriet on her trumpet. It is decided that haverim of fifteen and over will take an overnight hike tonight after supper. The elements, however, seem to regard this with disfavor for it starts to rain. Yehiel's determination is of some avail because the shower suddenly stops. "Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to Minewaska we go!" And amid the cheers of the remaining campers, the group sets out. So the younger haverim go to bed, begging Dave for an extra hour of sleep tomorrow. Wednesday, July 13th Kvutza seems empty this morning with only half the haverim. here. No morning exercises, praise be to Allah! The younger people go on a short hike immediately after breakfast while those that remained for various reasons help in the kitchen. All the haverim are back for a delayed lunch, after which much napping is done under the pine and apple trees by those campers who would catch up on their lost sleep. Reading circles are the only activities this afternoon, and following supper, we have free time. Now bed and sleep at last. Thursday, July 14th There are discussons this morning on the trials in Russia, and preparation for a debate-" Resolved: That

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Socialism as such will solve the Jewish problem." Today the equipment for all sorts of sports is spread over the camp. Down by the kitchen we have ping-pong, while at the top of the hill are horseshoe and deck tennis games. And watch the Schwartzes at the badminton net! The haverim with musical talent are in the limelight tonight as we all gather near Dubby's tent to hear them and occasionally join in the chorus. It seems a perfect antidote for insomnia, but-Miriam L. and Dave R. are on guard duty so all hopes tor a peaceful night are futile. Friday, July 15th This morning we again approach the serious problem of laundry and hie ourselves down to Ye Olde Creeke where we spend the morning washing clothes. After lunch, besides clean-up, we have arts and crafts and scouteraft. Ready for supper, our tents and persons spotless. For Shabbat we snap pictures of our haverim in Habonim shirts and white shorts. A "Candid Camera Fiend" or two stay behind to record on film our march down the hill. The stream goes by, and the waterfall competes with Dave's voice as he reads to us the past week's diary and news from the other camps. Still gathered on the rocks, we watch Mutzie present Barry with a diploma from Fibber's College. Back by the tents and joined by the kitchen committee, we listen to The Cookooricoo as read by Avram. Now to our tents after singing and dancing. Saturday, July 16th Today is the final conflict: let each stand in his place-the campers play a baseball game of chills and thrills. Amid much excitement and conflicting emotions in the cheering section, the campers beat the madrichim 17-7. What triumph! What humiliation! The drama group presents an anti-war play at the camp fire tonight, written by Benny Lappin and produced by Ruth L. and the author. Afterwards, of course, there is dancing and singing. And so the second week of camp ends. Accord Diary, 1938

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PEEKING IN WITH OUR SHALIAH Traveling around the camps of our movement is an~ experience akin to that of visiting our settlements in Eretz Yisrael. One expects them all to be alike-for are they not organized and managed the same way, the same bylaws, the same institutions, the same program and activities-yet each Kvutza represents a unique world of its own. Just as all settlements in Eretz Yisrael differ, one from the other, because the people who live there are differentcoming from various countries, homes, schools, civilizations-so do the varying backgrounds of our haverim place an individual stamp upon each Camp Kvutza. My first stop this year was at Kendall, New York, the Kvutza which serves our upstate New York movements. Situated on a plain on the shore of Lake Ontario-no mountains or bills-a few trees mark the spot. Farm land stretches out on all sides. Most of the farmers are Norwegians and the relations between the camp and the farmers are excellent. Five wigwam tents in a straight line and a large and spacious two-story barn, the bottom floor used as a dining room and kitchen, the top floor used as a handicrafts and cultural room -that is the entire camp. Swimming is naturally one of the main activities as Lake Ontario with its clear blue waters is only flfty yards away. The haverim there built a long wooden jetty of water which gradually gets deeper and deeper as you go on. Only this year, millions of little fish had been dumped into the lake from the Canadia side, and they had floated over to the American shores. Thus, during the first weeks in camp, their bodies littered the beach, kept you company while you swam, and frequently went into your mouth if you were not careful. From Rochester, I climbed up and up to the Laurentian Mountains in Prefontaine, Quebec, where our Montreal camp is situated. Physically, the camp there is a very poor one, an old building with various compartments used as cabins, dining room and kitchen, an office, and two tents. In general, our haverim from Montreal come from very poor districtsmost of them forced to begin working in factories at the ageg of fourteen to fifteen. From many points of view, Montreal is like an East European city with the Jews living almost in a ghetto and the population, mostly French Catholics, very anti-Semitic. Most of our haverim there speak Yiddish very well as they attend Yiddish parochial schools. Singing and dramatics is the specialty of Montreal. Every year they give a concert attended by 1200 people which is a highlight of the Jewish artistic season there. No monotones in Montreal-almost all have choir voices and most of the songs are sung in three voices. Two dramatic' presentations were carried through successfully the week I was there-one describing the life of Bialik; the other portraying the history of the Jewish Hagana in Eretz Yisrael, from the founding of the Hashomer until the occupation of Hanita. From there, southward to Camp Galil. The singing there; the manner in which J.N.F. projects were carried out; the exciting baseball games between the Varsity and the Scrubs; the ingenious costumes invented for the masquerade; the adventures of Ferdinand, the truck; the hike in the park near the spot where Washington crossed the Deleware; the spirit of the oldest bonot-the famous LeHagshama group of Philadelphia-who though they found in camp only boys under thirteen and over twenty, expended their energy in leading groups and building up a healthy camp spirit-these are all unforgettable parts of Galil. Ben Zion Ilan, 1938

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UNTIL NEXT YEAR And so it was the last day of Kvutza. We packed, we ran around camp looking for wrapping paper and twine, and we envied those fortunates who were staying for the seminar. Busy as we were, however, we could feel something strange in the air; a small committee had been picked by Dave with much secrecy and we wondered about its mysterious I duties. We ate, saying to ourselves and to each other, "This is the last lunch at Kvutza this year." The gods shared our disappointment, perhaps, for they sent down a flood of heavenly tears that transformed the camp into a mudhole. Through the downpour, our trunks and bags were carried to the truck and transported to Accord. A small band of brave halutzot rushed down the hill with a burden of "civilized clothes" which had to be ironed before they could be worn home on the morrow. And now loud lamentations could be heard from Kvutza. The secret had escaped; the cat was out of the bag. A gay farewell party had been planned for this last evening, a campfire, then a march to the pine trees decorated with Japanese lanterns under which was to have been set a feast fit for a king and also for us. Sobbing, we planned a substitute affair and sadly went about making preparations. At last, gathered at the top of the hill and dressed mostly in borrowed clothes, we were ready for supper. Suddenly a bombshell landed in our midst: an evening paper from Ellenville. War, it seemed, was near-the SovietReich pact a reality, not just a fantastic nightmare. Thinking of the three-and-a-half million Jews in Poland, many our own relations, wondering whether Britain would indeed stand firm by her pledges to Poland, we were in no mood to appreciate the meal that was set before us. After supper everyone was chased back to the tents while preparations went on in the kitchen. Soon the whistle blew and we tramped into the dining room again. What a transformation! The room was decorated with crepe paper and balloons strung from the ceiling, candles of blue and white giving off the light by which we saw the tables spread with cake, candy, and fruit. We sat down together and sang at the tables all the songs we had sung during the full summer. When the tea had been served and cleared away, Dave rose to speak to us. Because of the news from abroad we were not having the festive evening that had been planned, but still we could look back with satisfaction on a summer of working, playing, and living together. He hoped that the time we had spent in Kvutza would provide a stimulus for more and better work in our various cities during the coming winter. As we left to go to bed, the sky was not yet clear, but the moon shone among the clouds. We took a good look around; this might be our last night at Accord for Dave had said Kvutza might be moved next year. People went to bed quietly-there wasn't as much noise as is usual on the last night at camp. Soon the hushed giggling and singing died down and we fell asleep. Evy Schwartz, 1939

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VIEW FROM KVUTZA HILL, ACCORD Around the hill on which we stand are ringed the woods, Deep, deep into the valley far below, And stretch until in fringing green encroach Upon the fields which roll beyond The utmost margin of our view to where The ranks of toothed hills stand row on row, Green blueing into gray until the last Is but a cloud. David E. Goldberg, 1939

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TO KVUTZA In 1933, as we were preparing for Kvutza, the Nazi power was sweeping through Germany. As we packed our trunks in 1939, our thoughts turned back to the fall of Czechoslovakia. Another nation had crumbled because it believed in truth and decency. As we returned home from Kvutza that season, civilization was being crushed. War had come to a world that had not known peace. Last year we came to Kvutza with heavy hearts. France, the symbol of man's hope, had been defeated by the Nazi military machine, and Italy was in the war. The Mediterranean was a war zone and the first bombs had fallen on Eretz Yisrael. Now a Nazi band of steel is stretching into the Near East and is tightening about Eretz Yisrael-a band of steel which reaches about our hearts. We are again preparing to go to Kvutza. To us, Kvutza never has been an ordinary camp. To us, Kvutza has been a place where the things we believed could be practiced. It is in Kvutza that there is democracy. It is in Kvutza that all are equal. Our Kvutza is a place where we might learn and plan for the day when we could return to Eretz; Yisrael. In our Kvutza, we could dream and hope together for a day when there would be no war, when men might live a happier life in peace and security. This is no ordinary season for a far-from-ordinary Kvutza. During this season, we must win new faith in our beliefs. We have not yet had to fight for these beliefs of ours. But others are fighting. The British and their allies are fighting for the same things. The Jews and all others of Europe who believed in freedom have long endured the oppression of the swastika because of their belief in the principles of decency. The halutzim of Eretz Yisrael are standing to their guns to defend what they have built and their dreams for the future. We in Kvutza must grow strong in our beliefs and let those who now stand in the front lines know that they can count on us for whatever lies within our power to give in this fight for the future. Artie Goldberg, 1941

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NIGHT WATCH The night was cold and dark, the moon passed silently overhead, and still she slept. Suddenly a tap on the shoulder, a yank of the little pigtails, and she was awakened by an obliging, sleepy-eyed haver. Hand in hand they walked to their first destination-the dining room. And there they found more than just an empty place, mosquitoes about the lights, and dirty dishes on the table; there was a building of which they were a part-they recently had carried logs to repair it, and now it was theirs. Dirty dishes did not matter, the mosquito bites did not itch quite so much-the place was theirs. Faithfully through the night they guarded it, and when the early hours* of the morn began to break, they woke two other haverim. Yes, the girl with the pigtails and the sleepy-eyed haver were on guard duty. The dining room was theirs-all theirs! Haboneh, 1941

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THE TREE Limp and lonely and lifeless, it hangs down the side of its cliff. Its naked roots clutch at the earth like fingers' that have lost thelr power to grasp at life. Around it we stand and we look down on it. And it seems strange to look down on something to which we had always looked up. It is The Tree. If you have ever been in Moshava, you know The Tree. Just across the grounds and follow the path to the water. You pass the ravine and the road to the New Cliff. And then you find The Tree. Or maybe it is that The Tree finds you. You stop to look at The Tree. It sits on its own cliff and it looks over the Severn River. It guards the haverim. on the beach and in the water. It sees the sailboats glide past. It watches the sunsets and the night skies. But when you stop to look at it, it turns. And it looks at you. Then you notice its arms are held out to you and you understand it is your first haver at Moshava. So you climb out on its strong roots and you settle yourself in its lap. For a while, you sit in silence-you and The Tree. And when at last you decide to leave, you go knowing that you will return. Many times you visit it. Sometimes you come with your haverim. Then all of you sit on its arms and around it and you lose yourself in discussion. Momentarily you forget where you are. Yet, when you look upward, you see The Tree and you know it listens sympathetically. Sometimes you bring your new group to the The Tree. You are a madrich and you want to impress your haverim. And hardly a week passes now but that one of them recalls, "Remember that time we sat at The Tree?" Sometimes you come with a Certain One. For The Tree, alone, may know your secrets. But most times you come alone to The Tree. Early in the morning you come to it. Late at night when you cannot sleep. After Moshava has closed and you are back in the city, suddenly you have such a longing to leave your routine. And you take the first lift you can get. And you come back to Moshava. Like a mad one, you run down the path to The Tree. And you sit upon its roots and rest against its trunk. For a long time we knew it had to come down. Let the truth be known: There is no time in our memory when The Tree did not "have to come down." Knowing full well we would not. Each year its roots protruded more and more above the ground. Each year it extended farther over the Cliff. If we stood on the beach below it and looked up, we could see its every vein straining at the earth around it. In March it snowed. A heavy, unkind, bitter storm that seemed to seek revenge on the coming spring with which it struggled. Limp and lonely and lifeless, it hangs down the side of its cliff. Its naked roots clutch at the earth like fingers that have lost their power to grasp at life. Around it we stand and we look down on it. And it seems strange to look down on something to which we had always looked up.

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It is The Tree. Miriam Biderman, 1942

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SO YOU WANT TO BE A MADRICH Perhaps you are one who wants to do more than his share at Tel Hai this summer, that is, become a madrich. Well, if you are new at this game, let me give you some timely advice. First of all, you must take into consideration your age. If you want to work with solelim whose ages range from ten to twelve, we suggest that you yourself should be at least thirteen so that they can look up to you to some extent. The same goes for the tzofim who are usually thirteen and fourteen. That means that you should be about fifteen, or if you wish to give a sage-like appearance, sixteen. The bonim, as our beloved rosh Kvutza, Harry, once said, are anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five. But for them it does not matter how old you are because the bonim never pay any attention to madrichim anyway. They consider them a mere formality. So you think you are old enough for one of these age groups. We shall therefore proceed to tell you just what will be expected of you in each age group. We'll start out with the solelim. and get them off our minds (as though that's even vaguely possible. To work with these little rascals, you must have a strong constitution and a stronger left hook, the endurance of a cross-country track star, and the patience of a saint. You must have the fleetness of a greyhound each evening to join the merry chase that occurs when it is time to put them to bed. A liberal education is a handy thing to have, too, for you must know everything from the latest processes of making apple butter to the social status of the Jew in Zululand. These little intellectual fiends can ask more brain-teasers in a day than Dr. I. Q. does in a year. Also, you bad better stock up on vitamin pills, for these charming youngsters have their own ideas of how to spend a restful afternoon. Now for the tzofim. These animals are slightly less energetic, all their vitality having been exhausted in their rolelim days, though they are still more active than their mild looks indicate. But the modern tzofeh brings new problems with which the madrich can expect to cope. For example, you will be requested to solve all their little affaires de coeur, and if you don't think that kids of this age are concerned with such problems, you have underestimated the wide range of their capabilities. You will be subject to nightly outpourings of their hearts and will be forced to promise them you will try to get the work committee to put them on guard or kitchen duty with their current crushes. Yes, being a madrich of tzofim is a splendid occupation, that is, if you are interested in practicing some early teen-age psychology. And finally, there are the bonim. These languid creatures have neither the solelim spirit nor the tzofim trust and confidence in a madrich. They thrive best if left to themselves to eat, sleep, gossip, and go on night watch. They are not antagonistic to culture and education-the only reason for their non-attendance at discussions is evidently that they know it all. And so, while a guest speaker sits under a tree talking to the few staff members disguised as bonim to save the reputation of the camp, you may be sure that the bonim are lounging comfortably in their tents and cabins holding discussion of their own-of a different sort, however. Likewise, their non-appearance at work does not mean that they are lazy. Oh no! The bonim are of the opinion that work was created to give the solelim and tzofim a chance to work off some of their excess vim and vigor. On the whole, madrichim. will find the bonim a group of sophisticates who have reached the stage in their development when they come to camp merely from force of habit. And now, dear prospective madrich, if you reach the end of the day a fairly sane person, you will be required, after everyone else is in bed, to attend a staff meeting. These very exclusive affairs can do wonders for the worst case of insomnia. Two persons are appointed, in two-hour shifts, to rotate about the room pricking the madrichim with pins, and they do quite a bit of hurrying about in an effort to keep at least three people awake at all times. If you do not fall prey to the sandman's charms, you won't be able to keep your mind on the meeting anyway. You'll keep wondering if the cabin that's doing all the yelling is yours, and when you're going to prepare the discussion you have to lead tomorrow morning, and when the darn meeting is going to end. Finally it does break up, but only on the condition that it be continued tomorrow when everyone will be fresh as a daisy. After such a fatiguing meeting, one needs little convincing that a post-midnight snack is in order, and all troop over

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to the dining room, loudly shhh-ing each other although it's quite obvious that the whole camp is still awake. Jeannie Reisapfel, 1942

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LOS ANGELES GLEANINGS Dear Mom: You know that right across the way from the camp there is a high mountain called Mt. Jupiter-and here the story lies. It is a custom that every summer some campers decide to do the nearest thing to suicide and climb the mountain for what they call a "good time. " Well, I once tried it, but being out of condition, got no more than half way up. That was three years ago, but having become a fine physical specimen at Kvutza, I decided to try it again. We were to be guided by the forest ranger, Sandy, who is pretty good looking so we had no trouble getting several girls to go. As we started out, someone found out that I had the only knapsack in Kvutza, so they let me carry all the lunches plus a first aid kit and camera. We hiked two miles in the nice summer sun and began to climb the mountain single file. Jerry, in back of me, bad been eating garlic all morning and whenever we stopped, he would put his head over my shoulder to see what was doing, and made me sick. There was of course no turning back; Dave Bleviss was at the rear and no one could squeeze by. After fighting our way through the brush (the ranger and I wore short pants and my legs are disfigured for life), we arrived at the top, took pictures (my film), and ate lunch (sandwiches and fruit from the knapsack I was carrying). We sat around, sang songs which the ranger liked though he didn't know what they were all about (nor did we), and then began to go down. We went down a firebreak. If you don't know what a firebreak is, I shall explain: A firebreak is a long, cleared strip through the mountain, designed to stop a forest or brush fire. It is made by big tractors which try to find the steepest part of the mountain they can go up without turning over. I am sure that this tractor found the steepest part of the whole range of mountains. It is not true that it is easier to come down than to go up. Once you begin going down it is very difficult to stop. Also it is quite uncomfortable to find that you cannot stop at the edge of a cliff. Don't worry, Mom, I stopped. I played soldier all the way down and it was very realistic; I almost became a casualty when I tripped. We finally got to the bottom drawn out over a half mile or so of ground. After waiting until we all gathered-including the loose parts-we began to hike home. Just as we got near camp, we found a rattlesnake had been killed a few minutes before we got there. How sorry I was. I felt just like killing a rattlesnake, too. Well, goodbye now. Oh yes, send me $7 and a snake-bite kit. I want to stay longer. Love. Your dear son, Norman 1942

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NEED HELP PACKING Spring is well along, School will follow soon after, And then Kvutza! Imagine! It's just a matter of days before construction crews will appear at Kvutza sites all over the country and put into effect the planning they've been doing all winter. And once the Kvutza has been awakened from its winter's sleep, then comes the time of the year that every Habonim member has been waiting for impatiently-the opening of Kvutza and the glorious days that will follow! All we have to do is pack our duds and hop a train or bus, and presto, we are in Kvutza! Yet, some of us don't feel so easy about this packing business. Therefore, let me-a veteran-give you a few hints as to what to pack and what not to pack. First, clothes. Drag out all your old clothes, clothes that are too dilapidated for city wear, antiquated clothes that you have long ago forgotten about, and you will have a great part of your Kvutza wardrobe. Nothing is too bad for Kvutza when it comes to clothes, because by the time you go home, very little will remain of them anyway. You see, we are very active in Kvutza. But your clothes must have one important virtuethey must be able to endure rough treatment. Also make sure that they are washable. You are going to wash them your self, and just between us, we know what kind of a laundry man you are. Have your wardrobe include work shirts (for we all work), play shirts, because we play, too, and dress shirts for Shabbat and Sundays. Our parents are always fussy about the way we look when they come to visit us so we might as well look our best. Oh, bless me, I almost* forgot to mention the pants that go with the shirts. By all means, don't forget your pants, haverim. Shorts or slacks or anything that goes under that general heading by a stretch of the imagination will do. One item that should be carefully chosen is shoes. Have a pair of hard-soled shoes for hiking and a pair of isoftsoled ones for play and work. And don't forget the shoe polish, because I'm warning you, I'm not going to lend you mine. Besides, I'm sure to forget to bring some, in which case, I'll have to use yours. Brrr! Nights are sometimes cold in Kvutza. You'll need a sweater, a warm jacket, and warm pajamas. Your pajamas must not be too nice though because your neighbor might mistake them for fancy slacks and borrow them for use on some important occasion. Mind you, it can rain even in Kvutza. But we don't let that interfere with our activities. We have indoor games in the dining hall, reading and study groups, and FUN! But in order to get around in presentable shape, you'll need a raincoat and boots. So don't forget these important items. Yet, we don't always hide from water. When it doesn't come to us (in the form of rain), we go to it (in the form of a swimming pool). That's just to remind you that you'll need a bathing suit, a cap, and a bathrobe. Although I know that you are not intending to do much sleeping (how often I've heard a haver shout into the face of his madrich: "Do you think I came all this way to go to sleep?"), yet you can never tell. Perhaps you'll feel like sleeping for some strange reason one night. So you might as well take along some sheets and warm blankets. That's the general idea. About filling in the details, my advice is that you comply with your mother's demands. If

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she is unreasonable in the amount of underwear she makes you take, you will have use for the extra pairs on masquerade nights. Birdie Dekelbaum, 1944

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KINNERET SHELI We stood quietly meditating in the gathering twilight of the field of Kinneret. That last night, we remembered Kinneret and what it mean to us. We bade farewell to Kvutzat Kinneret. The haverim who had built Kinneret gathered on the last night of the last season. And the memories engulfed us. The builders remember the watchtower-chopping the trees, knotting the ropes, constructing the frame, raising the watchtower that would guard Kinneret. We had slept under its benevolent shadow that summer of 1955. As we watched the torches for the last time , baverim remembered the discussions we had had. We remembered sleeping through them. We remembered lively, thought-provoking periods. We remembered discussing leadership problems. The scouts remembered how we had hiked through the swamps of Kinneret. We recalled nights of Hagana, tactics. Our feet remembered all-day hikes. The soles of our feet recollected our nature walks. Then our hands remembered the semaphore code: K-i-n-n-e-r-e-t s-h-e-l-i.... Our eyes remembered watching for the answering flags flashing in the sun. The message was received 1 We had talked to each other from afar. We remembered the arduous trek to the lake. Our toes could feel again the sand rippling as we walked through the Farband camp on the way to swim. The clammy feel of seaweed lingered in our minds. The raft seemed to beckon to us anew. We swam, we floated in a dream of memories. We remembered the mosquitoes only too well. The cooling relief of the ointments soothed us. We swatted away at the infernal pests. We remembered Shabbat as dusk fell the last time at Kvutzat Kinneret. We recalled how we had danced the hora hour upon hour. Once again we swayed and swerved to the sound of the shepherd's flute, to the rhythms of Eretz Yisrael. In our memories we sang. We danced again to the familiar tunes. The beauty of the Shabbat celebration haunted us. We relived the glorious, comfortable feeling of Shabbat. This was our camp. We had built it-Kinneret. We stood quietly in the gathering twilight. We remembered Kinneret and what it meant to us. We bade farewell to a friend, Kvutzat Kinneret. Avrahain Bass, 1957

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HAZKARA The cannons are still; the rifles are stacked. The aeroplanes overhead wing their way with peaceful cargoes; the bomb-racks off. Brothers, comrades, resting in many lands, this is called peace. The mighty of the earth decreed it so. But brothers resting in many lands, there is no peace and your battle is not done. The last prisoners of Theresilenstadt still stand behind barbed wire, the uniform of their captors only changed. Over the blood-soaked plains of Poland, the sound of firing still is heard And the dazed survivors of your people flee before the same pursuing mob. On the coast and in the valleys of our promised land battle-girt intruders bar the way to wanderweary brothers seeking to come home. Even in this western land of liberty, the voices of the Nazi foe still echo and repeat the ancient vicious lies. Only in a brief moment of council, we pause to consider a fitting monument and to tell our losses. The familiar faces missing from our ranks, the gaps that never can be filled, cry for memorial. The record of the graves, the roll call of the resting places from continent to continent, The distant isles and seas engulf us with the magnitude of our loss, The hundreds upon thousands upon millions, yet calls afresh each loved one gone. From ghetto and from concentration camp, from Warsaw, Bialystok, Lublin, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Stryj, From every forest haunt and cave where desperate guerilla bands struck at the foe, From beachheads and from far Pacific Isles with strange exotic names like Iwo Jima, Where in the same wide war fell our sons defending Kfar Giladi, From the bitter hedgerow battles of Normandy, From the Rhineland plains and woods, the hardcontested hills of Italy, even from the waters of the seas, the roster of our dead commands memorial. Brothers resting in the distant lands, the battle, for the remnant of the exile does not stop; And what avail soon crumbling stone carved in our sacred script to puzzle future archaeologists. Shall your memorial be the silence of forgotten history, The records of an extinct folk, The mounds and graves of the ending of our seed We pause as on a mountain top and see; behind, a line of valiant battles dearly won; Ahead, still further struggle; And in the valley, strewn before our feet, the weary, shrunken, shivering limbs of the wasted few who somehow did not die. Brothers, from your graves look out! Look out upon your people! Look into the ghetto, to the camp, into the ship that bears illegal freight out of the graveyard of Europe, Look and say, oh brothers, will they live? Will this your people, these dried bones yet live? With loving hands and humbled spirits, let us dedicate the memorial to our dead scattered through many lands. Lying in flelds throughout the earth, in graves of honor and in lime pits of shame. And the monument we dedicate is their own people, Worn and weary but imbued with the flame which kindled them at the foot of Sinai's peak. Rest, O Brothers, for we dedicate to you a monument eternal We are your memorial. D.E.G.

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MIRIAM BIDERMAN We are a movement of young people. The number of haverim. that we have lost is mounting too quickly. Each time it seems that our best is taken. Each time it seems impossible, unbelievable. We are at a loss as to what to say or do, how to react. Miriam came to us late. Nevertheless, all of us, even the old timers were able to learn a great deal from her. She joined us when she was already in her twenties. She came to us because she had decided upon the path of selfrealization. Immediately, she threw herself entirely into our work. She was among our most devoted; she had a great capacity for hard work. Sometimes it seemed as if she carried the whole burden of our movement and our people on her slight shoulders. During one of the war years, when we were suffering from a critical shortage of leadership personnel, she served as rosh of the New York region, as rosh of one of the mahanot, as rosh of several madrichim groups, as rosh of our national funds work, and as editor of Alot (the national publication specifically for our halutzim)-all these at the same time. She was one of the few people who was ours completely. She strove for self-fulfillment in our movement even before she went on aliya. Miriam was a school teacher by profession. She brought a real understanding of the meaning of education into our movement. She was a madricha in the true sense of the term. Her primary concern was always the development of the individual. The small group discussions, the mahaneh activities, Camp Kvutza-these she considered as means to an end, their purpose and justification being to instill values and attitudes within the haverim. She understood her educational function not as one of directing the group, but as one guiding the individual. Thus she worked closely with the individual haver; upon him she centered all her efforts. And she exerted a tremendous amount of influence upon those with whom she worked. Her aim was to prepare younger haverim. for the tasks of movement leadership and self-realization. Wherever she went, she sought out young haverim with devotion, with, understanding, with ability, and worked with them. And wherever she worked, in Baltimore, in Winnipeg, in New York, she left her heritage: a corps of responsible haverim. Miriam was brought up in an Orthodox religious home. Thus, she came to us with a deep appreciation for Jewish tradition. She continually championed traditional practices in our movement. Shabbat celebration, a Third Seder, or Tisha B'Av program in which Miriam had a hand always made a powerful impression. She was able to put meaning into Jewish tradition, to synthesize the old and the new. Both in our movement here and later in the kibbutz in Eretz Yisrael, the lack of traditional observance caused her a great deal of discontent. Her sense of complete identification with Jewishness and her acute sensitivity to the tragedies of the Jewish people are a reflection of her traditional background. Miriam wrote prolifically and she has left us a rich legacy of her written word. The volume of her Shabbat and other program material, of her articles in our various publications, indicate to us the creative being whose "life song" was "suddenly cut off." Her many letters to haverim gave us an insight into this devoted, sensitive, troubled havera who "before her time ... passed away.

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BEN CHERNER Many of you know Ben Cherner, though you may not know his name or you may not realize that you know him. Many usages prevailing in the movement to this day are traditions which had their inception with him. There is always an aura about the figure of a man who carries the title of "first" but who we do not remember. The adjective stuck to Ben because he had the faculty of attracting people to himself to carry on. I do not think that Ben went to college or had much formal training. I am certain that he took no courses in leadership technique, but he knew how to train people to follow in his footsteps so that there was a second and third and fourth. The outstanding "first" in relation to Ben was that lie was the first organizer of Habonim. It was in 1934, shortly after Habonim was established, that we felt that one way of its taking root in America was to send out emissaries. We were very modest. We didn't think of shlihim from Eretz Yisrael. We wanted organizers to establish our new system of education. It was at that time that we decided to be heartless toward Ben, as we subsequently have been to every organizer and shaliah. By 1934, Ben Cherner had not only served his apprenticeship in the movement but had already acted as an organizer for the Young Poale Zion Alliance. By 1934, he was a veteran, and was supposed to receive permission for aliya. The stories of organizers struggling and living on peanuts refer to Ben Cherner, who toured the New England region in 1933. By 1934, he had had his fill of peanuts and of traveling for the movement. He had done his duty. But the National Executive (four people we were, all told) decided that he must remain for another year to help in the transition from Young Poale Zion Alliance to Habonim. His task was to go into a community, get together the remnants of the YPZA, contact parents and prospective madrichim, and transform them into a mahaneh of Habonim. . Ben was not much of an orator. He spoke quietly and intimately. He knew how to sing and he knew how to gather people around him. He set up several mahanot. His first stop was Buffalo, his home town. He established a mahaneh in Buffalo so well that not only did Buffalo become the original stronghold of Habonim but gave us two organizers in succession. It was a dynasty: from Ben Cherner to Joey Criden; from Joey to Moshe Goldberg. When Moshe was called to New York, the Buffalo movement waned. Then Ben went to Chicago. In Chicago his accomplishment was that he convinced the haverim of the movement that it was necessary to have a permanent organizer who would set up the organization. The organizer for whom Ben paved the way made Chicago the center of our movement for many years. There is a "first" in connection with Ben which relates to the Pacific Coast. We were getting news of a growing community in Los Angeles, of a Far West in which Folk Shulen graduates knew Hebrew. After negotiations, we obtained $75 from several Los Angeles haverim. Naturally, we called on Ben to make the trip. That trip in 1935 was the first link in the chain which ultimately led to the development of the Los Angeles mahaneh, the summer Kvutza, the stream of organizers. To understand the significance of Ben's organizational tours, one must visualize the years in which these were made. There existed a loose connection between the New York center and the groups. There was not too much money for printing. The mail was inadequate. The movement was kept alive by personal contact. The visitor was the warm link representing the movement. Hence a good deal depended on whom was sent. Ben was a simple, soft-spoken boy. He went into a city without benefit of publicity notices or mass meetings. He went to private homes and got people around him to sing with him and talk with him. When he left, there was a nucleus which somehow carried on. There was one specific job Ben tried to do which ultimately resulted in failure. He tried to maintain the agricultural training center in Illinois. At that time, there were training farms in Baltimore, in Minneapolis, and one in Illinois. They were small, inadequate, poor, unsanitary farms struggling under extremely difficult conditions. A large percentage of the "halutzim" were malcontents who could not earn a living. It was into such conditions that Ben

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plunged to try to clean up the place, to live in it, and to introduce a new atmosphere. The fact that Ben failed is not a reflection on him. It was more than a one-man job. When Enzo Sereni came, we consolidated all of these farms into the one at Creamridge, which was paradise by contrast. Ben's was a permanent influence because he did not talk only of Eretz Yisrael; he set an example. It was in 1936 that he finally left. We had held him back two years beyond his time. We felt that we were committing a crime against Ben by holding him back but there was no alternative. There was no other candidate who could have done the organizational work. Even his leaving was, in a sense, a useful service. The senior leaders of the Labor Zionist movement set a disheartening example by not permitting their children to remain in Eretz Yisrael. The repercussions of the action of the Detroit group, who returned from Eretz Yisrael and spread stories to justify themselves, were serious. American halutzim who could not adjust to the rigors of pioneering did not help the atmosphere by returning home. For a/person who is normal, adjusted, and refined, to go to Eretz Yisrael was a feat. That too was a service. Of Ben's many qualities, his primary one was his humanity, his, approachability. He loved people. He liked young people. He was young himself. Perhaps this accounted for his ability to gather young people around him. No course in leadership or technical training or knowledge could have made up for that basic human element. In our relationship to Ben, we appreciated his enthusiasm. He would not get excited or rush off to his work. He showed his enthusiasm by explaining his idea and then setting about carrying it out so well that the job seemed easily done. His singing possessed an enchanting, quality. He was by no means a professional singer. Yet when he sat with a group of people around a camp. fire, he held them for hours. They sat and sang without moving or talking. His singing had a good deal to do with his influence in the movement. Many of our songs are versions which he taught to the first groups of Habonim. Similarly, some camp fire traditions and some of the stories reprinted by us in Haboneh have their origin in Ben's fertile mind. Ben had very solid convictions, so solid that perhaps they account for one of the tragedies of his life. For good or for ill, Ben did not believe in the concentration of Americans in Eretz Yisrael. In that period, the rest of us did not believe in it either. We did not want an American landsmanshaft in Eretz Yisrael. Our attitude was changed by the realities of life, but Ben was stubborn. Only during the last two years did he begin to waver and to talk of transf erring to Kfar Blum. He had stuck to Naan no matter how strongly he was urged to join the American kibbutz. Ben never thought of himself as a leader. He never permitted himself to think of, or anyone to refer to, himself as a leader. He considered himself a soldier. When he went to do organizational work, it was in the line of duty; when he went to Eretz Yisrael, it was realization; when he helped to organize the Union of Jewish World Combatants, it was in the line of duty. That was one of the reasons why he did not return to America as a shaliah. He knew that shlihut carried with it a connotation of leadership which he did not believe held for himself although he had always been in a position of leadership. If Ben were here and could talk to us, he would talk of simple and prosaic tasks. He would talk of the needs for another Kvutza and another mahaneh and of dogged perseverence in organizational work, of the trials and tribulations of training and of self-realization in Eretz Yisrael, and he would finish by saying that, in the long run, this kind of obstinacy would succeed. If there is meaning in the memory of our haverim and of their services, it is the realization that they represented a continuation of the Jewish struggle for survival which began before them, that we carry forward that struggle today, and that those after us will not falter. That, it seems to me, is the fitting memorial to Ben Cherner. Saadia Gelb Furrows, January, 1947

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DANNY GINSBURG Once again the battlefront has claimed the life of one of our haverim. The knowledge that Danny Ginsburg has been killed in action on Iwo Jima has brought sorrow to Habonim from one end of the country to the other. He had become widely known and loved-he was no longer Danny Ginsburg of Detroit; he was Danny Ginsburg of Habonim. His role in Habonim for more than eight years is invaluable; his future was inextricably bound up with the highest hopes of the movement. The knowledge of his irrevocable loss to us is difficult to comprehend, impossible to console. "To understand Danny," wrote one of his friends from the Midwest, where he made his most specific contributions to the life of Habonim, "one must see his life in terms of a personality that was unfolding, developing, and ever expanding ... At first he saw one important objective ahead -that was the establishment of a real Jewish institution in the heart of the American scene. This goal was the establishment of a summer Kvutza, Kinneret, near Detroit, that would be built by and for Habonim. "Those who saw Danny at work in Kinneret, find it difficult to separate the two. There was always a glow about him as he worked. All who came in contact with him were imbued with his spirit of idealism, sincerity, strong determination, and above all, of hard work. " The many members of Habonim throughout the country who remember him at conventions as chairman at sessions, as a leader in discussions, who have known him at seminars and other movement gatherings, well remember that it was not only physically that he worked hard. He was one of those exceptional individuals who throws himself into every activity with the completeness of a passionate spirit. When Danny danced, nothing could stop him; when he participated in a discussion, it was with the determination born of his intense sincerity, a determination that held out until he convinced or was convinced. Yes, Danny's was truly a constantly developing personality, and his place and importance within Habonim grew as he did. After his initiation of the work for a summer Kvutza near Detroit, he became rosh of the Detroit Habonim, and under his energetic leadership, the movement there flourished remarkably. His influence was felt as well among the haverim in the neighboring cities. Some time later, lie arrived at the personal decision to join Kibbutz Aliya and prepare himself for a true realization of his burning idealism, through going to Eretz Yisrael. His personal influence over others was so strong that many who might not have taken the same road followed it upon his leadership. When he went into active service more than twenty months ago, Danny continued to participate in Habonim life. He continued, through the mails, to contribute to Kibbutz Aliya discussions, to take part in the solution of problems of the local groups he had led as well as those of national Habonim. He continued to be, in the minds of all of us, one of the leading members of Habonim, perhaps the leading member of the future. When Danny learned that he and his men were to take part in the invasion of Iwo Jima, he wrote to his Detroit haverim in these words: "Naturally, I hope that I'll be able to come back safely and put into practice those things in which I believe and about which I've written to you and the others so much. But in case I don't, it's all right too. After all, we're all only little coos in a machine and if some of us have to fall by the wayside in order that the machine should continue to run smoothly, it's the machine that counts, not the little cogs. " I guess I haven't done much in my short life so far. I haven't learned very much-just enough to realize that I still have a great deal to learn. But if I've served as a stimulus to even a few kids to try to reach higher, to bring some good into the world, then I think my life so far has been worthwhile. I only hope I'll get a chance to make it more so in the future." He has not been granted the chance he hoped for, but we who are carrying on, through embodying his spirit in our work in Habonim, can prove the true worth of his short life.

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Furrows, May, 1945

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NATE KANTER Every haver in Habonim knew Nate Kanter, even those who had never met him, because he personified the ideals of our movement. He was a complete halutz-devoted, unselfish, unassuming, working ceaselessly. Halutziut came easily for Nate; to him it was the natural way of life. He was preparing for life in Eretz Yisrael at an age when most haverim are just beginning to consider halutziut. At sixteen, he left home and began training at the National Farm School. On his days o:ff, he was a frequent visitor at the Hehalutz Training Farm at Creamridge, New Jersey. Those haverim now in Eretz Yisrael will remember the quiet, hard-working boy who became so close to them. When he reached eighteen, he entered the Navy and served two and a half years, largely in the Pacific. On his return to St. Louis, he threw himself into movement work more vigorously than ever. One of his first activities was a visit to the training farm at Creamridge. He came to be one of the most active and respected haverim in the machaneh. He was killed in an automobile accident on his way home from a meeting of Habonim. At the time of his death he was making plans to leave for Eretz Yisrael in the spring. His loss is a tremendous blow for all of us. He has left a gap which cannot be filled, both in his work in the movement and in his relations with his haverim. The things he wanted for himself will never be realized-but the fulfillment of the things he wanted for his haverim and for his people lies in our hands. Furrows, February, 1947

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ARI LASHNER It happened yesterday between 10:30 and 11:30 in the morning. He was helping to set up electricity for some of the houses and so strapped himself to a pole in the fashion that such work is done. While he was working, a trigger happy Arab from Salchia shot him in the back. The entire kibbutz was shocked and stricken by his death. People gathered and stood together in small groups for comfort. No one said anything. The quietness and still ness were uncanny. And all the time, various pictures of Ari flashed through my mind, but the one that was the clearest -was that of Ari standing on a flat stone near the stage of the amphitheater in Killingworth lecturing at the seminar . . . That picture of Ari, young and vital, will always remain with me. I cannot really describe the great feeling of despair that took hold of us at his going and the manner of his going. It is still incredible. His body was taken to the Mazkirut building, and from there, carried and driven to the little cemetery near the garden. The people followed near and behind the coffin. There was an escort of men with guns to protect us. Only the clump-clump of hundreds of boots walk ing through the mud could be heard. Kieve said a few words before the coffin was lowered into the ground. He spoke about the conflict in Ari's nature: How he loved beautiful things a good book, music, art, a glass of wine-and how he had, on the other hand, the desire to come to Eretz Yisrael and take part in its upbuilding. Kieve spoke about his years in the movement, his years at sea, and his work with the ships He spoke simply and beautifully. Rose Breslau Furrows, April, 1948

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ARI LASHNER Ari Lashner has left us. There will never take place that meeting in Eretz Yisrael to which I looked forward so greatly. He went away many times before-to distant cities for the movement, to war as a marine, to Europe and to Eretz Yisrael, bringing in thousands on his Hagana ship. But always before, there was his smiling, good-humored greeting again, the pleasurable interludes of gentle conversation, of 'music, of strolling about the city, of drives into the country. With him went a whole period in the youth of those who grew up with him, an inexhaustible source of reminiscence and humor, and a springtime era of the movement. For he was a central figure, someone on whom we all leaned. A cohesive group that grew up in the movement and had planted firm roots in Eretz Yisrael feels shattered. We feel more alone in a darker world. He went through life so unassumingly, but left such deep impressions on all whom he met. From all parts of the world, diverse individuals have felt impelled to communicate with others who knew him, to express their sense of loss. The ignorant Arab sniper's bullet that cut short his life at Kfar Blum on March 16th caused far more than a personal loss. For Ari exemplifled the best that the combination of Judaism, America, and the movement produced, and he was destined to contribute in important measure to the Jewish State in the future. Everyone who knew him would agree to this, for just as he was a leader of the most complete modesty and honesty-just because of these qualities-he inspired in others a sincere and warm recognition of his own capabiltes. You would never have guessed from Ari's quiet work-day, unchanged, and unself-conscious manner during his last weeks in America that he was recruiting the crew and arranging the sailing of the first Hagana ship from America, a ship that ran the blockade and then returned to Europe for a second load. His wife and chld had gone to Eretz Yisrael before him. He had not known when or how he would see them again and he wanted to be with them desperately. He died in war. Ghandi could not have abhorred violence more than Ari Lashner, who hated even the raised voice. He was never heard by anyone to shout in anger, to gossip in malice, or to descend to the vulgar or unseemly in any way. Not that he was a "gentleman," unless "gentleman" is redefined to be what he was. He had strong passions, anger, and impatience. And there was frequent cause for anger and impatience in those years. But he longed for the day of peace when be could realize himself in some way in the Jewish Land. He did not enjoy the conscious role of "organizer" or even of halutz. If a keynote is to be sought in his pervasive influence, which all who experienced him felt, it is his insistence that the individual search for his own truth and act in consequence. In this connection, he gave full credence to the role of the irrational in life, attaching at least as much weight to his feelings as to his reason, and respecting feeling in others. What he could not tolerate in himself and others was covering up the problem, tempering the feelings, excusing oneself, or seeking a way out by processes of rationalization, by the development of universal theories which solved all problems, yet not your own. But he never drove others. He assumed you were wrestling honestly with your problems as he was with his. Principles divorced from circumstances and action did not exist for him except as scholastic exercises with which he was -very impatient. Thus he could not consider the fate of the Jewish people without including himself in the solution. For a time, this realistic tendency intervened even in his enjoyment of abstract beauty in painting and poetry (never in music, for which he was too naturally gifted). But in recent years, there was a definite mellowing in him, and under the pressure of very wide experience, tolerant and receptive by nature, the enjoyment of beautiful things in many forms became a welcome release for him. He loved honesty and simplicity. While he understood and admired a Vronsky and an Anna Karenina, his favorite was Levin. He enjoyed greatly the scene of the i(visit to the uncle" in War and Peace. He felt humble and inferior to the point of discomfort before anyone with special talent, whether in art or in farming, but without the slightest trace of the envy that stems from vanity and leads to pretenses and false emulation. He once told of hearing a musical work on the radio while working on something. The piece went on interminably. He muttered to himself: "What on earth is this endless hodge-podge?" It was announced as the Kreutzer Sonata. The man with a "reputation" as a music lover doesn't tell such stories about himself with detached enjoyment. Any account of Ari would be incomplete without mentioning his love for America. He knew it well to California. His

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greatest pleasure was to drive through its countryside. He loved to stop at roadside inns, observe people, walk in cities, visit galleries, parks, concert balls, stores. From the earliest days when, after our Young Poale Zion Alliance meetings, we went driving out on Long Island until dawn, until almost the last full day together, when we drove into New England, I associate him with trips into the green countryside and 1 recall his avid appreciation of it. He saw the evils of America, too, but he weighed things relatively and he knew the enormous importance of the measure of basic civil liberties enjoyed here. He was a Socialist, but he would take any capitalism over a Socialism that gave a whit less of individual liberty. The very casting of whole societies, of people, and of complex ways of life, into formal molds with neat tags was foreign to his mind. The 1930's were a difficult test for radical youth. In the rarefied atmosphere of college, Socialists and Communists drove the black and white stereotypes of doctrinaire radicalism to absolute extremes, and it was difficult to perceive at what stage this process actually became a form of reduction ad absurdum. Impossible, actually, without some trustworthy reference point in reality. Ari Lashner's reference point was his emotional Jewishness and Labor Zionism to which he attached significant weight. It was the Frederick B. Robinson era at City College, and every week saw demonstrations, expulsions, and counterdemonstrations. We Labor Zionists participated in all radical activities but as a collateral thing. Ari admired the courage and the intellectual acumen of the radical leaders and even admitted that their panaceas might be right. But they were a little above him. Their solutions for the whole world still left him uncomfortable as an individual. He saw the Jewish people again singled out for persecution and he felt that concrete' special efforts by Jews themselves were demanded. He dropped his teacher-training course when it gradually became apparent to him that his future lay with the Jewish people and Eretz Yisrael. Here, another essential characteristic is illustrated. There never were any dramatic announcements or obvious soul struggle. He seemed to be, and thought uneasily himself that he was, just drifting. He felt like a victim of himself. He was unaware of the courage it took to drift with the tide of one's being. He spoke nostalgically about the interesting careers others were following. He was always ready to admit that the paths others were following were right. These have been called his "doubts" and his "conflict." But he spoke about the other things that were nice to do with a certain detachment. The concept of doubt in the sense of debating one's path by purely mental processes cannot rightly be used for him. His life was the result of an evolutionary process. What it was and what had gone into it was flowing irrevocably in a certain direction and be would have thought it absurd that some sudden idea should be able to change it. So he followed the path of the halutz, sometimes looking wistfully back at the green fields of America. A great deal more will be written by those who worked with him of Ari's influence in the formation and development of Habonim and in the Labor Zionist movement generally. Labor Eretz Yisrael and the ideals of halutziut proudly became the central educational idea of the movement. Camp Kvutza, the expanded hachshara farms, increased aliya, emphasis on Hebrew, all these have come about through the vision, courage, and energy of the small group of which Ari was a central figure. There is a whole generation of young people who remember how Ari led them in song and dance, how he spoke at camps and conferences-vital and human, one of us, but the epitome of us, by virtue of his great truth to himself. It is futile to try to recreate by words the vital essence of a complicated personality like Ari. It is probably reserved only to those who knew him to feel the true loss. No hero picture, in the conventional sense, no analogy with anyone else, is true. And so for every one of those who are dying in Eretz Yisrael, there are those to whom the loss is a terrible reality. Every one of those good Hebrew names we read is only a symbol of a face smiling to someone, of thoughts, desires, and acts known and beloved somewhere. Ari would not want to be singled out or separated from his comrades. But the Yishuv has always commemorated its dead lovingly. Every soul is precious, as every individual was in life. I am rendering a faint duty inadequately because I knew Ari. It is not possible to believe and, for my part, I do not think of Ari as having died. I merely consider that he has crossed another boundary before us as he did so often before. And he did it as usual-well, nobly, faithfully, working. Harry Levtow Furrows, April, 1948

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HAYIM RAMBAM On a beautiful evening-it must have been about ten years ago-Rachel Siegel and I arrived by car at Camp Kvutza. We were met by the advance crew of a few boys. The camp consisted of a hilltop cluttered with tents which had obviously seen better days in the army. We also found some boards for the future kitchen, a few boxes of cups (without handles), and dishes (slightly cracked), salvaged from Unser Camp for whose guests they were not deemed worthy. We were most impressed with the big, old farmer's stove, and the old Ford that we were barely able to purchase for $10. Our status as property owners was made complete when we obtained from a friendly storekeeper a prehistoric ice cream container that was to serve as our "refrigerator." One of the advance crew was Hayim Rambam. For the stormy nature of this boy, the walls of his home, even in early childhood, and the discipline of a school, had proved too stifling. He was drawn to the broad, open fields-the sort of boy that can develop into a hero or an adventurer. He had a leader's qualities and could influence people either for better or worse. On closer acquaintance, you learned that a few warm friendly words could easily quell the storm raging in him. I well remember the delightful evenings and sunsets in the camp which were so inspiring. Tired after a day of hard work, Hayim could be found on one of the cots in the tent. We knew then that he was moody and ready to tell stories of his adventures throughout the United States. He used to spend many days and nights with hoboes and his stories were remarkable. We saw a different world, people who were tired of civilization and routine. They felt free as birds and so did Hayim. He was an adventurer, always seeking new thrills and experiences. Once he admitted to me that only because of the deep love for his father, he gave up that kind of life and returned home. And many a time I thought that perhaps Hayim may turn out to be another Jack London. Hayim was the driver of the Ford on which we depended for supplies from the nearby town and water from the well. He was also our "life saver," to whom many campers literally owed their lives. Incidents of that summer keep coming to mind. Here we are, Hayim and I, riding in the Ford. The Ford that had not the least desire to climb the smallest hill, that constantly refused to get back to camp on time, becausd of whose caprices we always had to bring along a couple of "footmen" to help push when the inevitable need arose, was an obedient, willing servant in Hayim's skillful hands. I am sure that it was solely to Hayim's credit that we came away that summer sound in limb. Towards the end of the summer, a hurricane suddenly pounced upon us, destroying many houses in the neighborhood and flooding all the valleys. Our ancient army tents, whose mission in life should long since have ended-in which we have to cover ourselves with raincoats even during a light downpour-bowed meekly before the wrath of the storm and finally surrendered completely. We all gathered in our one "building," squatting on the tables with only a roof overhead while the torrent of rain drenched us through the open sides. We felt that the very foundation of our camp would not survive that night, so we decided for safety's sake to make our way to a nearby boarding house. How well I remember that procession in the thick blackness, without a path to follow, knee-deep in water, lashed by the wind 1 It was one of those moments when old and young display all their shortcomings and weaknesses and, on the other hand, when a person may forget about and sacrifice himself for the general welfare. Hayim showed himself to be the second sort of person. The work in Camp Kvutza became a form of training for Hayim, and he hoped to obtain a certificate to go to Eretz Yisrael. When he did not receive a certificate, he went on his own. I did not see him for a long time after that but heard he was employed as a tractor driver in Mikveh Yisrael. In the meantime, I also went to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Jerusalem with my husband. Suddenly, Hayim showed up in Jersualem during a holiday. He was much changed-more mature, less restless, more serious in outlook. It was clear that Eretz Yisrael had had a marked effect upon him. He dreamed of participating in the defense of the country . . .

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But a month later he was dead. While working in the fields, under the hot sun, he drank from a spring he did not know was contaminated. It did not occur to him that tiny microbes would conquer his powerful body and quiet his stormy nature for eternity. Leak Brown Haboneh June, 1942

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JOSEPH ROSENBERG There will be many vacant places in our ranks when this war is over. The fourth of our haverim is gone. One died flying in this country, a second was lost in a mission over Germany, a third while performing his duty in the Near East, and now Joseph Rosenberg is reported missing in action at sea. I met Joey for the first time when I was sent to Detroit to represent the Young Poale Zion-Habonim at the National Convention of the Farband. I was impressed with his youthfulness, his enthusiasm, his devotion, his zeal. I really learned to appreciate his character at the Leaders' Seminar in Pipersville in 1940. He was about to become rosh mahaneh of Detroit and he spent hours with me discussing his plans. He showed me his neat notebook; I read his outlines, his plans, his ideas; we talked about his doubts and his ambitions. You may not know- that during the period that he was stationed at San Diego in training, he spent every spare moment making contacts and speaking to people; he was certain that he would be able to organize a Habonim group. It is an irreparable loss for the movement here and for Kfar Blum in Eretz Yisrael ... D. B. Joey joined Habonim in 1935 at the age of eleven. Those who belonged to our group at that time will perhaps not remember him as well as they do others who talked more at meetings and were generally more assertive. But those who stayed with the group remember that while others were spouting high-sounding phrases about becoming halutzim. when we grow older, Joey entered a trade school to prepare himself for the life of a halutz. We remember that while others were delving into deep discussion about the problems of labor, Joey joined the local union and made himself heard there. We remember that when a Kibbutz Aliya was formed in Detroit, Joey was one of the first to join and carry out its program. We remember that when Joey came out to camp weekends, he would do more work than others had done all week. We remember how as rosh mahaneh of Detroit Habonim, he led us through one of the strongest years of our existence. He lived his life in search of a better world and gave his life in the struggle for it. D. G. Furrows, June, 1944

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ENZO SERENI It is not often that a youth movement has to mourn its founder's death within the space of eight short years. Yet that is what has occurred to Habonim through the murder of Enzo Sereni in Dachau on November 17-18, 1944. Together with Ben Zion Ilan of Afikim who was then an Eretz Yisrael delegate to the youth movement, and together with American haverim, it was primarily Enzo Sereni, as Hehalutz delegate, whose energy and imagination made Habonim possible. Today, through a search conducted by Ben Zion (now a sergeant in the Jewish Brigade), we are finally beyond any question of doubt certain that Enzo is dead-dead at the age of thirtynine, when the best part of his contribution to Zionism surely lay ahead of him. A letter from Kieve Skidell tells the following story which ends all hope that Enzo, missing in action for over a year, might still be alive: On the streets of Paris I ran into Sgt. Ben Zion Ilan, one-time halutz from America, Eretz Yisrael delegate to the American Habonim, and now a sergeant in the Second Battalion of the Jewish Brigade, and he told me the story of his search for Enzo Sereni by whose side he had once worked in America: I was a member of one of the Jewish Brigade's search teams, engaged in the search for prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates in Germany, about whom relatives in the Allied countries had made inquiries. Together with another member of the team, I obtained permission from the British army bureau in charge of these searches to institute a search for Enzo Sereni. Sereni, as you may know, was dropped by parachute into northern Italy in the late spring of 1944 in the uniform of a British captain under the name of Shmuel Barda. His mission was to work with Italian partisans behind the German lines. The details of his capture are not known, but traces of him, after his capture by the Germans, led to the concentration camp at Dachau. We had heard that he was at one time known to have been together with a Dominican pastor by the name of Roth, who had been in the same block with him in Dachau. We started to look for the pastor in the monasteries in Cologne and Munich and learned that he had gone back to Dachau to help the inmates there and become the confessor of the SS troopers who are now imprisoned there, his own tormentors no doubt among them. When we came to Dachau, we turned immediately to the card index of all those who had ever been in the place, and there we found a card with the following information on it: Prisoner No. 113160, Block 23, Born 22 June 1905 at Jerusalem, Resident at Tel Aviv, V3 (code for member of the British forces). Barda, Shmuel. Entered 9 October 1944. Taken to Special Punishment Cell for interrogation, 17 November 1944. Died 18 November 1944. One can only surmise from this information that he was brought to his death by torture. His body was cremated at the local crematorium. We then looked up the pastor. It turned out that he had been the secretary of the block Sereni was in and he remembered him well. He remembered that he was usually together with one French and two other British officers, all of whom have disappeared without a trace. Sereni impressed him as a man of extremely high intellectual acumen, and he couldn't forget how even in the environment of Dachau, he was bubbling with energy and intellectual curiosity. He remembered well the long discussions they used to have on philosophical as well as world political and Jewish topics. Of his end he knew nothing since he had been taken away from Dachau before it came. " 'Before leaving Dachau, we filled an urn with ashes from the crematorium. Those were not his ashes alone but they were sacred. When the projected memorial to the Gola is erected in Jerusalem, those ashes will be placed there together with those of our other martyrs. " 'For us the search seemed ended, when a report reached us that Sereni had been seen alive in the concentration camp at Mauthausen, Austria, only a few months ago. We were skeptical because some Brigade boys had been there around that time and had said nothing about it, but to make sure, we went out there and got permission from the Russian commandant of nearby Linz to visit the place. But there is no one there today but a

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number of Russian troops who are billeted there, and there was no trace of him whatsoever. There is no longer any doubt.' " To those who knew Enzo there is no need to define our loss. Everywhere he went, he left an indelible impression. Soon after his earliest appearance in America, it became a current story that Sereni spoke the best broken English anyone had ever heard. We who worked with him in the office of Hehalutz were consumed with envy and despair at his incredible energy and tirelessness. Apparently he never slept except for forty winks occasionally on buses and on railroad coaches-and every morning when he was in New York, he, would appear at the office bright and early to greet the firstcomers and shame the others. Even those who lived with him at that famous Bet Hehalutz on Riverside'Drive probably never knew when he awoke. One day, I remember, I came back from a trip out of town in the wee hours of the morning. I determined not to go home to clean up but to get the rest of my sleep on a bench in the office. In this way I hoped to find out when Enzo did come in. I woke up, as I recall, between 7:30 and 8:00 A.M. to find Sereni sitting opposite me at his desk, going through the Eretz Yisrael press. I never did find out when he arrived. Another blow to my own pride was the way he went through the Hebrew press-or any other reading matter, as far as that goes. I had been rather vain of my speed in reading but Sereni was insufferably superior. Whatever the language, he would sail through texts like a swift Italian breeze. We all harbored dark suspicions about how thoroughly he had read; but after a half-hour with a huge batch of literature, Sereni would be able to deposit it all on my desk, efficiently marked to indicate the essential items for digesting or writing up. Then afterwards, in conversation, he always knew something about the material we had just covered which had escaped our more plodding attention-and never could we find anything he had missed. I noted in the comments on Sereni's death, which have recently appeared in the Eretz Yisrael press, that the German youth-Enzo had a great share in the creation of Hehalutz in Hitler Germany during the early years-were equally flabbergasted at Sereni's mental speed. In fact, the flashing play of his wit and thought, his paradoxes and rapid-fire patter, even made them rather suspicious. I was a witness to the same phenomenon here. It was not only the Germans with their gruendlichkeit who were uneasy at his mental athletics. Sereni was so clever that slower minds distrusted him. They were inclined to worry about his most innocent proposal for fear of some ingenious trap. ZD Sereni was, of course, a fighter in a certain sense. He had a firm viewpoint, and a strong sense of the direction in which he wished to go. He threw himself with unlimited devotion-perhaps the proper word is abandon-into the cause he wished to serve. He never counted costs-one of the things, perhaps, which set him apart from many comrades was that in certain things, he had less need than they to count costs. A scion of a rather wealthy, prominent Roman Jewish family, with roots in Italy as far back as 70 A.D. according to repute, and with assured status in the academic and professional society of contemporary Rome, Sereni enjoyed many elements of ultimate security which enabled him to be not only daring, but one might even say a daredevil, in all his dangerous missions for the Histadrut. Others smuggled Jewish money out of Nazi Germany but I am sure no one ever did it with as much assurance and enjoyment as Sereni. The same lusty combativeness marked his fights for his ideas within the Histadrut. Opponents often mistook his vehemence for vindictiveness; never were they more wrong. In the most furious argument, Sereni remained detached and capable of appreciating an opposing view. This, indeed, gave him another formidable advantage in debate which only increased the confusion and unfounded suspicions of many opponents. In the utmost heat of contention, Sereni was basically cool. He boiled rapidly but only on the surface. It is true that he used his opponents' lower resistance to fire deliberately. He was indeed a man whom an opponent had to know to love. Rabbi Joachim Prinz tells this story of Sereni, which it seems to me must represent an unsurpassed peak in Sereniana: Prinz and Sereni one day were both pulled in by the Gestapo in the course of a routine raid on Hehalutz quarters. Prinz's wife learned of the affair and tore the town apart trying to locate the two and obtain their release. After a while she found Prinz and he was released. In spite of a frantic search they could not find Sereni until midnight. At last they discovered the prison where he was kept and were permitted to see him. They found him in the midst of a lively discussion with his guards, covering the theory and practice of both German Nazism and Italian fascism, and they could not get him to leave until he had made a few last points. I can well believe that he sustained an intense mental activity in his last days at Dachau.

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Sereni's fundamental open-mindedness, the product of a scientifically-trained mind, was almost fantastically reflected in his volatile whims and witticisms. He was capable of the most astounding self-contradictions and mental flexiblity, because in the most opposing statements he could appreciate the grains of truth. He was also capable of using an argument largely for its effect. Shlomo Grodzensky tells this of his first encounter with Enzo: He met a sturdy little Italian, just off the boat, who at once asked whether it were true that there was a current vogue for Marxism in America. Reluctantly, Shlomo admitted that this was the case. Practically rubbing his hands with glee, Sereni said: "Excellent! You know, I'm a first-rate expert at arguing Zionism from a Marxist basis." Said Grodzensky: "Do you believe in Marxism, then?" Outraged, Enzo shot back: "What do you think I am, a simpleton, to believe in such vulgar banalities " But there are other instances I remember of Enzo's elasticity of ideas which cast quite a different light on the whole matter. Enzo was always a strong adherent of the idea of a Jewish-Arab collaboration. But he was an extreme realist as well, and often went to practically fantastic lengths of logic in this matter. I remember when he was in this country, he used to argue that only in the framework of the Arab Federation would it be possible to come to an understanding with the Arab on Eretz Yisrael. He also noted the basic and obvious fact that one element in Arab-Jewish conflict was the great difference in the economic level of the two communities. He therefore argued that the Jewish worker must have the idealism to come down to the Arab level in order to meet him and, of course, raise the standard of living by cooperative methods of consumption and mutual aid. He felt that talking of economic solidarity between the Arab and Jewish worker while keeping the Jewish economic sector at a price and wage level far higher than the Arab's, on the theory that the Arab's must be raised to the Jewish level, meant either deferring such solidarity to an indefinite future if one took the Mapai view, or simple selfdelusion if one took the Hashomer Hatzair view. All these, of course, were in reality tentative statements, experimental hypotheses, so to speak, in Sereni's mind, and we never knew how seriously to take them. What particularly upset the assurance of some of us was that Sereni delighted in the forceful paradox as a method of presentation and loved to shock his youthful audiences out of their received doctrines, if only in order to make them think on their own. But these hypotheses were also formative elements in his own thoughts, and what he thought, he acted. Even the most fleeting adherence to an idea, even to a notion of provisional, one might even say heuristic, value in his life-course, entailed serious consequences in action for Sereni. I remember an instance by which I was particularly impressed: In America, Sereni argued that the disturbances of 1936-38 were a good thing in the history of Arab-Jewish relations. As a member of a kibbutz which, during the period of my own stay in Eretz Yisrael (1939), suffered its casualties like any other rural settlement, Sereni knew very well what the costs were of Arab terrorism to the Jews. Be he was considering the hypothesis that no basic change in Arab-Jewish relations was possible until the Arabs were convinced that the Jews were unalterably bent upon establishing themselves in Eretz Yisrael and that their will was a factor to be reckoned with. It was brought up in discussion that bloodshed between groups had historically tended to implant mutual hatred that long outlasted the fighting. Sereni had obviously considered that factor already for he promptly replied that there were also instances, notably the British-Boer case, where peace and mutual forbearance had ensued between groups after a decisive measuring of strength. But this was no final stand for Sereni. When I came to Givat Brenner, I was astonished to hear that Enzo was not allowed to stand his turn at guard duty because, as I learned, the first few times he had gone out without a rifle. However, though the kibbutz would not assign him to stand watch, it could not stop him from breaking the rule against walking through certain officially designated dangerous areas between Rehovot and Givat Brenner. He would never wait for a bus to take him home and he scoffed at the danger from Arab neighbors whom he had known. Later, when I spoke to him, I learned the basic intellectual reasons for these new ineshugassen of Sereni's. He told me that having had long conversations in America with Hayim Greenberg, he had swung towards pacificism. This was the man who, approaching forty, volunteered for sabotage and underground work behind the lines in Italy. In a late picture taken in Eretz Yisrael and published in the memorial issue of Hapoel Hatzair, Sereni presents an

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altogether different aspect from what was familiar to us. He always had a childlike look. We saw him as the "happy warrior" child, if I may abuse a phrase, full of fire and sparkle, taking delight in the explosive effects of his intellectual gunfire, moving mountains of apathy and mental torpor with a logical witticism. In the recent picture, ~ he looks like a lost child, bravely but with solemnity, confronting unforeseen and portentous immensities. Solemnity was a look I often saw in him at Givat Brenner. There was high seriousness in the devotion with which he cared for the small group of Italian halutzim whom he had assembled there in 1939. Products of fascism, deracinated Jews-yet under Sereni's ministrations their success as kibbutz members was, and I can attest to it, outstanding and phenomenally smooth. But what was it which put those omens of fear into Sereni's eyes in his latest pictures? We can only guess. I remember Sereni loved to propound this question: "Tell me, if you loved a woman, and another claimed her-her husband, let us say-would you give her up? " If you answered, No, he would acclaim you a Zionist. Far deeper than his intellectual constructions was a deep, childlike, romantic strain of love in Sereni. He was completely aware of it; for this reason he would often mock us by declaring himself nearer a Christian than a Jew in religious sensibility. But he took his bearings by love. These things he loved: Italy-Italian art, Italian philosophy, even Italian historiography, and the Italian people; JewsEastern European Jews, German Jews; the Yiddish language, which he barely knew; the Histadrut; Mapai; the Kibbutz Hameuhad; his own kibbutz, Givat Brenner; his friends, Lithuanians and Germans alike; his own home and family. He used to say that everywhere he went-to Eretz Yisrael, to Germany, to America-he invested his money in the Histadrut, and never had he failed to realize what he risked. He had invested far more than a lifetime of labor; he had invested his love, his metaphysical moorings. We know from writings that reach us from Eretz Yisrael how deeply the split in the Mapai affected Sereni. From his latest picture, we see that it was able to put a reflection of fear even into those eyes. Ben Halpern Furrows, December, 1945

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IRV STERNBERG The early days in the life of a movement, as in the life of an individual, are shaped and influenced by those few who conceive and develop the ideas which give it birth. As a movement grows up, it must begin to accept the responsibilities of maturity, to learn to meet the inevitable situations of adult life, to learn to mourn the death of a comrade, but to take new strength from the spirit he displayed. Irv Sternberg, who died early in June, was one of those who contributed to the conception and development of Habonim. Irv, though only thirty-one when he died, was a veteran in Habonim and its predecessor, the Young Poale Zion Alliance. One of the first organizers, a member of the National Executive, and later the Merkaz, he contributed inestimably to the formulation of the program and policies of Habonim. A halutz who knew that because of his serious illness he could never realize life in Eretz Yisrael, Irv nevertheless translated his Socialist Zionism into his personal life. He combined his deep love for the printed word and the cooperative way of life in the establishment of a cooperative printing shop for Habonim in Philadelphia. His exceptional ability in artistic handwork led him to organize Habonim crafts groups. His knowledge of the essence of the movement led him to create programs, conceive new ideas, seek new methods of educating others in it. At the founding convention of Habonim in Buffalo, those who were with him will remember Irv's insistence that we not water down the ideas of the Young Poale Zion Alli- ance but make them the basis for Habonim and devise the methods by which this new movement of younger people might be taught the ideas of the Poale Zion: Selfrealization as ha- lutzim in their homeland and the eventual achievement of Socialism and a more productive Jewish life throughout the world. Irv was a haver with diverse and intense interests, and all of these he applied in his work for Habonim. His love of literature and art, his passion for the unique, were reflected in those things he wrote, the type of material he assembled when he served as editor of Haboneh last year, the background that molded all his discussions of our problems. In 1939 Irv received some measure of reward for the work he had done so devotedly for so long, when he was elected on the Poale Zion list as a delegate to the World Zionist Congress. Habonim will remember Irv, long regret his untimely loss to us, and long be grateful for the share he contributed to Habonim. Furrows, July, 1944

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JOHANAN TARTAKOWER "Johanan Tartakower was killed in action in the European Theater of Operations on September 29th, 1944. He was one of our best haverim." He was my friend, too-that is why these words are meaningless to me. I cannot transform and reduce this intangible thing into pitifully inadequate sentences. I can only wonder at the empty space that is left in my life and try to fill it with memories of Johanan and of the days we spent at Kvutza, of the work we did when he was my rosh mahaneh, of the dreams we had together of Eretz Yisrael and "our" kibbutz. And I can say with a determination which I have never felt before that we must not let the chain of halutzim be broken. We must fill the gap. We must believe in the things Johanan died for and fight for them. Freedom and peace are meaningless if we are not conscious of their worth and do not accept their responsibilities-and freedom and peace must prevail lest future Johanans shall die, lest the Jewish people never find their future. I shall endeavor to do what my friend Johanan wanted to do-I will try to realize his dreams. That is the best tribute I can give him, and I call to all those others who believe as Johanan did to rouse themselves, to accept the task of the halutz, so that the vision of which Johanan was symbolic shall find new strength and fervor. Harry Brumberger Purrows, November, 1944

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