Habonim Dror - History

History

Unlike what has been written in many places including the book about Wellesley Aron "Rebel with a Cause", Habonim was founded by him together with Chaim Lipshitz and Norman Lourie in 1928 in Stepney, which was the poor area of the East End of London. Wellesley Aron's first contribution was in writing various early memoranda to the Zionist Federation and to the existing Jewish Youth organizations. These suggested how a "Jewish Youth Cultural Movement" could be organized for children aged between 12 to 18. Unlike such organizions abroad, the movement was initially intended to be of a non-Zionist (non-political) kind. Although he claims it as early November 1928, Wellesley Aron's first meetings and lectures about this idea were actually in early January 1929 (see below). No mention of these meetings is made in the weekly "Jewish Chronicle" or J.C. (Newspaper/Organ of the Jewish community) during 1928, except for one lecture on "Palestine" on 23 November, and not on the need for child-interest group formation.

Before Habonim was named in spring 1929, Chaim (actual name Hyman S.) Lipshitz as co-founder, had regular organized meetings of boys at his father's Cheder (school room) and they were well established by December 1928. (Incidentally this Cheder was one of the few more-progressive of these establishments, many were unattractive places that taught only traditional Hebrew and Torah (Biblical Law)). The new group was where Chaim taught Modern Hebrew along with songs and dances of the Jewish settlers in Palestine, Jewish history and various games. Chaim was assisted by Norman Lourie, a visitor from South Africa who had previously visited Palestine. The aim of these group meetings was to attract and better educate the Jewish children of immigrants from Poland and Russia (mostly pre 1905, when immigration to the U.K. was severely limited), about their Jewish history and about the progress of the Jews presently living in Palestine. These children had somewhat dismal lives in the slums of the East-End, (Stepney and Whitechapel) which were not lightened by the mostly poor Cheder education system then available.

The first meeting of leaders of the Jewish youth community that Wellesley Aron reported, was in a letter to Dr. S. Brodetsky (of the Zionist Foundation) on 11 January 1929. Wellesley mentioned that only 5 people attended, but that Norman Lourie (the third founder) called a larger meeting for the following week (10 January) where listed representatives from at least 7 Jewish youth organizations were present. This meeting was in London at 77 Great Russel Street EC1. England at this time was the center of political Zionism, after the Balfour Declaration in 1917 had stated that "His Majesty's Government favourably viewed the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine" (then under British mandate).

The new youth movement Habonim (or the Builders) was deliberately made non-Zionist (and became Zionist only after 1935). In 1929 the first Gedud (group)Trumpeldor was built into Chaim's existing group of youngsters in Stepney. Chaim Lipshitz was its Rosh (head or leader), with assistance from Norman Lourie and advise and Hebrew terminology being developed through a committee run by Wellesley Aron. In May 1929 the first 27 page hand-booklet detailing how Habonim was to function was published by Wellesley with help in the mimeographing from Norman Lourie and his lady friend Nadia, who he later married. They both returned to Norman's home country South Africa in 1930, to establish Habonim branches in various towns and countries in that continent and in India.

The Movement grew very rapidly. In London alone there were 21 groups by 1932. The Movement had at least 2,500 members by the time of their 10 year "Jamboree Camp" in 1939. The various gedudim or groups were initially single sex (like the Scouting Movement) but were soon were changed for boys and girls together. Associated but not part of the Movement were training farms for the older members, to learn about agriculture and life on kibbutz, to which their alyiah (or "going-up" to Eretz Yisrael) would eventually lead. According to Aron, he modeled Habonim after Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts. The idea soon spread to other English-speaking countries and ex-colonies where Jews resided. In 1930 Norman Lourie founded Habonim Southern Africa, with the first camp taking place at Parys in 1931.

During the second world war the senior members of Habonim helped to organize and take care of the many refugee children that escaped the Natzis through special "kindertransporten". Their parents had agreed to this tragic life-time separation, which was arranged through some of the more future-minded Jewish organizations remaining in Europe. Other members whose alyiah was delayed due to the war, helped the war-time food shortage to be met by working as groups of laborers on various farming communities.

Graduates of British Habonim contributed significant manpower to the establishment of many kibbutzim in Israel, among others, Kfar Blum, Kfar Hanasi, Beit Haemek, Mevo Hama, Tuval and Amiad of these the most British is Kfar Hanassi.

American Habonim's oldest kibbutz is Gesher Haziv. Kibbutz Tzora was founded by South African Habonim.

Dror was founded in Poland in 1915 out of a wing of the Tze'irei Tziyon (Zion Youth) study circle. The majority of Tze'irei Tziyon had merged with a group called Hashomer in 1913 to form Hashomer Hatzair, and those who remained outside of the new group formed Dror. The group was influenced by the teachings of the Russian Narodniks.

Members of Dror participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Mordechai Tennenbaum and other Dror members organised two underground factions in the Bialystok Ghetto.

Dror was aligned with the HaKibbutz Hameuhad network, while Habonim was aligned with the Ichud kibbutzim. When the two kibbutz movements merged in 1980 to form the United Kibbutz Movement (TaKa"M), so did their respective youth movements.

Famous graduates of the two movements include Golda Meir, Mike Leigh, Mordechai Richler, Jonathan Freedland, Stanley Fischer, Chaim Herzog, Tony Judt, Sacha Baron Cohen, Seth Rogen, Noah Beresin (a.k.a. Xaphoon Jones) of Chiddy Bang, Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, producers of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Alexander Bickel, Leonard Fein (columnist of The Forward and founding editor of Moment), J.J. Goldberg (editor-in-chief of The Forward), David Twersky (columnist with the New York Sun), Aaron Naparstek, Matt Witten, Mark Regev, Shuli Egar, Guy Spigelman, Tooker Gomberg, Baroness Deech, Jack Markell (the governor of Delaware), Kenneth Bob, Toba Spitzer, Ron Bloom and Jaques Wagner (the governor of Bahia, Brazil).