Hashomer Hatzair
Encyclopedia
Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist
youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary
, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv
in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine. (see Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine
).
Hashomer Hatzair along with HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed
of Israel
are members of the International Falcon Movement - Socialist Education International.
("The Guard") a Zionist scouting group, and Ze'irei Zion ("The Youth of Zion") which was an ideological circle that studied Zionism, socialism
and Jewish history
. Hashomer Hatzair is the oldest Zionist youth movement still in existence. Initially Marxist-Zionist, the movement was influenced by the ideas of Ber Borochov
and Gustav Wyneken
as well as Baden-Powell
and the German Wandervogel
movement. Hashomer Hatzair believed that the liberation of Jewish youth could be accomplished by aliyah
("immigration") to Palestine
and living in kibbutz
im. After the war the movement spread to Jewish communities throughout the world as a scouting movement.
Members of the movement settled in Mandatory Palestine as early as in 1919. In 1927, the four kibbutzim founded by Hashomer Hatzair banded together to form the Kibbutz Artzi federation. The movement also formed a political party which shared the name Hashomer Hartzair, advocating a binational solution
in mandatory Palestine with equality between Arab
s and Jews. That is why, when a small group of Zionist leaders met in New York in May 1942 in the Biltmore Hotel, Hashomer Hatzair representatives voted against the so-called Biltmore Program.
In 1936, the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair party launched an urban political party, the Socialist League of Palestine
, which would represent non-kibbutzniks who shared the political approach of the members of Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim and the youth movement in the political organizations of the Yishuv
(as the Jewish community in Palestine
was known). The Socialist League was the only Zionist political party within the Yishuv to accept Arab members as equals, support Arab rights, and call for a binational
state in Palestine. In the 1930s, Hashomer Hatzair (along with Mapai
) was affiliated with the left-wing "Three-and-a-half" International, the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre
(also known as the "London Bureau") rather than the more mainstream socialist Labour and Socialist International
or the Leninist
Third International.
, members of Hashomer Hatzair focused their attention on resistance against the Nazis
. Mordechaj Anielewicz
, the leader of Hashomer Hatzair's Warsaw
branch, became head of the Jewish Fighting Organization and one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
. Other members of the movement were involved in Jewish resistance and rescue in Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia. The leaders of Hashomer Hatzair in Romania
were arrested and executed for anti-fascist activities.
The head of Hashomer Hatzair in Łódź, Abraham Gancwajch
, on the other hand, formed the Jewish Nazi collaboration network Group 13
in December 1940, active in the Warsaw Ghetto
. He was also the leader of the infamous Gestapo
-sponsored Jewish organisation Żagiew
, which was formed in February 1943 at the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
.
After the war, the movement was involved in organizing illegal immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine. Members were also involved in the Haganah
military movement as well as in the leadership of the Palmach
.
The movement has more than 7,000 members worldwide (excluding Israel) running weekly youth activities and camps in Germany, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, France, Belgium. Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine and Australia.
Famous alumni include Arik Einstein
, Tony Cliff
, Ernest Mandel
, Mordecai Anielewicz, Abraham Leon
, Benny Morris
, Eliane Karp
, Leopold Trepper
, Amnon Linn
, Zahara Rubin
, Abba Hushi
, Sam Spiegel
, Irv Weinstein
, Manès Sperber
, Leon Rosselson
, José Gurvich, Milo Adler Gilles and even Isser Harel
and Menachem Begin
who were briefly members before joining Mapai
and the right wing Betar respectively, as well as Kerem B'Yavneh's Rabbi Avraham Rivlin. Noam Chomsky
sympathized with and worked with the group, although he was never a member.
With the merger of the United Kibbutz Movement and Kibbutz Artzi, the likelihood of a merger between Hashomer Hatzair and UKM's youth movement, Habonim Dror
, has increased and the two youth movements, once rivals, have increasingly co-operated in various countries where they co-exist. The movements even share an office in New York. However, the views of each movement on religion may be an obstacle to merger as Habonim Dror has a stronger identification with cultural Judaism
as opposed to Hashomer Hatzair, which has been at times stridently secular and anti-religious — seeing itself as a leader of a legitimate expression of a secular stream of Judaism.
Today the movement operates in Tzavta Centro Comunitario (Tzavta Community Center), in the neighborhood of Almagro, City of Buenos Aires
. It is one of 9 Zionist Youth Movements in the city. It has around 120 members, running regular Saturday activities and secular Kabalat Shabat service, besides two machanot per year.
and was established in 1953 as a break away from Habonim Dror
. There was briefly a ken (branch) in Sydney during the 1960s, but it closed due to a lack of members. Many of the original bogrim (leaders) of Australian Hashomer Hatzair settled in kibbutz Nirim
. Its building in Melbourne is known as Beit Anielewicz, located in the suburb of St Kilda East
, and is currently being upgraded. It runs weekly meetings as well as bi-annual camps which take place in the Australian outback, during the summer and winter months.
Currently there are close to one hundred members of 'Hashy' Australia. Meetings are held every Sunday from 3–5pm for Juniors and 6–8pm for Senior. During Year 10 (age: 15–16) chanichim undergo a 'hadrachah' (leadership) course. This course is run by current bogrim in the movement and teaches the chanichim leadership skills which are used when they lead members of the Junior movement in Year 11. The current Year 11 madrichim (leaders) are from the group of Metzer.
Hashomer Hatzair Australia has a strong belief that chanichim should be active in the community, helping whenever they can. Members often go to rallies and run programs for disadvantaged children.
In Hashomer Australia, every year level has its own kvutza
(group). These groups are named after Hashomer kibutzim in Israel. Current kvutzot include: Ga'ash
, Sasa, Nir Oz
, Lahav
and Metzer
, to name a few.
As with most of the kenim around the world, every year Hashy sends the chanichim who have just completed school on a 10-month Shnat program in Israel. The current group in Israel is Sasa
. The members of Sasa are Libby Jedwab, Asher Cohen, Evie Isaacs, Emma Lippmann, Georgia Einfeld and Ellie Savion. After returning from the Shnat program, bogrim have a two year commitment to the movement in which they lead the chanichim of the movement or take up various administrative roles (tafkidim), including Merakez (head of the movement), Rosh Hinukh (head of education), Mazkir (secretary) and Gizbar (treasurer). The current bogrim are from the groups of Nir-oz and Ga'ash
. Jackie Lange is the Merakezet of 2011.
last through the school summer vacation. The two summer camps in Liberty, New York
, USA and Perth, Ontario
, Canada are both called Camp Shomria
. In addition, the movement runs activities in cities across the continent throughout the year promoting the peace process
, socialist-Zionism, Hagshama Atzmit (self-actualization), withdrawal from the West Bank
and Gaza
, and social activism.
Through seminars, camps (winter/summer), worldwide programs, and weekly activities wherein youth leads youth, Hashomer Hatzair aims to create a just world through socialism, equality, and the betterment of Israel and the world.
There are currently kenim in Toronto, northern New Jersey, and NYC. The United States is currently in the process of recreating kenim in Philadelphia, Westchester, NY, and Albany, NY.
Hashomer Hatzair has collaborated with Habonim Dror
and other left-wing Zionist groups to form the Union of Progressive Zionists
campus network.
In October 2011, Hashomer Hatzair participated in Occupy Toronto
and built a sukkah
at the site of the protest.
, the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party merged with other left wing parties to form Mapam
which became the political party of both the youth movement and the Kibbutz Artzi federation. In Israel it was traditionally aligned with Mapam
and later Meretz. It is not officially aligned with Meretz's successor party, Meretz-Yachad
. After a recent merger of the Meretz-aligned Kibbutz Artzi Federation with the Labour Party's United Kibbutz Movement, Hashomer Hatzair is officially not aligned with either party though, by tradition, it is close in outlook to Meretz-Yachad.
in 1914. We also founded the first Ken which is located at Desider-Friedmannplatz 1b, 1010 Vienna. It holds around seventy members. The Ken meets every Saturday at 3:00, its peulots are usually from 3-5 and the evenings program is from 5-7. The Ken usually has four active kvutzots and one Bogrim kvutza. The Ken has two machanot each year in the winter and summer and a couple of tijulim, every second year the oldest kvutzot the bogrim and the oldest kvutza go to machane israel in which they attend the Seminar Tzofi or Tzofinodet.
Hashomer Hatzair Mexico was founded by Avner Aliphas, a Hebrew professor at the Yiddish school of Mexico and later founder of the "Tarbut" Jewish day school in 1942. Aliphas was born in Kolno, Poland, in 1911, and made aliyah (immigrated to Eretz Israel) in 1936 to join Kibbutz Negba, and in 1938 he helped establish Kibbutz Hanita. In 1939 he returned to Kolno after his mother died and luckily got out before the Nazi invasion to attend a Zionist conference in Paris. When the war broke out and could not go back to Israel, he traveled to Mexico where he became active in the Zionist movement.
In 1940, supported by the Zionist Organization in Mexico, Aliphas founded Hashomer Hatzair in Mexico, thus giving an option for young people who had been educated towards Zionism at home. This was the first Jewish youth movement that existed in the country; its first Ken was in Tacuba 15, in the city center.
During the next decades, Hashomer Hatzair was one of the few places for secular socialization for the Jewish community. The movement had national presence, with Kenim in several cities, such as San Luis Potosí
and Monterrey
. As of the present day, the Mexican branch of Hashomer Hatzair comprises approximately eighty members who regularly attend cultural, educational and sporting events as a group.
which has been active since around the year 2000. The ken has two kvutzot of older and younger kids (9-12 and 5-8). Ken Maastricht has been part of the World Movement since 2011.
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine. (see Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine
Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine
The Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine was a Marxist-Zionist political party in Mandate Palestine, connected to the Hashomer Hatzair movement. At the time of its foundation, in 1946, the party had around 10,000 members, two-thirds of whom hailed from the Kibbutz Artzi movement...
).
Hashomer Hatzair along with HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed
Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed
Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed , sometimes abbreiviated to No'al is an Israeli youth movement, a sister movement of Habonim Dror, the Labor Zionist movement....
of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
are members of the International Falcon Movement - Socialist Education International.
Early formation
Hashomer Hatzair came into being as a result of the merger of two groups, HashomerHashomer
Hashomer was a Jewish defense organization in Palestine founded out of Bar-Giora in April 1909. It ceased to operate after the founding of the Haganah in 1920. The purpose of Hashomer was to provide guard services for Jewish settlements in the Yishuv, freeing Jewish communities from dependence...
("The Guard") a Zionist scouting group, and Ze'irei Zion ("The Youth of Zion") which was an ideological circle that studied Zionism, socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and Jewish history
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
. Hashomer Hatzair is the oldest Zionist youth movement still in existence. Initially Marxist-Zionist, the movement was influenced by the ideas of Ber Borochov
Ber Borochov
Dov Ber Borochov was a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement as well as a pioneer in the study of Yiddish as a language....
and Gustav Wyneken
Gustav Wyneken
Gustav Wyneken was a German educational reformer, free thinker and charismatic leader. His ideas and practice on education and youth became highly influential but were also controversial.-Early life:He was born to a Christian family, and studied Theology and Philology in Berlin...
as well as Baden-Powell
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Bt, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB , also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement....
and the German Wandervogel
Wandervogel
Wandervogel is the name adopted by a popular movement of German youth groups from 1896 onward. The name can be translated as rambling, hiking or wandering bird and the ethos is to shake off the restrictions of society and get back to nature and freedom...
movement. Hashomer Hatzair believed that the liberation of Jewish youth could be accomplished by aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
("immigration") to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and living in kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
im. After the war the movement spread to Jewish communities throughout the world as a scouting movement.
Members of the movement settled in Mandatory Palestine as early as in 1919. In 1927, the four kibbutzim founded by Hashomer Hatzair banded together to form the Kibbutz Artzi federation. The movement also formed a political party which shared the name Hashomer Hartzair, advocating a binational solution
Binational solution
The one-state solution and the similar binational solution are proposed approaches to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Proponents of a binational solution to the conflict advocate either a single state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or a single state in Israel and the West...
in mandatory Palestine with equality between Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s and Jews. That is why, when a small group of Zionist leaders met in New York in May 1942 in the Biltmore Hotel, Hashomer Hatzair representatives voted against the so-called Biltmore Program.
In 1936, the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair party launched an urban political party, the Socialist League of Palestine
Socialist League of Palestine
The Socialist League of Palestine was a political organization in Mandate Palestine. Established in 1936, it was connected to the left-Zionist Hashomer Hatzair movement. The Socialist League functioned as the urban ally of the Kibbutz Artzi movement. In 1946, the Socialist League and Kibbutz Artzi...
, which would represent non-kibbutzniks who shared the political approach of the members of Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim and the youth movement in the political organizations of the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
(as the Jewish community in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
was known). The Socialist League was the only Zionist political party within the Yishuv to accept Arab members as equals, support Arab rights, and call for a binational
Binational solution
The one-state solution and the similar binational solution are proposed approaches to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Proponents of a binational solution to the conflict advocate either a single state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or a single state in Israel and the West...
state in Palestine. In the 1930s, Hashomer Hatzair (along with Mapai
Mapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...
) was affiliated with the left-wing "Three-and-a-half" International, the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre
International Revolutionary Marxist Centre
The International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was an international association of left-socialist parties. The member-parties rejected both mainstream social democracy and the Third International.-Organizational history:...
(also known as the "London Bureau") rather than the more mainstream socialist Labour and Socialist International
Labour and Socialist International
The Labour and Socialist International was an international organization of socialist and labour parties, active between 1923 and 1940. The LSI was a forerunner of the present-day Socialist International....
or the Leninist
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
Third International.
Growth and the Holocaust
By 1939, Hashomer Hatzair had 70,000 members worldwide. The movement's membership base was in Eastern Europe. With the advent of World War II and the HolocaustThe Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, members of Hashomer Hatzair focused their attention on resistance against the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. Mordechaj Anielewicz
Mordechaj Anielewicz
Mordechaj Anielewicz was the leader of Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa , also known as ŻOB, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from January to May 1943.-Biography:Anielewicz was born into a poor family in the small town of Wyszków near Warsaw...
, the leader of Hashomer Hatzair's Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
branch, became head of the Jewish Fighting Organization and one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
. Other members of the movement were involved in Jewish resistance and rescue in Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia. The leaders of Hashomer Hatzair in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
were arrested and executed for anti-fascist activities.
The head of Hashomer Hatzair in Łódź, Abraham Gancwajch
Abraham Gancwajch
Abraham Gancwajch was a prominent Jewish Nazi collaborator in Warsaw Ghetto during Second World War and a "kingpin" of the ghetto underwold.-Biography:Gancwajch was born in Częstochowa, Poland...
, on the other hand, formed the Jewish Nazi collaboration network Group 13
Group 13
"The Group Thirteen" network was a Jewish collaborationist organisation in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War. The Thirteen took its informal name from the address of its main office in Leszno Street 13. The group was founded in December 1940 and led by Abraham Gancwajch, the former...
in December 1940, active in the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
. He was also the leader of the infamous Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
-sponsored Jewish organisation Żagiew
Zagiew
Żagiew was a collaborationist Jewish organisation in German Nazi-occupied Warsaw, founded by the Germans in February 1943, during World War II at the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising...
, which was formed in February 1943 at the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
.
After the war, the movement was involved in organizing illegal immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine. Members were also involved in the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
military movement as well as in the leadership of the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
.
Hashomer Hatzair today
Today, Hashomer Hatzair continues as a youth movement based in Israel, and operates internationally. In Europe, North and Latin America, as well as in Australia, Hashomer Hatzair organizes activities and camps (machanot) for the youth. Activities are still relatively ideological, but over time have been adapted to the needs of modern communities, vastly different from the context in which Hashomer Hatzair was created.Famous alumni include Arik Einstein
Arik Einstein
Arik Einstein is an Israeli singer-songwriter.Einstein was a vocalist for Batzal Yarok , Shleeshiyat Gesher Hayarkon and Hahalonot Hagvohim . His collaboration with Shalom Hanoch and the Churchills planted the seeds for the first Israeli rock albums...
, Tony Cliff
Tony Cliff
Tony Cliff , was a Trotskyist who was a founding member of the Socialist Review Group which went on to become the Socialist Workers Party...
, Ernest Mandel
Ernest Mandel
Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter , was a revolutionary Marxist theorist.-Life:...
, Mordecai Anielewicz, Abraham Leon
Abraham Leon
Abraham Leon , was a Jewish Trotskyist activist and theorist. He was born in Warsaw but his family moved to Belgium where he grew up. Leon became a member and then leader of the Belgian branch of Hashomer Hatzair, a left wing Zionist youth movement...
, Benny Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
, Eliane Karp
Eliane Karp
Eliane Karp Toledo , a French-born anthropologist and economist, she is the wife of the president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo. She is a prevalent academic, specializing in the study of Andean indigenous cultures. -Early life:...
, Leopold Trepper
Leopold Trepper
Leopold Trepper was an organizer of the Soviet spy ring Rote Kapelle prior to and during World War II....
, Amnon Linn
Amnon Linn
-Biography:Linn was born in Mishmar HaEmek to Hava and David Linn. He became a member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement in 1940, and in 1942 joined the Palmach, fighting in Haifa. He met his wife, Ruth Hushi, daughter of Abba Hushi in 1945, and married her later that same year...
, Zahara Rubin
Zahara Rubin
Zahara Rubin is an Israeli sculptor, painter and artist. During her career, she has received several Israeli art awards.-Early life and education :...
, Abba Hushi
Abba Hushi
Abba Hushi was an Israeli politician who served as mayor of Haifa for eighteen years between 1951 to 1969. Hushi was one of the founders and activists of Hashomer Hatzair movement in Poland. In July 1920, he immigrated to Palestine with a group of 130 Jewish pioneers. In Palestine, he took the...
, Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel was an Austrian-born American independent film producer.-Life and career:Spiegel was born in Jarosław, Galicia, Austria-Hungary as Samuel P. Spiegel to a German-Jewish father and Polish mother and educated at the University of Vienna. His brother was Shalom Spiegel, a professor of...
, Irv Weinstein
Irv Weinstein
Irwin "Irv" Weinstein is a retired local television news anchor. He hosted WKBW-TV's Eyewitness News in Buffalo, New York, for 34 years, from 1964 to 1998, becoming an iconic broadcaster well known in both the Buffalo area and in Southern Ontario, which was within WKBW's broadcast area. Weinstein...
, Manès Sperber
Manès Sperber
Manès Sperber was an Austrian-French novelist, essayist and psychologist. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Jan Heger and N.A. Menlos....
, Leon Rosselson
Leon Rosselson
Leon Rosselson is an English songwriter and writer of children's books. After his early involvement in the folk music revival in Britain, he came to prominence, singing his own satirical songs, in the BBC's topical TV programme of the early 1960s, That Was The Week That Was...
, José Gurvich, Milo Adler Gilles and even Isser Harel
Isser Harel
Isser Harel was spymaster of the intelligence and the security services of Israel and the Director of the Mossad . In his capacity as Mossad director he oversaw the abduction, and secret transport to Israel, of Holocaust organizer Adolph Eichmann....
and Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
who were briefly members before joining Mapai
Mapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...
and the right wing Betar respectively, as well as Kerem B'Yavneh's Rabbi Avraham Rivlin. Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
sympathized with and worked with the group, although he was never a member.
With the merger of the United Kibbutz Movement and Kibbutz Artzi, the likelihood of a merger between Hashomer Hatzair and UKM's youth movement, Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror is a Jewish Labour Zionist youth movement formed by the merger in 1982 of the Habonim and Dror youth movements. Habonim Dror's sister movement in Israel is Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, the Working and Studying Youth.-Ideology:...
, has increased and the two youth movements, once rivals, have increasingly co-operated in various countries where they co-exist. The movements even share an office in New York. However, the views of each movement on religion may be an obstacle to merger as Habonim Dror has a stronger identification with cultural Judaism
Cultural Judaism
Cultural Judaism, often confused with Secular Judaism, is a stream of Judaism that encourages individual thought and understanding in Judaism. Its relation to Judaism is through the history, culture, civilization, ethical values and shared experiences of the Jewish people...
as opposed to Hashomer Hatzair, which has been at times stridently secular and anti-religious — seeing itself as a leader of a legitimate expression of a secular stream of Judaism.
Brazil
In Brazil, "Shomer" has five branches: Rio de Janeiro (2), São Paulo, Florianópolis and Brasilia. Normally, the activities runs weekly meetings as well as bi-annual camps. The educational activities are also aimed at the challenges of Brazilian society. Madrichim in Rio provide activities for children of public schools and slams.Argentina
Once a huge movement inside the large Argentinian Jewish Community, Hashomer Hatzair Argentina suffered from decay common to all Zionist youth movements in Argentina during the last decades, as well as several military dictatorships in the country's history that directly or indirectly led to the closure of several of its kenim.Today the movement operates in Tzavta Centro Comunitario (Tzavta Community Center), in the neighborhood of Almagro, City of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. It is one of 9 Zionist Youth Movements in the city. It has around 120 members, running regular Saturday activities and secular Kabalat Shabat service, besides two machanot per year.
Australia
The movement in Australia is located in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and was established in 1953 as a break away from Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror is a Jewish Labour Zionist youth movement formed by the merger in 1982 of the Habonim and Dror youth movements. Habonim Dror's sister movement in Israel is Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, the Working and Studying Youth.-Ideology:...
. There was briefly a ken (branch) in Sydney during the 1960s, but it closed due to a lack of members. Many of the original bogrim (leaders) of Australian Hashomer Hatzair settled in kibbutz Nirim
Nirim
Nirim is a kibbutz in the northwestern Negev in Israel. Located near the border with the Gaza Strip, about 7 kilometers east of Khan Yunis, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council...
. Its building in Melbourne is known as Beit Anielewicz, located in the suburb of St Kilda East
St Kilda East, Victoria
St Kilda East is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district. It is located within the Local Government Areas of the City of Glen Eira and the City of Port Phillip. At the 2006 Census, it had a population of 12,188.St Kilda East is one...
, and is currently being upgraded. It runs weekly meetings as well as bi-annual camps which take place in the Australian outback, during the summer and winter months.
Currently there are close to one hundred members of 'Hashy' Australia. Meetings are held every Sunday from 3–5pm for Juniors and 6–8pm for Senior. During Year 10 (age: 15–16) chanichim undergo a 'hadrachah' (leadership) course. This course is run by current bogrim in the movement and teaches the chanichim leadership skills which are used when they lead members of the Junior movement in Year 11. The current Year 11 madrichim (leaders) are from the group of Metzer.
Hashomer Hatzair Australia has a strong belief that chanichim should be active in the community, helping whenever they can. Members often go to rallies and run programs for disadvantaged children.
In Hashomer Australia, every year level has its own kvutza
Kvutza
Kvutza or kevutza can be used as:*A definition of an organized group of children consisting of boys and girls graded by age, as used in modern Israel.*It can also refer to any other type of group of individuals...
(group). These groups are named after Hashomer kibutzim in Israel. Current kvutzot include: Ga'ash
Ga'ash
Ga'ash is a kibbutz in central Israel. "Named after Biblical mountain of Gaash" beside the grave of Joshuah in Ephraim . Located to the north of Tel Aviv, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaSharon Regional Council...
, Sasa, Nir Oz
Nir Oz
Nir Oz is a kibbutz in southern Israel. It is located in the northwestern Negev desert between Magen and Nirim, and covers 20,000 dunams. Nir Oz is under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 348...
, Lahav
Lahav
Lahav is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located around 20 km north of Beersheba and covering 33,000 dunams, it falls under the jurisdiction of Bnei Shimon Regional Council. In 2006, it had a population of 384....
and Metzer
Metzer
Metzer is a kibbutz in the Menashe area of northern Israel.The kibbutz was founded on 8 September 1953 by immigrants from Argentina. In November 2002, a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the kibbutz and murdered 5 people including a mother and her two sons. The perpetrator, Sirhan Sirhan , was...
, to name a few.
As with most of the kenim around the world, every year Hashy sends the chanichim who have just completed school on a 10-month Shnat program in Israel. The current group in Israel is Sasa
Sasa
Sasa may refer to: menina linda com pernas jeitosas ;)* Samoan Sasa* Saša, a given name* Sasa - a genus of bamboo* Sasa, Israel - a kibbutz in Galilee, Israel* Sa'sa' - a Palestinian village, depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war....
. The members of Sasa are Libby Jedwab, Asher Cohen, Evie Isaacs, Emma Lippmann, Georgia Einfeld and Ellie Savion. After returning from the Shnat program, bogrim have a two year commitment to the movement in which they lead the chanichim of the movement or take up various administrative roles (tafkidim), including Merakez (head of the movement), Rosh Hinukh (head of education), Mazkir (secretary) and Gizbar (treasurer). The current bogrim are from the groups of Nir-oz and Ga'ash
Ga'ash
Ga'ash is a kibbutz in central Israel. "Named after Biblical mountain of Gaash" beside the grave of Joshuah in Ephraim . Located to the north of Tel Aviv, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaSharon Regional Council...
. Jackie Lange is the Merakezet of 2011.
USA and Canada
In the United States and Canada campsSummer camp
Summer camp is a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as campers....
last through the school summer vacation. The two summer camps in Liberty, New York
Liberty (town), New York
Liberty is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 9,632 at the 2000 census.The Town of Liberty contains a village of Liberty. The village is bisected by state route 52 and 55, and is crossed by New York State Route 17....
, USA and Perth, Ontario
Perth, Ontario
Perth is a town in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, Canada . It is located on the Tay River, 83 km southwest of Ottawa, and is the seat of Lanark County.-History:...
, Canada are both called Camp Shomria
Camp Shomria
Camp Shomria is the name used by several Jewish summer camps associated with the Hashomer Hatzair Progressive Zionist youth movement in North America...
. In addition, the movement runs activities in cities across the continent throughout the year promoting the peace process
Peace process
Peace process may refer to:* in general:** Peacebuilding** Conflict resolution* specifically:** Northern Ireland peace process, efforts from c.1993 to end "the Troubles"...
, socialist-Zionism, Hagshama Atzmit (self-actualization), withdrawal from the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
and Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
, and social activism.
Through seminars, camps (winter/summer), worldwide programs, and weekly activities wherein youth leads youth, Hashomer Hatzair aims to create a just world through socialism, equality, and the betterment of Israel and the world.
There are currently kenim in Toronto, northern New Jersey, and NYC. The United States is currently in the process of recreating kenim in Philadelphia, Westchester, NY, and Albany, NY.
Hashomer Hatzair has collaborated with Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror is a Jewish Labour Zionist youth movement formed by the merger in 1982 of the Habonim and Dror youth movements. Habonim Dror's sister movement in Israel is Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, the Working and Studying Youth.-Ideology:...
and other left-wing Zionist groups to form the Union of Progressive Zionists
Union of Progressive Zionists
The Union of Progressive Zionists was a North American network of Jewish student activists who have organized around principles of social justice and peace in Israel and Palestine...
campus network.
In October 2011, Hashomer Hatzair participated in Occupy Toronto
Occupy Toronto
Occupy Toronto is a protest and demonstration that began on October 15, 2011 in Toronto, Ontario, near Bay Street in Downtown Toronto's Financial District and moved to St...
and built a sukkah
Sukkah
A sukkah is a temporary hut constructed for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot. It is topped with branches and often well decorated with autumnal, harvest or Judaic themes...
at the site of the protest.
Israel
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
, the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party merged with other left wing parties to form Mapam
Mapam
Mapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented...
which became the political party of both the youth movement and the Kibbutz Artzi federation. In Israel it was traditionally aligned with Mapam
Mapam
Mapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented...
and later Meretz. It is not officially aligned with Meretz's successor party, Meretz-Yachad
Meretz-Yachad
New Movement-Meretz , previously known as Meretz, then Yachad, and then Meretz-Yachad is a left-wing, Zionist, social democratic political party in Israel....
. After a recent merger of the Meretz-aligned Kibbutz Artzi Federation with the Labour Party's United Kibbutz Movement, Hashomer Hatzair is officially not aligned with either party though, by tradition, it is close in outlook to Meretz-Yachad.
France
In France, the youth movement spells Hachomer Hatzaïr with a "c". It was founded in Paris in Belleville area, in 1933, by Jews from Poland and Tunisia. Hashomer Hatzair France is extremely active, it has weekly activities, summer, winter and automn camps. There are now about 500 members.South Africa
Hashomer Hatzair operated in South Africa until sometime in the 1980s when the South Africa government banned the movement and arrested its members because of their anti-apartheid teachings and activism.Austria
The Austrian Hashomer Hatzair traces its roots to the original Hashomer Hatzair founded in the Galicia region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Hashomer were among the earliest members of the Österreichischer PfadfinderbundScouting in Austria
Scouting in Austria is served by multiple Scout associations, among them*Boy Scouts and Girl Guides of Austria, member of World Organization of the Scout Movement and WAGGGS, member of the Austrian National Youth Council...
in 1914. We also founded the first Ken which is located at Desider-Friedmannplatz 1b, 1010 Vienna. It holds around seventy members. The Ken meets every Saturday at 3:00, its peulots are usually from 3-5 and the evenings program is from 5-7. The Ken usually has four active kvutzots and one Bogrim kvutza. The Ken has two machanot each year in the winter and summer and a couple of tijulim, every second year the oldest kvutzot the bogrim and the oldest kvutza go to machane israel in which they attend the Seminar Tzofi or Tzofinodet.
Italy
Hashomer Hatzair operates four kens (branches) in Italy — in Rome, Milan, Florence, and Turin.Belgium
In Belgium, Hashomer Hatzaïr was established in 1920. Today, 220 hanihim come each Saturday to take part in folk dancing (rekudei'am), ludic activities (peoulot) and Shabbat celebrations (oneg shabbat). Four camps are organized throughout the year. The November, Winter and Easter camps usually take place in Holland and the Summer camp in France. The shaliah is Tal Eitan and the shirfa madrihim is composed of Mizra and Beit-Alpha and the rosh ken is Nicolas Markiewicz. There was a ken in Liege but it was too small so it has closed.Switzerland
In Switzerland, Ken Yitzhak Rabin in Zürich consists of some 100 hanihim, meeting on Shabbat afternoon and for two or three camps (annually in autumn and winter, bi-annually in summer), next to the Bogrim's bi-annual trips to Israel or Poland. Special events are held for Pessach, Chanuka and the Yitzhak Rabin memorial. The Ken was founded in 1935 and joined World Hashomer in 1938. During the 2nd world war, there were five major Kenim (Zurich, Basel, Berne, Biel, Geneva) plus activities in a few smaller cities and in the refugee centers. Swiss Shomer members having made alija can be encountered e.g. in Lehavot Habashan and Magen. Today (2009), the Shomer is the largest Jewish youth movement in Switzerland.Chile
The Chilean branch of Hashomer Hatzair was founded more than 60 years ago and it continues educating young Jewish Chileans with the values of social justice, fraternity, judaism and love for Israel. Currently there are 50-100 members aged 9–22 who meet every Saturday in the Ken located in Santiago. These are young chaverim that self organize and most of them do not belong to any Jewish collectivity or entity, thus most of them will have no link to anything Jewish if it wasn't for the tnua. For further info, visit the up-to-date website in Spanish.Mexico
The Mexican branch of Hashomer Hatzair was established in 1940. Since 1983, its "ken" (Hebrew for "nest", i.e., its headquarters), named after Mordechai Anielewicz, is currently located in the Polanco neighbourhood, western part of Mexico city.Hashomer Hatzair Mexico was founded by Avner Aliphas, a Hebrew professor at the Yiddish school of Mexico and later founder of the "Tarbut" Jewish day school in 1942. Aliphas was born in Kolno, Poland, in 1911, and made aliyah (immigrated to Eretz Israel) in 1936 to join Kibbutz Negba, and in 1938 he helped establish Kibbutz Hanita. In 1939 he returned to Kolno after his mother died and luckily got out before the Nazi invasion to attend a Zionist conference in Paris. When the war broke out and could not go back to Israel, he traveled to Mexico where he became active in the Zionist movement.
In 1940, supported by the Zionist Organization in Mexico, Aliphas founded Hashomer Hatzair in Mexico, thus giving an option for young people who had been educated towards Zionism at home. This was the first Jewish youth movement that existed in the country; its first Ken was in Tacuba 15, in the city center.
During the next decades, Hashomer Hatzair was one of the few places for secular socialization for the Jewish community. The movement had national presence, with Kenim in several cities, such as San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí officially Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is San Luis Potosí....
and Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
. As of the present day, the Mexican branch of Hashomer Hatzair comprises approximately eighty members who regularly attend cultural, educational and sporting events as a group.
The Netherlands
Hashomer Hatzair was active in the Netherlands since the '50s. Until somewhere in the '70s there were kenim in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. After that there is no record of shomeric activity in the Netherlands. However, there is a ken in MaastrichtMaastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
which has been active since around the year 2000. The ken has two kvutzot of older and younger kids (9-12 and 5-8). Ken Maastricht has been part of the World Movement since 2011.
Life Movement (Tnuat Bogrim / Kidmah / Kidma / Kidmat Anilewicz)
Around the world, Hashomer Hatzair members have founded a life movement to pick up where the youth movement leaves off. Groups have been organized in Israel by Israelis and non-Israelis, and others were formed in their countries of origin (such as in Canada, the United States, Switzerland and Hungary).Canada and the United States
The Life Movement in the United States and Canada has created three urban communes, one in New York and two in Toronto where members are experimenting with the Israeli model of communot in their home societies. In addition, a new winter trip to Israel for Bogrim called Mifgash takes place yearly.See also
- Zionist youth movementZionist youth movementA Zionist youth movement is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideological development, including a belief in Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel...
- Poale ZionPoale ZionPoale Zion was a Movement of Marxist Zionist Jewish workers circles founded in various cities of the Russian Empire about the turn of the century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.-Formation and early years:Poale Zion parties and organisations were started across the Jewish diaspora in the...
External links
- Hashomer Hatzair Chile
- Hashomer Hatzair Argentina
- Hashomer Hatzair Australia
- Hashomer Hatzair Austria
- Hashomer Hatzair Belgium
- Hashomer Hatzair Brazil
- Hashomer Hatzair Canada
- Hashomer Hatzair France
- Hashomer Hatzair Hungary
- Hashomer Hatzair Mexico
- Hashomer Hatzair Switzerland
- Hashomer Hatzair USA
- Hashomer Hatzair Uruguay
- Hashomer Hatzair Venezuela