Habonim Dror Alumni

11/29/2022

Habonim Dror North America has given so much to so many over nearly 100 years. Is yours one of the lives that has been enriched by an experience in Habonim Dror?

If so, please take this opportunity to join us in making sure that the same experience is attainable for the next generation!

Are you ready for Giving Tuesday next week? Cause we are!

Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving on November 29 – and Habonim Dror North America is participating.

Over the past year, the HDNA youth leadership has been making the shift back to in-person programs and are looking forward to hosting the first Veida since before Covid-19, with over 100 participants!

We’re humbly asking for your support. Will you help us?
Your support is essential and very much appreciated. You can make your donation here: https://www.habonimdrorfoundation.org/contribute/

08/22/2022

Daxton just finished his first summer as a Madrich at Machaneh Gesher and decided that he wants to go on Workshop despite the monetary challenge. Aside from working at Gesher he's been working as an online Jewish educator, but it still isn't enough. He's asking for the Habonim Dror North America alumni community to help him get to Israel for the year! Can you help?

My name is Daxton Schwey and I'm 17 years old (Soon to be 18). I just graduated from high scho… Daxton Schwey needs your support for Help Daxton go to Israel

06/30/2022

The Habonim Dror Foundation raises money on a yearly basis to provide scholarships for MBI and Workshop. We are proud to help make these programs a possibility for dozens of young people every year. If you don't give regularly to the Habonim Dror Foundation, please consider becoming a regular donor!

With that said, sometimes the scholarships we are able to offer aren't enough. Hannah Stanley has started a Go Fund Me to help her make up the difference to be able to go on Workshop. We encourage you to make a donation and help make her dream a reality!

My name is Hannah Stanley. I'm 18 years old and I am graduating from Cheltenham High School. … Hannah Stanley needs your support for Help Hannah go to Israel

12/29/2021

Before the end of 2021, we wanted to share a few words from Erica Kushner, Mazkirol Clalit of Habonim Dror North America about why the movement needs your support now as much as ever.

(Pictured - the last in-person national seminar hosted by HDNA, Veida 2019, featuring a performance by the one and only Dar Williams)

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This past year HDNA has successfully run 6 online seminars. This has not been an easy task and as the Mazkirut Artzit we have grown tremendously in the process. For Winter Seminar, we thought that the world would be ready for an in-person meet up, but we had to change the plan last minute. What was originally a two day, regional, in-person seminar in 4 locations + two days online, had to be moved totally online with the spread of the Omicron variant.

Even before then, we knew it would be a challenge. When we were in the initial stages of figuring out how to build Winter Seminar, we understood the cost of running a movement wide in-person seminar would be much greater than any previous year. With Covid-19 still very much present in our lives, the steps that we would have taken in order to run a safe seminar would have left us with a costly seminar. Covid-19 has not only made it impossible to meet over the past year because of health risks, but has the possibility of making it impossible to meet moving forward because of the cost of testing and PPE.

We hope to meet in person this spring as a movement, the first time in two years, and we need your support to make that happen. The increase in cost due to Covid-19 safety measures will be more than is affordable for most maapilimot and nachshonimot. The movement thrives when its members are able to build connections and meet and it is only with your support that we will be able to safely host an in person seminar. Please donate to HDF to ensure the future of vibrant movement programming and a strong HDNA!

Thank you,
Erica Kushner, Mazkirol

You can support the movement by donating using this link - https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=MS976AFDRPD3U

12/17/2021

This past year, despite the limitations of the pandemic, Habonim Dror North America was able to open all six of its machanot for that special and unique summer camp experience many of us remember and cherish. Thirty-one chanichimot safely attended MBI and spent the summer in Israel and the nineteen members of Workshop 71 have just moved to Jerusalem after spending three months on Kibbutz Ravid.

Please help support these voices by making a contribution to the Habonim Dror Foundation!

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=MS976AFDRPD3U

12/10/2021

A message from the HDF Board Chair, Tom Gutherz, Senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Dear Friends,

Only a few days ago, a jury here in Charlottesville convicted the most prominent organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally, which brought a new level of antisemitic and racist hatred and violence to the streets of our town, and into the living rooms of each and every one of you. I am relieved that a jury was able to see the profound evil and culpability of these people, and to impose sanctions that will deter others who seek to follow them. When the trial began I wrote the flowing words to my congregation:

It feels like the events that took place here, and those that followed in Pittsburg, Poway and many other places, marked the beginning of a longer conversation in the American Jewish community. It forced us to think again about the stories we have been telling ourselves: about our expectations, both spoken and unspoken, and about the kind of security we came to feel we were entitled to, even as violence against other racial and religious minorities continued to be an ongoing feature of our current moment.

This conversation also involves reflection about how and when we choose to tell our stories of ancestral trauma and oppression. And to recognize the paradox that as a community we may feel both privileged and precarious: privileged in terms of our relationship to the power structures of what we now call white supremacy, but also vulnerable and targeted in various ways by those who are fighting tenaciously to maintain that structure.

Reflecting on these words, I realize that they can also apply to many of the discussions we are having among ourselves in the progressive Zionist movement; re-examining the stories we have been telling ourselves, and needing to hold the complex truth that Israelis can experience both military superiority as well as profound vulnerability at the same time.

Habonim Dror, throughout its history and today as well, has tried to engage Jewish youth in these conversations. Person by person, heart by heart, the movement continues to share its dreams for the kind of Israel that yet can be. It is a voice that gives a lie to the false dichotomy that Zionism and justice are irreconcilable.

Can we count on your support to continue doing this vital educational work?
Donate here -- https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=MS976AFDRPD3U

09/01/2021

Kol Hakavod to all of the alumni who have donated to help Zoe go on Workshop https://gofund.me/d0fc08c1

This young woman has raised 79% of her goal. Can we help her get to 100%!?

My name is Zoe Shimoni-Livny. I’m 18-years-old and graduated from St. Basil's Academy in Jun… Zoe Shimoni-Livny needs your support for Help Zoe go to Israel!

08/10/2021

Habonim Dror North America is hiring for a part-time business administrator. Would you be interested? Know anyone who might be?

05/04/2021

We were beyond thrilled to be joined by over 200 bogrimot of Workshop for our 70 Years of Workshop celebration this past Sunday!

We're still working on an edited version of the program which you'll be able to view. In the meantime, for those who missed it or for those who were there and want to see it again, here is the slideshow we played to start things off:

04/26/2021

When you register for our May 2nd event celebrating 70 years of Habonim Dror North America Workshop, your donation will be matched 1:1 to help establish 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐬𝐚𝐚𝐜 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐥 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝 for participants in HDNA Israel Programs.

Register using this link https://crm.habonimdrorfoundation.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=14&noFullMsg=true

On December 19th, 1941, Isaac Merkel a Habonim madrich at summer Machaneh in South Africa, was on duty as a lifeguard at Nahoon Beach, East London. Two young children were caught in the current and in distress. Isaac swam to their rescue and fought the currents to bring them safely back close to the shore where others ran to their aid and brought the children to dry land. No one realized that Isaac had exhausted himself in the effort. He was swept back out to sea and drowned, his body never recovered.

His brother Herman and the other members of the family were deeply affected by this tragedy and carried Isaac’s memory with them all of their lives.

Herman’s daughter Joan Isa Berelowitz has made an $18,000 matching grant to establish the Isaac Merkel Scholarship Fund for HDNA participants in Israel Programs and to honor her heroic Uncle Isaac’s memory.

Your donation to the fund will be matched 1:1 by Joan’s gift to establish a $36,000 Fund in Isaac’s memory. Please join us in honoring the memory of a courageous young person and help provide much needed financial assistance to Habonim Dror chaverimot going to MBI and Workshop.

02/01/2021

Last night twenty Habonim Dror North America alumni met to get ready to interview Workshop participants from every decade, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of Workshop! Message us if you want to get involved, we're still looking for interviewers, interviewees, and video/sound editors.

11/16/2020

Look ma! We're famous!

From the latest issue of Iton Habonim - http://habonimdror.net/iton/14/iton14.html