What is Ofek?

This year, we are excited to announce a new addition to the Workshop tochnit (program)! Ofek (horizon) is a chance for the chanichim to explore Israel and Israeli culture while developing an area of their own interest. Each chanich will choose from three options, each one designed to enhance their ability as madrichim by giving them tools to use their experiences and new found knowledge to strengthen their educational capacity. This year, Ofek will take place from December 7th to December 17th, and the three options will be a tiyul, a Jewish study, and an agricultural work placement.

Tiyul - The tiyul will be a chance to develop their skills at planning and leading tiyulim (hikes), while completing a more challenging tiyul. They will spend several days preparing for their tiyul: planning the menu, shopping, learning about the path they will be hiking and the geography and history of the area. Each chanich will plan small hadrachot (lessons/explanations) of the area where they will be hiking. They will be backpacking for five days in the South of the country. The sikkum will include projects/ideas for how to improve tiyulim at their home machanot.

Jewish Study - Bina, the Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture, is a secular yeshiva located in the heart of Tel Aviv. In their own words: "the Secular Yeshiva aims to cultivate a new generation of secular Israeli leaders who possess in-depth familiarity with the Hebrew cultural past and present, and who embrace social activism and Jewish study as central values by which to live. The Secular Yeshiva is a home where young adult students experience intensive learning, encounter varied approaches to Jewish life and embark upon on a fascinating journey." You can read more about Bina here. Workshoppers will be taking several courses a day, for example Jewish ethics and philosophy, or Shabbat and Chaggim, and getting a chance to learn more about Jewish ritual and morals through films and siyurim (tours). They will take this knowledge back to HDNA, to strengthen and enrich their ability to be Jewish leaders. Workshoppers will be living in the Kaveret house in Rishon Letzion and travelling to Bina every day.

Agriculture - Living on Kibbutz Ravid, the chanichim will be working every day in the mango, olive and grapefruit fields. This is a chance to develop their connection not only to the land of Israel, but also to the history of Habonim as an agricultural kibbutz-building movement. They will be discussing and learning about HDNA's relationship to farming, including the development of the gan/chava (small farms) that exist at many of the machanot.

Guest educators visited from Bina and ran an activity to explain more about Bina.

Debating if studying or learning is more important.

Learning in chevruta, the traditional Jewish form of text study.

Spread around in their chevruta pairs.

Ulpan

The Workshoppers are divided into three different Hebrew levels: Aleph (Beginner), Bet (Intermediate) and Gimmel (Advanced). Classes take place twice a week for three hours per session, and each class is also assigned home work between sessions. Ulpan classes are a mix of speaking and writing, but aim for each level to be able to use their Hebrew more out and about in the county, whether that be practicing reading the newspaper (Gimmel) or asking the price of a bus ticket. Below, pictures of Kitah Aleph in class, practicing writing and speaking, and learning how to buy fruit!

Blog Updates

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We have also added an "Upcoming Dates" section where we will update regarding important upcoming events.

Ariana and Shosh at Yom Kvutza. 

Tiyul Sukkot

Sunday to Wednesday, the Workshoppers were hiking through the Golan Heights with their Australian, South African, New Zealand and British counterparts. They hiked through the Yehudiya, Zavitan, Meshushim pools and the Zaki stream. Part of the hikes went through streams, and each day also involved a lot of swimming breaks. On the first day, each hiking group also built their own sukkah, which stayed up at the campsite throughout the tiyul. On Sunday night, the Australians planned a fun erev tarbut (evening program), on Monday night there were chuggim (including stargazing, scary stories, a Hebrew sing a long, and acrobalance), and on Tuesday the Workshoppers planned a medura/musicale with a campfire. They also prepared their own dinner, poike, a stew with rice, vegetables and meat prepared in a special pot over a fire. The tiyul also involved a lot of conversations and comparisons about Habonim around the world, and the chanichim learned a lot from each other. They will get another chance to hang out over Rabin Seminar, Nov 7-8.

Learning about how the Golan Heights were formed, with the help of Diet Coke and Mentos.

Building their Sukkot.

Swimming in the pools of the Zavitan Stream.

Cooking poike with new friends.

One of the hiking groups in front of their Sukkah.

Tavor chanichim plus Phia singing at Medura.

Hiking through the Yehudiya stream.

Weekly Theme and Guest Speaker, Upcoming Tiyul

The modules theme this week is "Jews in the Modern World," exploring the effect of the Enlightenment on Jewish communities in Europe, including the creation of the Reform and Conservative streams. The shiurim delved into how Jews left the isolation of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and entered mainstream Europe, and the effect this had on European history and Jewish identity. Emancipation by Michael Goldfarb is an excellent resource for this topic.

The guest speaker was Rabbi Edgar Nof, from the Reform Movement, discussing the history of Reform Judaism and the difference between Reform in Israel and America. He also talked to the chanichim about the recent and upcoming holidays. Below, shaking the lulav and blowing the shofar.

Upcoming tiyul: next week from Sunday October 12th to Wednesday October 15th, the Workshoppers will be participating in Tiyul Sukkot with 50 other Habonim Dror chanichim on English speaking gap year programs. We will be hiking in the Golan Region, and building sukkot to sleep in at night! Please do not be alarmed if participants are out of cell phone range for parts of the tiyul. Check back the following week for pictures. 

Israeli Society Shiur

Israeli Society is a course designed to explore what Israeli society is today, covering such issues as minorities in Israel, religious and secular divides, refugees and immigrants, political identification, the army, and other topics.

The first session examined political parties and political identification in Israel. This week, the chanichim continued Part II of a session on Mizrachi (Eastern) immigration and identity in Israel. In the decade following the creation of the state of Israel, most Jews residing in the Middle East/North Africa fled their countries of origin after experiencing increased persecution. The majority of them were absorbed into Israel. and this session focuses on the cultural and economic challenges faced by the refugees and their ongoing consequences in Israel today. Workshoppers watched the documentary "The Forgotten Refugees (Jews of the Arab World)" and acted out excerpts edited into a play from Amos Oz's In the Land of Israel, relating a conversation with Mizrachi Jews of Beit Shemesh. The excerpt is from the chapter "The Insult and the Fury."

Avi: My parents came from North Africa; all right, from Morrocco. So What? They had their dignity, didn’t they? Their own values? Their own faith? Me, I’m not a religious man. Travel on the Sabbath. But my parents – why did you make fun of their beliefs? Why did they have to be disinfected with Lysol at the Haifa Port?

Shimon: [In a sad and desperate tone] The Labour Movement just wiped out everything that was imprinted on a person. As if it was all nonsense. And then they put what they wanted into him. From that ideology of theirs. Like we were some kind of dirt. Ben-Gurion himself called us the dust of the earth. That’s written in Bar-Zohar’s book about Ben Gurion. But now that Begin’s here, believe me; my parents can stand up straight, with pride, and dignity. I’m not religious, either, but my parents are; they’re traditional, and Begin has respect for their beliefs. Your whole problem is that you don’t realize that Begin is prime minister. For you he’s garbage, not prime minister. Who ever heard of such a thing?

Yaakov: You guys have been running crazy for five years now, and to hell with the country. What do you care, as long as you get back into power? Is that the way the opposition is supposed to act? Is it? To rat us out to the world? To throw dirt? To support the enemy? And ruining the army? To buy off Knesset members?

Moshe: Before every election, the kibbutzim show up here – Tzora and all the others – to ask for our votes. You go tell your friends; until they let us come to Kibbutz Tzora when we want, to swim in their pool and play tennis and go out with their daughters; until they accept the children of Bet Shemesh in their school, or bring their kids to school here instead of dragging them a hundred kilometers by bus to some white school; until they stop being so snooty, they’ve got nothing to look for here. We’re Begin.”

Shlomo: Look, if a guy like me shows up in your kibbutz, like you showed up in Bet Shemesh today, the secretary runs straight to the telephone to let the police know there’s a suspicious character wandering around. Tell me the truth: he’d call, wouldn’t he?

Moshe: And tell me something else: what would you guys say if, before the elections, a bus drove right into your kibbutz, full or riffraff from Bet Shemesh, and they scattered through the kibbutz, knocking on doors, canvassing to convince you to vote Begin. God’s truth: what would you do? Wouldn’t you throw us out like a bunch of dogs?

Shlomo: Really, think about this. When I was a little kid, my kindergarten teacher was white and her assistant was black. In school, my teacher was Iraqi and the Principal was Polish. On the construction site where I worked, my supervisor was some redhead from Solel Boneh. At the clinic the nurse was Egyptian and the doctor Ashkenazi. In the Army, we Moroccans are the corporals and the officers are from the kibbutz. All my life I’ve been on the bottom and you’ve been on the top.