The Poland Journey Grows Nearer

Hello Workshop Family and Friends,

The past week has been an eventful one in the world of workshop!

Last weekend, the workshoppers headed off on Friday morning to the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, at the Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz. The museum was the first official holocaust commemorative museum in the world – established as a small exhibition of photographs from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1949. Today, the museum is still a huge part of the kibbutz history, which had a large number of Warsaw Ghetto fighters’ in the original kibbutz community.

The seminar started with an in-depth look at the Nazi rise to power, and the elements of the Nazi society. The workshoppers went through a few exhibitions – including the Nazi rise to power, the process of ghettoisation and deportation of the Jews, the world of camps that the Nazis created, and we also had some time to examine the newest exhibit to the museum – the experience of the Dutch Jewish community in the Shoah. Needless to say, it was a lot to take in!

The workshoppers headed from the museum to Shlomi hostel, where the seminar continued with a series of challenging peulot. Over Friday & Saturday, the workshoppers dealt with a range of topics, including anti-semitism in the medieval period and in the modern period, Diaspora Jewish communities and the characteristics of them created throughout the period of Exile, the beginnings of Jewish Zionist youth movements, as well as the act of rebellion – in their lives as individuals as well as within the movement.

On Sunday morning, the workshoppers headed back to the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, although this time a lot of the focus was on the resistance during the holocaust, and with a big emphasis on the acts of the youth movement during the shoah, and specifically the Dror movement – a name from which we draw our own heritage. The group went through the museum exhibition that examines the different types and levels of resistance and rebellion during the holocaust, as well as the exhibition that deals with the Warsaw Ghetto, including the Uprising of 1943. The workshoppers also spent some time at the Righteous Gentiles exhibit, as well as the “hall of the founders” a large central room of the museum which has riveting testimonies of the survivors of the uprisings that came to settle in the Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz.

The seminar was a challenging and inspiring experience for the workshoppers, one which has really laid down the groundwork for the next step in the Poland journey – the trip to Poland itself. We will be heading over there in the wee hours of the morning of March 12, and will return to Israel also in the very early hours of March 19. It will undoubtedly be an exciting educational and emotional experience for the workshoppers, one which they will certainly gain a lot from.

Happy Leap Day!

On Advocacy, Conventions and Hikes

Hello Workshop Friends and Families,

Today I wanted to update you on the past week or so.  As I mentioned in my last blog update, the chanichim this past week had an Israel Advocacy Seminar organized jointly by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and MASA.  The seminar took place from Sunday thru Wednesday and they stayed in a lovely hostel in Jerusalem.  The seminar consisted of a mix of different speakers and workshops from a diverse group of people with a wealth of experience and a variety of backgrounds.  They had speakers from the government (including the speaker for the Prime Minister’s Office!), they had speakers from the media (including the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times!), and they had workshops from many different organizations that provide high-grade training in areas such as public speaking, media correspondence, and social network-based community organizing.  The seminar overall provided the chanichim with the opportunity to gain skills that they can apply both to advocacy as well as to many other fields in which communication and organizing are key, as well as being provided a chance to be exposed to people with different views than our own – namely the Israeli government.  Oh, and there was also a stand-up comedian! 

After that intense week, on Saturday night the chanichim traveled back to the Jerusalem area for a celebratory dinner that coincided with the World Mazkirut Convention, where the leadership from the different Habonim’s around the world come together for a 5 day seminar.  Here they hob-knobbed with the new Southern Hemisphere chanichim as well as the new Latin American chanichim, the leadership from countries all over the world - Mexico to New Zealand, Brazil to France and more - they ate pancakes, popcorn and cotton candy, and were entertained by the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed youth choir - a big hit every year.

Today the chanichim are spending their regular Yom Kvutsa on a special one-day hike in the far North near Kibbutz Ramot Naftali.  It is going very well as of writing this update.

I also wanted to give you what I promised – a description of the chanichim’s Messima in their own words.  So here are a couple to start us off for this update:

Deshanim (Basha, Emma, Gabe, Finn, Leor):

This is the best messima, by far! On Sundays, we work with tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders to help them learn english. We teach less as a teacher and more as an aide as we sit one-on-one with students and assist as the students complete worksheets. Sunday is our most active day, when we work during all six of the class periods. Sunday is also the day in which we bond with the students the most, as we work closely. Tuesday and Wednesday are both days in which we plan the first half of the day and run our planned activities in the afternoon. This ranges from explanations about our home countries to inventions to even outer space! During the times in which we lead a class, we play games and have the kids sit in a circle. We have learned that movies always work. Deshanim is a high school a little north of Haifa. Every messima morning, Basha, Emma, and Gabe leave at 6:30 and Finn and Leor leave at 7:15 in order to catch the public sherut, or large taxi. We then catch the "school bus", or Egged (bus company) bus with the students and teachers to the school.

Akko – Arab:

We (Brandon, Talia, Emily, Isaac) have been working twice a week in an Arab school in the centre of Akko. We go into grade 7 and 8 English classes and run activities for them to teach them English in an informal setting. Twice a week we also work at a primarily Arab after school club for ages 3-18. In the after school club we do various things such as cooking, sports, and arts and crafts. We love working in Akko, it gives us a deep connection to our city and helps us understand the relationship between the different groups of people that live here.