Kaveret underway

Since the last blog update, things have been busy here for the Shnatties! They enjoyed resting up after Poland and spending Rosh Hashana here in Israel with family and friends. After getting back from chofesh, the Shnatties settled into their new houses, to practice living independently – shopping on a budget, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and enjoying having a space of their own to run activities or just hang out. Here you can see some of them hanging out around the house in Carmiel, and doing a cool crafts project:

Their first week was the beginning of their regular Kaveret schedule which includes mesima (volunteer projects), Yom Kvutza, Hebrew classes, an Israeli society course taught by their Kaveret rakazim (coordinators), and va’adot (committee) planning time where they meet in different committees that are responsible for different aspects of their life – from house maintenance, to budgeting and shopping, to planning cultural events for the group. They also have on most Thursday afternoons a joint State Time where the Akko and Carmiel houses meet and split up according to state to start their discussions about returning to their kenim and leading together.

That first week also featured the very meaningful “relationships seminar”, a unique Shnat experience where the group, which has now spent many amazing but challenging months together, tries to deepen their friendships and also challenge ech other on difficult issues. They do this by spending a two day seminar exploring the meaning of feedback, dialogue, barriers, communication and forgiveness. In both Akko and Carmiel this seminar was very successful and meaningful for all the Shnatties and really set the tone for them starting off living together for the rest of Shnat.

The next week was the Sukkot holiday, and on Shnat, Sukkot week also means the annual Yam L’yam (sea to sea) tiyul! All of Habo’s English-speaking Shnatties from around the world came together to explore the land of Israel on foot, starting from the Mediterranean beach in the west, all the way east to the Kinneret. This four day tiyul featured long days of hiking in mixed groups with the American, Canadian, British, Scottish and South African Shnat participants, through Crusader castles, past great Rabbis’ tombs, down river beds and up mountains (including the famous Mt. Meron, Israel’s second-highest peak) , preparing and eating food in our ‘field kitchen’, and running get-to-know-you activities in the evening. The grand finale was arriving at the Kinneret beach after four long days of hiking and jumping in the water for a refreshing swim! In all the Yam L’yam this year was a huge success, with great bonding between the different countries and a hard but rewarding hiking experience.

After Sukkot and Simchat Torah, the holidays finally came to an end and the regular routine finally kicked in. The Shnatties are doing six different mesimot this year: at the Dshanim school in Haifa, in Akko, on a Coexistence tzevet in several Arab towns in the area, in Carmiel, in Tzfat, and in Tiberias. They are running a variety of activities, from running English activities in schools, doing one-on-one tutoring, doing after-school enrichment activities, and even running peulot in the ken just like they have in Australia and New Zealand. One special project running for the first time this year, is the correspondence project with Australian Habo, where students in year 6 and 7 from several of the mesimot are writing English letters to year 6s and year 7s from Habo OZ, and they are going to correspond to practice their English and help connect the Habo kids to Israel!

This past week they Shnatties also travelled to a special encounter with the Chavot Hachshara - the Shnatties of Habonim Dror’s Israeli sister movement, Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed. This meeting was part of Shnat for a long time but hadn’t happened in the past few years, and so it was especially exciting to bring the two groups together as youth movement leaders from Israel and the Diaspora together who have a lot things in common and a lot of differences. They spent a full day together in the Chavot talking about how they understand their Jewish and Zionist identity, and how they see the role of their movements in their communities. Many interesting discussions came up and the Shnatties will see the Chavot again at the upcoming Rabin Memorial Rally in Tel Aviv.

In preparation for that rally, the group also visited a Yitzchak Rabin memorial exhibition in Carmiel this week, dealing with Prime Minister Rabin’s life, his term as Prime Minister and involvement with the peace process, the incitement leading up to his assassination, and the political climate in Israel today. They will also be attending a seminar this weekend with all the Habonim Shnatties from around the world, including Spanish and Portugese speakers as well as English, where they will learn together about Rabin’s legacy of pursuing peace and the state of that legacy in Israel and Diaspora communities today, as well as thinking together what Habonim Dror’s role should be in carrying that on.