Builders and Dreamers: Habonim Labor Zionist Youth in North America : A Century in Memoir

This is the story of a unique strand in the American Jewish tapestry, a subculture that has persisted on the landscape of Jewish life for more than a half-century: the Labor Zionist youth movement, Habonim. Although it never numbered more than four thousand members at its peak, Habonim has had an influence far beyond its size. Habonim members were a key segment of the worldwide pioneering youth movement that built the state of Israel. They set out to change Jewish history by transforming young Jews into the working class of a new nation. And while most remained in America, so many went on to become leading actors in the modern Jewish drama - both in Israel and in America - that Habonim, the editors write, "sometimes seems to be nothing less than an officers' training corps for the Jewish people of the late twentieth century." Recounted largely in the members' own words, this book follows these young American and Canadian pioneers from the early years to the present day. It includes the memories of immigrant youngsters like Golda Meir, who went off in the 1920s to till the rocky soil of the Galilee, and of 1960s-era youth like the founders of Kibbutz Gezer, home of the Israel Softball League. Also featured are recollections of dozens of ordinary and extraordinary Habonim graduates in both Israel and North America, for whom "the movement" remains forever etched as the central experience of their youth. Contributors include Golda Meir, Mordecai Richler, Muki Tsur, Marion Magid, Leonard Fein, Moshe Kerem, David Breslau, Aharon Remez, David Twersky, Yosef Goell, Nahum Guttman, Jill Benderly, Daniel Elazar, Jacob Katzman, Saadia Gelb, Arthur Goren, Martin and Ethel Taft, and many more. Also included is an afterword by Israeli President Chaim Herzog, a founder of Irish Habonim. Extensive essays by the editors link the inner life of the youth movement to the historic events surrounding it. Builders and Dreamers combines ideas, action, and powerful emotions as it recoun