Published: 2 March 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
LAST YEAR WAS NOT a year for plans. As a nation-wide lockdown was progressively implemented last March, some of the seven Zionist youth movements – Hashomer Hatzair, Netzer, Hineni, Tzofim, Betar, Bnei Akiva and Habonim Dror – had not yet run their first program of the year. Some had already migrated to Zoom before restrictions began.
The youth movement experience is embedded in structures and rituals, with the year made up of weekly to monthly programs, planning seminars, and annual winter and summer camps. The progression of movement life from Year 2 to age 22 is marked by stages much like rites of passage, such as leadership training in Year 10, leading in Year 11, and, after Year 12, Shnat, the gap year program in Israel.
Committed participants remember the lines of their camp songs from their junior years and count the days until their flight leaves for Israel.
According a ZFA spokesperson, Sarit Braver, Masa Israel Journey participants were given approvals to enter the country on a special Masa permit issued by the Government of Israel, even with strict arrival restrictions in Israel. However, in December, the Israeli Government announced a suspension on air travel and a ban on non-citizens entering the country due to the threat of the new UK COVID-19 variant.
According to Braver, the majority of gap year programs for 2021 would be able to run once Ben Gurion airport reopens, or later in the year. Out of all the movements, only Netzer and Bnei Akiva intend to, or are contemplating, commencing their programs later in 2021, although with significantly smaller numbers.
No other movement program is running, mostly due to lack of numbers. Most graduates who would have gone on a Israel gap year or Shnat program are not doing so, either because their program isn’t happening in 2021, or due to ongoing uncertainty around the pandemic, and the inconvenience of postponing university degrees or further education while waiting to leave halfway through 2021. According to youth leaders, the reality of these half-year and full-year delays for school graduates is “putting life on hold”.
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Ultimately, eager graduates who had already undergone a lacklustre final year of school, faced more disappointment as what had been viewed as the pinnacle of the youth movement experience was no longer possible for them.
A youth leader says her sister was “devastated” at not being able to go on her movement’s program. “I went on Shnat in 2018 and had an incredible time,” she says. “The fact that my sister can’t do that and will never experience what I did that year is really sad. Most kids who go to a youth movement throughout their lives really look forward to it.”
For the youth movements, 2020 had been a year of stagnation and disappointment, with cancelled camps, cancelled Israel programs and Zoom fatigue.
And these events followed a summer of bushfires. Noa Shaul, of the Australasian Zionist Youth Council, recalls how camps were affected: “I think December 2019 was the first time the youth movements realised that camp wasn’t a given. We needed to have a Plan A and Plan B.”
Habonim Sydney camp was almost evacuated because of bushfires, while Hineni Melbourne and Sydney camps were cancelled at the last minute. All other camps ran as normal, while following advice from state fire services. Depending on location, some camp activities had to take place indoors due to bushfire smoke.
“The bushfires were definitely a wake-up call,” Shaul says. “And then Covid happened.”
At the beginning of the first lockdown, the online youth movement experience for many consisted of Thursday night art lessons, Friday exercise and meditation, and Saturday night disco. Youth movement leaders were running more than they had ever run before, with multiple online activities per week on top of their leaders’ meetings.
Following the lockdown, the youth movements cautiously ran weekend activities and winter day camps, complying with varying levels of social distancing and hygiene restrictions. Victoria, however, had an entirely different year to the other states, with a four-month lockdown from July to October.
Hannah Rosenberg was director of Betar Melbourne and oversaw daily operations, including leaders’ meetings.
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“Usually, they’re super fun and they go on for ages, and a lot of banter, but it was hard to keep that going online. You do eight hours online for school or uni and the last thing you want to do is go on Zoom again for a leadership meeting.”
The leaders noticed a plunge in morale as the year progressed. Kids stopped attending online activities and the commitment of leaders wavered, a symptom of the lockdown that Rosenberg describes as a “tiredness from doing nothing”.
“I knew no one was having fun during our hard lockdown. Everyone was at uni or work and I felt a lot of pressure to make leaders’ meetings fun and exciting.
Jordi Blackman, from Habonim Sydney, was responsible for co-directing its senior federal camp, which had been scheduled for last month. But in August, she and her co-director had to cancel and opted instead to run state-based senior camps.
Then, in December, while Habonim Sydney’s leaders were at their campsite preparing for junior camp, a new Covid cluster emerged in Avalon and the Northern Beaches was declared a hotspot. With just a couple of days to go until the kids arrived, the junior camp had to be cancelled.
Due to the ongoing uncertainty, Blackman then cancelled the NSW January senior camp.
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“It was super disheartening. It’s really hard to cancel something that you’ve worked so hard towards and put so many hours and effort towards, let alone cancelling twice. I was really upset, but it was a situation that I couldn’t control. The safety of our kids would have been compromised if we ran those camps.”
In the end, Habonim Sydney ran smaller, weekend-away seminars. Similarly in Queensland, Betar’s Gold Coast camp had to be postponed due to an outbreak scare but Betar was able to run it later in January.
Shaul argues that the youth movements deserve more credit for their adaptability. “They’re really creative and have adapted a lot. [Betar Gold Coast camp] was postponed and they’ve worked really hard to make sure it can still run. It’s another thing that shows resilience.”
In Melbourne, it was the opposite. Up until early December, the city’s movements were preparing for socially distanced day activities at their local branches instead of overnight camps.
“We were going to do a day camp for so long,” Rosenberg says. “And then at the last minute, the movements decided to do overnight camps. It was all done within less than a month, which was crazy. We plan things six or seven months in advance; you book buses, you do everything early. It was a bit of a madness.”
So, after a long year of disappointment, Melbourne camps ended on a high.
“I think people realised how magical it was to be on a camp. We all forgot that a little bit because we didn’t have camp in winter. The kids were incredible. There was so much laughter the whole time. People were reinspired about the movement.”
Rosenberg concludes: “The leaders in every movement know youth movements are so important to inspire and empower Jewish youth all over Australia. We’ve all been able to hold onto that in the last year.”
In light of Melbourne’s success, the youth leaders interviewed were optimistic about the youth movements’ ability to reset and bounce back in 2021.
Cartoon: John Kron
