Eizor Galil: Some of HDNA's Finest

We're very sorry for our delinquency in writing on the blog - mostly it's Brian's fault for not being on top of things. Well - that's all going to change now! Expect way more posts from Eizor Galil with awesome stuff to tell you about.

So far we have had a very successful first half of the year, from Fall Seminar to our most recent event, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. We've had peulat shichvah almost every month as well as a major Eizor event held every month. We've had incredible showings at all community-wide events.

In fact, we tend to provide many of the teen planners for these events. We had two chaverim of HDNA (Anna Yankelev and Jenny Smolen) help plan the Hadag Nachash Concert in December and we have 5 representatives (Sara Zebovitz, Jordan Cooper, Ally Amado, Danielle GRoss, and Randy Schur) for Philadelphia for the J-Serve program out of a total 8 possible spots. We are all over the place!

Today we had almost 50 HDNA Eizor Galil chaverim at the Community Caring Carnival at the Haverford School for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. It was an amazing day where families from the Variety Club, an organization that helps families with children with mental and physical disabilities, were partnered with local Jewish community teens to participate in a fun carnival at the Haverford School outside of Philadelphia. You could see chultzot everywhere! It was a great day.

Well, that's all for now. Enjoy the pictures and we'll update you again soon!


Adam Mayer (WS55), Molly Bernstein (WS59), and Jake Felder (WS54) at the Jewish Relief Agency Food Packing Day


Brian Cohen (WS53), Yony Laurence (WS59), and Sara Zebovitz (WS59) excited at the Hadag Nachash Concert


Karmi Oxman (WS58) and Anna Yankelev (WS58) at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

Ken Afikim 2006 Year End Review

The last two months of 2006 were eventful ones for Ken Afikim, and now that we've rung in a brand new calendar year, we should take a moment to look back at what we've done lately here in Detroit.

In November, Tikkun Olam was center stage, as we discussed the fundamentals of "fixing the world." What is tikkun olam, why do we do it, and how? We shared our collective visions of what makes a 'broken' world, what makes an 'ideal/perfect' world, through a visual collage medium, and then discussed what we can do to move things closer to the latter vision. In the process, we collected cans to donate to Yad Ezra, the Jewish food pantry in town. It was a great peulah, thanks especially to the nachshonim who attended.

We also had a rockin' Chotrim Overnight with the entire Michigan Eizor, at which we had fun peulot, had a medurah and made s'mores, sang kumsitz, watched a movie about establishing unions and challenging the dominant paradigm, and got to spend a lot of time together with our friends from Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor. (We can't wait for the Eizor Michigan Shabbaton to do it all again!)

Then, December brought the eizor Chanukah party, which included paper bag dramatizations of the Chanukah story, sufganiya eating contests, a challenge to make the best chanukah menorah out of playdough, lots of dreidel spinning, chocolate gelt eating, exchanging of gifts, and best of all, partying with our fellow Habo's from all over Michigan! We even collected a very large box of donated children's books to go to Bookstock, a Jewish book sale for the metro-Detroit community.

Nachshonim and Ma'apilim then headed off to Winter Seminar in lovely Mansfield, Ontario, for a week of intensive peulot about the movement and lots of crazy kef with our chaverim from all over North America. The weather outside was not very frightful, but the fires were still delightful, and the company could not have been better! Tzevet Afikim returned inspired, and firmly upon the hagshama path, ready to begin a brand new year!

If you are interested in picking up what we are putting down in D-town, and would like to be on our mailing list, just contact Raya, Rosh Eizor for Detroit, at rosheizordetroit@gmail.com.

מסיבת חנוכה במישיגן a.k.a. Michigan Chanukah Party!

If you live in Eizor Michigan, then please join us for a rousingly fun celebration of Chanukah, Hannukah, or even חנוכה on Sunday, December 17th from 2-4 pm at Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, MI.
Bring a lightly used children's book to donate, as well as a gift under $5 for a gift swap. We'll have traditional fried foods, games, exciting historical re-enactments, and of course, plenty of fun times with your friends from the Michigan eizor!
If you want details or need to arrange a last-minute carpool, contact Raya, Rosh Eizor for Detroit, at rosheizordetroit@gmail.com.

New Issue of B'Tnua!

There is a new issue of B'tnua available on the HDNA website! This issue features many exciting Ken happenings, including an introduction of our lovely Rashei Eizor! You can check it out at http://www.habonimdror.org/news/btnua/Fall06/btnua.pdf

Eizor Maryland Kickin' It!!

Check out the exciting events we have had in the past month:

On November 12, the whole eizor gathered at the Rockville JCC for a Rabin memorial ken event. We watched a short film commemorating his life and had peulot l'fi schichva about peace activism, self-empowerment and other relevant topics.

Then on November 22 we met once again at the Rockville JCC for a Thanksgiving Tikkun Olam event! We were joined by residents of the Jewish Foundation for Group homes, who are mentally handicapped adults, who helped us make sandwiches and bag lunches. These lunches were then donated to a men's shelter in Rockville. We then did some rikud and played a huge game of sumo!

What's coming up?

On December 10 we will have our Chanukka Party at the Rockville JCC! Be there at 1:30 for a crazy party and then join us at 3 for a Klezmer performance.

Ken Toronto (TurducKEN) Update

Last night our lovely rosh machaneh, Emma Sobel, hosted the first of many ken events at her new apartment.
The theme was the "Great Gesher Cook-Off". Chanichim were told to bring ONE ingredient that they thought would be useful for making dinner. We had lots of onions, potatoes, pasta, cheese, tam tam crackers, tomato sauce, mushrooms, snow peas, lettuce and bitter sweet chocolate. Together we decided the best menu for dinner that would use up all the ingredients. We made crackers and cheese dip as an apetizer, followed by a simple salad and for the main course we made homefries and a pasta in a tomato, mushroom and onion sauce and for dessert we had some delicious bitter sweet chocolate. Everyone had a great time making dinner and shmoozing. We had a general check-in about school and played a bit of a 90's trivia game. We're all looking forward to more intimate ken events at Emma's new place.

Update on Ken Toronto

This post is specially dedicated to Eizor Toronto! The information on their Ken Structure and leadership is now updated in the September post about the structure of all of the Kenim, so please scroll down and check that out!

Eizor Toronto held Gesher Fall Seminar at the lovely Niagara Falls in Buffalo New York a couple of weekends ago. The theme of the seminar was Finding the "I" in Israel and they had a great showing of kids and madrichim (including a guest appearance from Merakez Tochniot K-Lo) and it was overall a very successful seminar. They have also had several other successful events, including a BBQ and camp reuion in September, Ken Rikud in early October, a chinuch peula themed "Creating and Debating" in mid October, and just this past week a Rabin Memorial
peula. Eizor Toronto's next peula will be a Tikkun Olam project on November 26th.

Speaking of Tikkun Olam, some of the Bonot in the Ken decided on Halloween to take on a Tikkun Olam project of their own. 6 Bonot (in the picture) took part in a project called "Halloween for the Hungry," where instead of asking for candy on Halloween, they trick-or-treated for non-perishable food items and later donated them to a local food bank. These Bonot set a wonderful example for how you can make a difference while having fun with your kvutzah! For more information on this project, visit www.projectequity.org.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more Ken news coming soon!