Habonim Dror North America Kenim

Eizor Galil: Some of HDNA's Finest

2007-01-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-12T08:06:00.000-08:00

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!!

2006-12-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

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!

Na'aleh Fall Seminar!

2006-11-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks!

Na'aleh will be having our annual Fall Seminar this weekend, November 17-19th, at the one and only Central Office of Habonim! It's going to rock like no seminar has rocked before.
Come hang out with your friends, meet some really awesome madrichim, and prepare yourself for the most fun weekend, ever.

Wanna come? Contact your Rosh Ken, or email me if you have any questions.
See you there!

Eizor Michigan Chotrim Overnight

2006-11-08T16:57:00.000-08:00

Michigan's 3 kenim are getting together in Ann Arbor for a Chotrim Overnight, Saturday November 18-Sunday November 19th!

(Perhaps the title "Chotrim Overnight," is a misnomer, since the Amelim are invited too.)

We all know there is nothing better than hanging out with your machaneh friends in distant cities while eating bagels in your PJ's. So, if you're in 4th through 7th grade and you live in Michigan, you're invited to join us! Ma'apilim in the area are also welcome to work/chaperone as tzevet.

Contact your local Rosh Eizor or Rosh Ken in Ann Arbor, Detroit, or Kalamazoo for information and to RSVP. We hope to see you there!

Seminars and Sukkot!

2006-10-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been very active in Kenim all over North America! Here is a run-down of some of the latest happenings. But first, a few soundbites:

New Ken emerging in Sunnyvale/San Jose/Paolo Alto California!

Galil Fall Seminar 2006 hailed by camp committee member as "the biggest seminar in Galil history!"

Eizor DC launches Ken website! Check it out at http://hdmaryland.org

Ken Toronto gets down with some local Rikud

Michigan Shickvat ma'apilim ken has frequent asephot

Workshop Kvutzat Dofek has reunion in Pittsburgh

Chevre T'nua hanging out in Sukkas all over North America!

And now for more detailed descriptions of recent Ken Events:

Vancouver:

Eizor Vancouver has been extremely active this month! Most recently, they held sukkah building in the Vancouver Bayit earlier this week, where they simultaneously celebrated sukkot and Canadian Thanksgiving! They also recently had a reunion in Seattle and a Shabbat dinner at the Vancouver Bayit. This coming weekend they will be holding a hadracha seminar for the Post-MBI kvutzah in preparation for the upcoming Fall Seminar at Miriam on October 27-29th.

Southern Cali:

Announcing California's 5th and newest chanichim Ken: Ken Sunnyvale/San Jose/Paolo Alto!!! This ken recently had its first peula, where they built a sukkah. Madrichim from Santa Cruz and the Bay are helping out sunnyvale and they had a peula with 15 chanichim, 2/3rds of which were new to the movement! They are planning a havdallah peula for their next event.

The LA ken had a Sukkot peula on October 8^th and the 2 chanichim (almost half of which were new) had a great time learning about the chag and hearing about Gilboa’s winter camp, making decorations for our sukkah, hanging them, and writing down wishes and goals for themselves and israel.

Northern Cali:

Ken Bay Area, now known as BAY-KEN (pronounced Bacon, kosher of course) had a havdalla/rosh hashana ken event on Saturday Sept 30th. With 10 kids and a handful of madrichim fun was had by all.

Cali Ma'apilim:

California has not had ma'apilim activity in over 20 years. Within 8 days this all suddenly changed in both NorCal and SoCal! On friday the 29th of september there was a shabbat dinner at G's in UCSanta Cruz. 16 ma'apilim from as far as
Australia and as close as down the street came in to a wonderful shabbat dinner followed by talk about goals for the SC ma'apilim ken. A saturday brunch was also enjoyed by 10 ma'apilim in downtown SC. In SoCal 6 ma'apilim attended a shabbat dinner at Rachael Sevilla's house with a wonderful raisin challah, it was a great time indeed.

Michigan:

The Ann Arbor/Detroit Ken had a very successful ken event this past weekend, which was divided in to two peulot for older and younger kids. Lots of kids attended and it was very successful. The older kids watched and discussed the movie "Invisible Children." Fall Seminar at Tavor also happened recently, and tons of kids and ma’apilim attended and it was a great success. Also, the very active Ma’apilim ken is having lots of fun!

Philly:

Still riding on their incredibly successful Fall Seminar, Eizor Philly had Ken events for every shickvah for Sukkot, all of which were well attended. Next major eizor activity will be a Tikkun Olam project at the Jewish Relief Agency in November. They also have more shickvah Ken events planned for the near future and are looking into public Philadelphia spaces to host them.

DC-Maryland:

Mosh held a very successful Fall Overnight the last weekend in September with over 100 kids and 20 ma'apilim. The theme of the overnight was the ongoing situation with Israel and Lebanon. They challenged chanichim and madrichim alike with several peulot, some of which were divided by shickvah and some of which were for the whole overnight together. On October 29th they will be holding their first big Ken event for chanichim at the Rockville JCC.

September Ken Events!

2006-09-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, September 15th - 17th, many successful ken and Eizor events were held around the country! From New York to California and in between, here are some of the exciting things that happend this weekend:

Michigan Ma'apilim Shabbat Dinner

The Ma'apilim Ken in Ann Arbor had their second Ma'apilim Shabbat Dinner on Friday the 15th. They had about 20 people in attendance at each of them. They made some exciting and important decisions about their ma'apilim ken, the first of which is that they are going to have a ken kupah!!! This money will go towards funding food & drinks for shabbat dinner and other activities they want to have as a maapilim ken, and to help this process they elected a gizbar.
They also decided to do a tikkun olam project as a maapilim ken, and they additionally decided to start a habo broomball team! If you live in Ann Arbor and want to sign up for the broomball team, registration will begin in October!

New York Darfur Rally

Around 100 members of HDNA marched in the NYC Save Darfur Rally on Sunday afternoon. Around 30 members of the New York Eizor were joined by around 70 Philadelphia chanichim and madrichim who drove up from the Galil Fall Seminar. Most people wore chultzot and proudly represented Habonim-Dror in this stand against the genocide in Darfur. There was a concert after the rally which many people also attended.

Maryland Kupa Brunch

The first event of the Maryland eizor was a huge success! Over 70 kids and twenty madrichim and madatz made it out to Clarksville, MD for the kupa brunch this Sunday. For a little over an hour we shmoozed and ate good food that everyone brought, and then we all came together for a machaneh-style hitkansut (flag raising and roll call). We explained the ken structure for the year, and introduced each tzevet katan to their shichva. We then sang Paneinu, as we do every morning at machaneh kayitz, because this kupa brunch marked the morning, the beginning, of our new ken. After that, each ken went with their madrichim for icebreakers and fun games. We ended the day and now everyone is looking forward to the Mosh Fall Overnight, which will be a weekend full of fun peulot and hanging out at Mosh, from Sept 29-Oct 1. The first event of Machaneh Shana was a blast!

California Ken Peulot in Irvine and LA

California boasted two peulot this weekend. They held one peula in Irvine for the Irvine and San Diego kids. About 9 chanichim came in from San Diego 12 from Irvine, totaling 21 kids and 5 madrichim. They hung out in a park and enjoyed the California weather. They split by ken for a part of it and took some time to name their Kenin. Ken Irvine now prouldy calls itself Ken Divine, while Ken San Diego will henceforth be known as Leggo my Diego.

25 kids attended the peula in LA, 6 of which are new to Habonim and will hopefully be quickly converted into Gilboa junkies. They hung out in the park and had pizza and a grand old time.

Galil Fall Seminar

Galil held its annual Fall Seminar up at machaneh this past weekend with record breaking attendance! There were about 140 kids and 40 madrichim at the seminar, which is more chanichim than they had at machaneh 2nd session! On Sunday, they drove to New York to and met up with Na'aleh to attend the Save Darfur Rally and park of Jewsapalooza. The whole weekend was a great success.

The Ken Resurgence!

2006-09-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

Shalom Habonim Dror North America! I am your merakezet ma'apilim, Jamie, bringing you all of the latest in Ken news! There is a lot of buzz in the movement right now about our Kenim, and this blog is here to show you what the buzz is all about! From taking on mesimot to having multiple peulot a month, Habonim Dror kenim are reflecting an exciting surge in movement activity throughout the year.

For starters, I want to introduce to you our National Ken Tzevet, also known as our Rashei Eizor, and tell you a bit about the structure of this year's eizorim.

**But first, a few words about Ken structure: for those of you who may not know, an Eizor is a general area of Ken activity, which a Ken is a smaller group that meets together within that Eizor. The Kenim within in an eizor can be divided either geographically (ie: one Ken in San Francisco and another in Berkeley) or by age (ie: all of the Amelim and Chotrim that live in the Philadelphia area). Also, the term "Ma'apilim" refers to anyone in the movement who is post-high school and the term "Nachshonim" refers to anyone in the movement post-MBI through Pre-Workshop (11th and 12th graders).**

Anyway, getting back to the specifics, here is the scoop on The Eizorim of Habonim-Dror North America, 2006-2007!

EIZOR NEW YORK:
Affiliation: Machaneh Na'aleh
Rashei Eizor:
Jessie Karsif (Gizbarit/Techni) - Na'aleh native, MBI yudbet, Madatz 04 at Galil, Workshop 55
Stacie Shmokler (Rosh Kvutzah Tzeirot - younger kids) - Mosh native, MBI 99, Madatz 00, Workshop 51, Techni at Na'aleh 06.
Jeremy Tillinger (Rosh Kvutzah Bogrot - older kids) - Na'aleh Native, MBaeiou, Madatz at Gilboa 2004, Workshop 55
Danny Rosenhanst (Rosh Ma'apilim) - Na'aleh Native, Madatz 2002, Workshop 53

Eizor Structure: – There are four Rashei Eizor who oversee the Eizor but are each responsible for a specific thing. The kids are split into two kvutzot of younger and older kids – with a one Rosh Eizor overseeing each shickvah. They have Rashei Ken who are made up of Nachshonim (post-mbiers and post-madatz) who are split up and assigned to one of the kvutzot. They plan to alternate Eizor and Ken events. There is also an active ma'apilim ken in New York, and they will be having their first Shabbat dinner this Friday night in Park Slope.

EIZOR PHILADELPHIA:
Affiliation: Machaneh Galil
Rashei Eizor:
Ben Profeta - Galil native, MBA 02, Madatz 03 at Mosh, Workshop 54, 2nd year Rosh Eizor
Brian Cohen - Galil native, MBI yud, Madatz 02, Workshop 531/2, 2nd year as Rosh Eizor
Shlicha: Adi Inbar
* Ben and Brian live together in a Bayit in North Philly, along with two other ma'apilim*

Eizor Structure: Eizor Galil has a tzevet made up of post-Madatz as madrichim and lots of ma’apilim. They plan to hold one major Eizor event a month and one peula shickvah a month where each shickvah meets somewhere. They have established a Tzevet Katan for each shickvah, each of which has a mesima and a chinuch theme for the year! They have about 26 or 27 people working for Eizor Galil and are calling themselves "TEG" (short for tzevet eizor galil). They will also be sending out an Eizor newsletter every week (which will hopefully be posted on this blog) with updated info about each peula.

EIZOR DC-BALTIMORE:
Affiliation: Machaneh Moshava
Rashei Eizor:
Mattan Shuchman - Mosh native, MBI 2000, Madatz 01, Workshop 52, Habo-U Fall 05, 2nd year as Rosh Eizor
Lori Zeller - Mosh Native, MBaeiou, Madatz 04, Workshop 55
Rashei Ma'apilim:
Ben Meiselman - Mosh native, MBIyud, Madatz 02
Aaron Kutnick - Mosh native, MBA, Madatz 03, Workshop 54
Rosh UPZ:
Ben Wolf - Mosh native, MBaeiou, Madatz 04
Shlicha: Einat Refaeli
*Mattan, Lori, Meiselface, Aaron and Ben all live in a bayit together in College Park*

Eizor structure: This Ken has a unique structure. They host one eizor event a month and one ken event a month l'fi shickvah. However, the ken events all happen in the same place at the JCC in Rockville, MD where they gather and then split into kvutzot to do peulot, and then come back together for Rad Hayom, etc. Their tzevet is made up of mostly ma’apilim from the Maryland-DC-Baltimore area, as well as some Nachshonim, where everyone is integrated onto a tzevet gadol, within which each tzevet katan is a mix of ma’apilim and nachshonim. In addition, there is a very active Ma'apilim ken in the DC area.

EIZOR MICHIGAN AND EIZOR CHICAGO
Affiliation: Machaneh Tavor
Rashei Eizor:
Oren Brandvain (Rosh Eizor Ann Arbor/Detroit) - Tavor native, MBaeiou, Madatz 04, Workshop 55, Racaz T'nua Bet (writes B'tnua)
Yelena Adelman (Rosh Ma'apilim Ann Arbor/Detroit) - Tavor native, MBA, Madatz 03
Leora Kanter (Rosh Eizor Chicago) - Tavor native, MBaeiou, Madatz 04, Workshop 55
Shlicha: Moran Lencer

Eizor Structure: Since Eizor Tavor is so spread out it is actually broken up into two Eizorim: Eizor Ann Arbor/Detroit, and Eizor Chicago. There will be a peula in Ann Arbor once a month for everyone and and additional peula once a month split into older and younger kids. Oren and Yelena are additionally working on building up the Kenim in Detroit and Kalamazoo. The tzevet is a mix of Ma'apilim and Nachshonim, and there will also be Ma'apilim peulot taking place in Ann Arbor on a regular basis.

In Chicago, and they've decided that they want to function more like a tzevet shichva at machaneh than a traditional tzevet ken. Instead of having one rosh ken they have 2-3 roshei peulah for each individual peulah on the calendar, as well as a series of vaadot for things like tikkun olam and ken shwag and listserves for kids and parents. There are not very many ma'apilim in the Chicago area and the Ken has been struggling for a while, but with several dedicated Rashei Ken and an enthusiastic Rosh Eizor, this year holds great potential!

EIZOR TORONTO:
Affiliation: Machaneh Gesher
Shaliach: Eitan Grinspoon
Rashei Eizor:
Liat Papular - Gesher native, Madatz 04, Workshop 54
Shira Bromberg - Gesher native, Madatz 04
Michelle Glotnick - Gesher native
Emma Sobel - Gesher native, Rosh Gesher 07

Eizor Toronto has been very active so far this year! Toronto is the Eizor’s biggest ken; the surrounding areas are small but developing. Some areas just outside of Toronto are working hard to build kenim but have found it difficult because of numbers (chanichim and ma'apilim). They don't necessarily want to be a Toronto based ken but because the majority of their chanichim are in Toronto, it's hard but they are working harder!

This year, they are thinking of running more 'kvutza specific' peulot ken. Our first test is with Tikkun Olam, we can't wait! In two weeks time we have our third peulat-ken: Creating and debating; what makes a leader? A week after that we have our annual FALL SEMINAR in Niagara Falls Ontario! The theme this year is "Finding the 'I' in Israel". Registration is already way up, we're expecting a great turn out! November 4th is our annual Rabin Memorial Service. Habonim has arranged that a number of other Youth Movements, including Young Judea and Hashomer, will come together to commemorate our late Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin.

EIZOR VANCOUVER:
Affiliation: Machaneh Miriam
Rashei Eizor:
Nadav Barzelai- Miriam native, Madatz 01, Habo U aleph
Steve Beck - Miriam native, MBaeiou, Madatz 04, Workshop 55
*Nadav and Steven live in a Bayit together with two other Miriam Ma'apilim in Vancouver*
Rosh Ma'apilim:
Ariel Goldman Jones - Miriam Native, MBI 2000, Tzevet Miriam
Shlicha - Naomi Kassel

Eizor Structure: Eizor Vancouver is comprised of Kenim in Vancouver, Seattle and Victoria, with Vancouver being the primary hub of activity. There were 60 kids at their reunion in Vancouver this month and they had one in Victoria as well. They are hoping to have one event for all of Eizor Vancouver each month and then twice a month having Peulot shickvah for younger and older chanichim separately. Their Ken Tzevet is made up of a few Ma'apilim and mostly Nachshonim as Rashei Ken. In Victoria, there is also an active Ma'apilim ken.

EIZOR NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:
Affiliation: Machaneh Gilboa
Rosh Eizor NoCal:
Itamar Landau - Gilboa native, MBI 01, Madatz 02, Rosh Gilboa 06
Rosh Eizor SoCal:
Tohmer Soltes - Gilboa native, MBA, Madatz 03, Workshop 54
Rosh Ma'apilim SoCal:
(Ben) Sager - Mosh native, Madatz 03, Workshop 54
Shaliach - Yair Castel

Eizor Structure: California is a big state, but these guys are ready to take it on! Eizor Gilboa is split into the Bay Area (in Northern California) and Los Angeles and Irvine (in Southern California). The Bay Area is divided into Berkeley and San Fransico. The ken tzevet in NoCal is made up of two Rashei Ken from the post-Madatz kvutzah and a few Ma’apilim. The ken meets twice a month – once for Kabbalat Shabbat or Havdallah and once for a Sunday peula. There is also a growing Ma'apilim Ken in Santa Cruz that will hopefully see some activity this year.

In Southern California, they have 6 ma’apilim in the LA area. There are Kenim in San Diego, Irvine and LA, with the largest number of chanichim in LA. They don’t really have the strength in numbers to divide up by shickvah, but they plan to have peulot once a month in LA and want to have additional peulot every other month in the Irvine area. They are also looking to do some outreach for machaneh Gilboa. They have a Mazkirut structure to their ken, with Nachshonim making up the Rosh techni and Rosh chinuch. In San Diego they have some Pre-madatz stepping up to be Rashei Ken.

EIZOR MONTREAL:
Rashei Eizor:
Sofia Corporan - Mosh native, MBA 02, Madatz 03, Workshop 54
Dustin Hellinger - Galil native, Madatz 04, Workshop 55
Rosh Ma'apilim:
Paul Gross - Tavor native, MBA, Madatz 03, Workshop 54, Racaz T'nua Bet (b'tnua)
Ruth Stevens - Galil native, MBI 00, Madatz 01, Workshop 52, Merakezet Chinuch Gilboa 06

Eizor Structure: Eizor Montreal is unique in that it is solely a ma'apilim ken, but a very active one at that! Between Mcgill, Concordia, and a smattering of other Universities, this year Montreal is home to about 25 active Ma'apilim! They have a weekly breakfast (a tradition started over 10 years ago) and regular chinuch peulot, and have recently begun discussing possible Mesimot for their ken. These ma'apilim are looking for new ways stay active in the movement throughout the year!

So there you have it folks! A brief, yet impressive run down of the Kenim of HDNA 2006-2007.

Here are some dates (that I know about) of up upcoming Ken events from now until the end of September:

New York:
Friday September 15th - Ma'apilim Shabbat Dinner in Park Slope, Brooklyn
Sunday September 17th - Save Darfur Rally and Jewsapalooza in NYC
Sat Sept 23: rosh hashanah/Coney Island: peulah by shichvah

Philadelphia:
Friday Sep 15th - Sunday Sep 17th: Galil Fall Seminar at Machaneh. The seminar will attend the Darfur Rally in NYC on Sunday

DC-Baltimore:
Sunday September 17th - Kupa Brunch
Friday September 29th - Sunday October 1st - Fall Overnight

Vancouver:
Sunday Sep 17th - Seattle Reunion 2pm
Darfur Rally in Vancouver 2pm
Friday Sep 29th - Friday night dinner for Vancouver ken, 6 PM

I will continue to post events as I find out about them!

*If you want information about any of these events, feel free to email me at ma'apilim@habonimdror.org and I will put you in touch with someone from that eizor*

That's all for now! Check back in for regular Ken updates from your friendly Merazkezet Ma'apilim!!!

ChiKen's CheCk-In

2004-12-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we had two peulot, a Chotrim (6th/7th graders) girl's sleepover and our annual Hanukkah party. Flyers were a little bit late, but phone calls were just about all made and both peulot were incredibly successful.

Of the 13 Chotrot in our region, 8 made it Saturday night, and we all had a blast. We didn't get to cram any Habo education in amidst Lindsay Lohan/Hillary Duff movies and other typical pre-teen sleepover activities, but the girls enjoyed it very much and 1st and 2nd session girls got to meet each other and we convinced at least one of them to go to camp all summer this year, so I felt it was a great success, and they seemed to agree as they're already bugging me to plan another one!

The next morning we drove the girls over to the Hanukkah party. Many of them who had RSVPed that they could only come for the sleepover decided since they were having so much fun that they wanted to stay, so our evil scheme to make them come to peulot actually worked! Mark it down guys, sleepover the night before an all ken peulah is actually quite a good strategy for making kids come to stuff.

We had a remarkable turnout to the Hanukkah peulah. The Hanukkah peulah has, in the past few years, developed a reputation for being rather boring and painful, last year we had all of 4 kids show, but this year we made Ken Yodfat history with a record number of 37 kids!
I don't know about the rest of you, maybe this may not seem like a lot to some of the larger, more active kenim, but that's huge for us.

In the 11 years I've been involved with the ken I can't remember ever having such an astounding turnout for any peulah, let alone a Hanukkah peulah. We were all pretty overwhelmed and after a few games at the beginning we spent most of the rest of the peulah making latkes and running crowd control. I got a good game of dreydle going for a while, and though we didn't get to light candles or sing songs, all of the kids seemed to have a great time. When I finally tore myself away to run off to work it was half an hour after the peulah was scheduled to end, and most of the kids were still around, just hanging out.

I don't really know what happened, or what we could have done to cause it, but suddenly our poor, little, dying ken has sprouted. We have a strong, dedicated base of chanichim who actually WANT to come to our peulot. Their energy seems to have given us all a second wind and we as a tzevet now find new and exciting challenges to face. We are beginning to conduct bimonthly formal tzevet asephot in addition to the many informal asephot we've always had, we're setting up a list serve, we're making ken shirts to try and raise some money, we've gotten permission to copy and sell the machaneh rikud cds as a fund raiser, we're sending out a monthly calendar on which we have scheduled tikun olam and some more educational-ish peulot, which have never worked out for our ken in the past but which we hope can begin to in the future.

Both of the Chicago area kenim; Ken Yodfat of Chicago and the northern suburbs and Ken Funky Ketzef of Oak Park and the western suburbs, are picking up and we hope to continue to grow and solidify our kenim in the coming months The lesson I learned from all this: Even when the ken seems like a somewhat hopeless cause, don't give up! You never know when your kids will surprise you.

We'll keep you posted

Leora Kanter
Co-Rosh Ken Yodfat
Eizor Tavor

Galil's Channukah Sleepover

2004-12-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

The Channukah Sleep Over was fantabulous!

We had a great showing from chanichim - about 75 in total. It was a pleasure to see young and old alike enjoying their time at the JCC Kaiserman.

We had a fun peula about the different groups in the time of the Channukah story, and a brief play of it as well. Thanks to Shiah for narration and Lonny for wonderful musical accompaniment. We also had some movies showing on the projector in Family Hall (movie theater-esque!) and the gym was open for a large portion of the night.

In the morning we helped with the first shift of Super Sunday at the Perelman Jewish Day school next-door. We were a great presence, with 40 people available to help make phone calls, collect documents, and sort cards. I think we performed so well because of the amazing amount of sleep that we got the night before :)

In any case, we're working on the next Eizor event at the moment, so keep a look out for mailings in the future!

Brian Cohen, Evan Chinoy, Eyal EshedEizor Galil

Galil Update

2004-11-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

Hey all! We've got off to a good start here in Eizor Galil. So far we have had one ken event every 2 or 3 weeks in our four kenim. We had our Fall Seminar on the weekend of October 8th-10th and had over 90 kids attend! Since then we have had various smaller peulot including a peula about Yitzchak Rabin and a viewing and discussion of the movie "Super Size Me." Last week we had a movie night/day in the kenim. On Saturday, 11/20, we went out to see "The Incredibles" with Kenim Main Line and Bucks County and on Sunday, 11/21, we went to see the same movie with Kenim New Jersey and Cheltenham. We had about 3 kids in New Jersey, 10 in Main Line, and 25 or so in Cheltenham. Unfortunately, no one showed up for Bucks County.

Our next Ken Activity is our Channukah Sleepover and Super Sunday Experience on the weekend of December 11th-12th. We're sleeping over at the JCC Kaiserman, running a peula, lighting the Channukah candles, watching movies, then waking up to help with Super Sunday the next day. If you want any information about it please check out our website www.campgalil.org - we will have the information and flyers up there soon!

Brian Cohen, Evan Chinoy, Eyal EshedEizor Galil

Welcome to the Kenim Newsletter

2004-11-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hello HDNA -

This blog will serve as the forum for kenim updates. After pe'ulot (activities) in each ken (chapter) or eizor (region), an article will be posted here for all to read. This way we will all know what is happening in other kenim and other eizorim throughout the year. Please spread the word. Aleh V'Hagshem.