Habonim Dror

Habonim Dror (alt. Dror Habonim translation:The builders - Freedom) is a Socialist-Zionist youth movement formed by the merger in 1980 of the Habonim and Dror youth movements.

Reevaluation of Ideological Fulfillment

For the majority of the history of Habonim and Dror, the ultimate expression of the movement's ideology was "chalutzik kibbutz aliyah", immigrating to Israel to build or join a new kibbutz. Many hundreds of graduates of Habonim and Dror indeed achieved this aim, primarily in garinim, groups which built and reinforced about 40 kibbutzim around Israel between the 1930s and the 1980s.

Related Topics:
Immigrating to Israel - 1930s - 1980s

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With the decline of the Kibbutz Movement, along with socialist movements in general, the 1980s and 1990s experienced a lull in ideological fulfillment (hagshama)for graduates of Habonim Dror. The very concept of hagshama itself even became diluted to form a rather pluralist interpretation of Hagshama Atzmit (Self-Fulfilment), which diverged from the movement concept of common ideological pursuit in favour of personal choice.

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In 1996/7 (at the 'Emergency Asepha' in December, and then at 'Veida in Israel' at Pesach) a struggle for the reinterpretation and renewal of the Hagshama concept within Habonim Dror began in the United Kingdom. Such discussions also began in North America (1998) and then spread to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in 1999–2000. The redefinition of Hagshama involved a methodological shift towards "urban kibbutz" or irbutz, which replaced physical settlement with social activism as a new, more relevant, version of the Socialist-Zionist pioneering in Israel.

Related Topics:
1996 - 7 - United Kingdom - North America - 1998 - Australia - New Zealand - South Africa - 1999 - 2000 - Irbutz

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This shift was influenced by Habonim Dror's new contact with the urban kibbutz Tamuz in Beit Shemesh, and by the renewal of ties with the new graduate movement kvutzot of Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed in Israel. These theoretical debates, which took place in the democratic forums of the youth movement around the world, have since resulted in the actual creation of new socialist Kvutsot in Israel, built by graduates of the Habonim Dror youth movement:

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• Kvutsat Yovel began in 1999, and comprises graduates of Habonim Dror from the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada. They live in a kibbutz of 7 communes in Migdal Ha'Emek and Upper Nazareth in the Galilee, totalling about 70 members.
• Kvutsat Gal Bniya began in 2004, and comprises graduates of Habonim Dror from the United Kingdom and Australia. They live in Jerusalem.
• Kvutsat Zeeq began in 2004, and comprises graduates of Habonim Dror from the USA and Canada. They live in Haifa.
• Kvutsat Hemshech began in 2004, and comprises graduates of Habonim Dror from the United States of America and Mexico, and graduates of Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed in Israel. They live in Tel Aviv.

Collectively these communes form the basis of the Habonim Dror Tnuat Bogrim (Graduates' Movement) network in Israel, together with other new immigrants from Habonim Dror around the world who live in traditional city and kibbutz communities.

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