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Hashomer HatzairAlso transliterated Hashomer Hatsair or HaShomer HaTzair. (, , 'The Young Guard') is a Labor Zionism, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. It was also the name of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the group's political party in the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine.
Hashomer Hatzair, along with HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed of Israel, is a member of the International Falcon Movement – Socialist Educational International.
Psychoanalysis was also an influence, partly through Siegfried Bernfeld; so was the philosopher Martin Buber. Otto Fenichel also supported Hashomer Hatzair's efforts to integrate Marxism with psychoanalysis. Hashomer Hatzair's educators sought to shape the image of the child from birth to maturity; some were aware of the work of the Soviet educator Anton Makarenko, who also propounded collectivist education.
Members of the movement settled in Mandatory Palestine as early as 1919. In 1927, the four kibbutzim founded by Hashomer Hatzair banded together to form the Kibbutz Artzi federation. The movement also formed a political party that shared the name Hashomer Hatzair, advocating a binational solution in mandatory Palestine with equality between Arabs and Jews. That is why, when a small group of Zionist leaders met in New York in May 1942 in the Biltmore Hotel, Hashomer Hatzair representatives voted against the so-called Biltmore Program. A portrait of Chomsky as a young Zionist. Noam Chomsky interviewed by Gabriel Matthew Schivone. New Voices, November 7, 2011.
In 1936, the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair party launched an urban political party, the Socialist League of Palestine, which would represent non-kibbutzniks who shared the political approach of the members of Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim and the youth movement in the political organizations of the Yishuv (as the Jewish community in Palestine was known). The Socialist League was the only Zionist political party within the Yishuv to accept Arab members as equals, support Arab rights, and call for a binational state in Palestine.Flisiak, Dominik (2021). Wybrane materiały ideologiczne i propagandowe Syjonistyczno-Socjalistycznej Partii Robotniczej Poalej Syjon-Hitachdut. Przyczynek do badań nad lewicą syjonistyczną w pierwszych latach powojennej Polski (1944/45-1949/50). Selected. Stara-Szuflada, Chrzan. p. 16. In Polish. In the 1930s, Hashomer Hatzair (along with Mapai) was affiliated with the centrist Marxist "Two-and-a-half" International, the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre (also known as the "London Bureau") rather than either the more mainstream socialist Labour and Socialist International or the Leninist Third International.Flisiak, Dominik (). Powstanie, rozwój i ideologia organizacji Haszomer Hacair działającej w II Rzeczypospolitej The. Almanach Historyczny, No. 20 (2018), pp. 189-200. In Polish.
The former head of Hashomer Hatzair in Łódź, Abraham Gancwajch,W. D. Rubinstein, The Left, the Right, and the Jews, Universe Books, 1982, , Google Print, p. 136. on the other hand, formed the Jewish Nazi collaboration network Group 13 (also known as the Jewish Gestapo) in December 1940,Israel Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt, Indiana University Press, 1982, , Google Print, p. 90–4. active in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was also the leader of the infamous Gestapo-sponsored, Nazi-collaborationist Jewish organisation Żagiew, which was formed in February 1943Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947, McFarland 1998, , Google Print, p. 66. at the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.Jerzy Ślaski, Jerzy Piesiewicz, Polska walcząca: 1939-1945, Published by Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1990; , 1055 pages.
After the war, the movement was involved in organizing illegal immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine. Members were also involved in the Haganah military movement as well as in the leadership of the Palmach.
After World War II, the movement was largely Stalinist into the 1950s and in 1953 cancelled its Purim festivities due to Stalin's death. Support for Stalin and the Soviet Union began to wane in 1952 as a result of the Slánský trials which targeted Jewish leaders in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in a series of , and also resulted in the arrest, torture and four-and-a-half year imprisonment of Mapam official
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The movement has more than 7,000 members worldwide (excluding Israel) running weekly youth activities and camps in Germany, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, France, Belgium. Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, Australia and Poland.
Famous alumni include Evelyn Torton Beck, Arik Einstein, Dan Shechtman, Bella Abzug, Tony Cliff, Ehud Gazit, Ernest Mandel, Mordecai Anielewicz, Abraham Leon, Martin Monath, Benny Morris, Eliane Karp, Leopold Trepper, Amnon Linn, Zahara Rubin, Haviva Reik, Aaron Klug, Abba Hushi, Sam Spiegel, Irv Weinstein, Manès Sperber, Leon Rosselson, Juliana Rozestan, José Gurvich, Ilan Goldfajn,Joel Westheimer, Avi Levacov, Ben Zygier (Ben Zygier), Milo Adler Gilles, Gila Martow, and even Isser Harel and Menachem Begin who were briefly members before joining Mapai and the right wing Betar respectively, as well as Kerem B'Yavneh's Rabbi Avraham Rivlin. Noam Chomsky sympathized with and worked with the group, although he was never a member.
With the merger of the United Kibbutz Movement and Kibbutz Artzi, the likelihood of a merger between Hashomer Hatzair and UKM's youth movement, Habonim Dror, has increased and the two youth movements, once rivals, have increasingly co-operated in various countries where they co-exist. The movements even share an office in New York. However, the views of each movement on religion may be an obstacle to merger as Habonim Dror has a stronger identification with cultural Judaism as opposed to Hashomer Hatzair, which has been at times stridently secular and anti-religious — seeing itself as a leader of a legitimate expression of a secular stream of Judaism.
Currently, there are around 70 members of 'Hashy' Australia in Melbourne. Meetings for chanichim/ot (participants) from school years 3-12 are on Sunday afternoons and evenings. During Year 10 (age: 15–16) chanichim/ot undergo a 'hadracha' (leadership) course. This course is run by current bogrim/ot in the movement and teaches the chanichim/ot leadership skills which are used when they lead members of the Junior movement in Year 11. The current Year 11 madatzim/ot (leaders) are from the kvutzat (group) Negba.
All other 'Hashy' Australia members are situated in Byron Bay, where Madrachim/ot travel 3 times annually.
Hashomer Hatzair Australia has a strong belief that chanichim/ot should be active in the community, helping whenever they can. Members often go to rallies, actively pursue social justice locally and abroad, and run programs for disadvantaged children.
As with most of the kenim around the world, every year Hashy sends the chanichim/ot who have just completed school on a 10-month Shnat program in Israel. Hashy is an active part of the Hashomer Hatzair World Movement and regularly interacts with other kenim as well as other movements.
Through seminars, camps (winter/summer), worldwide programs, and weekly activities wherein youth lead youth, Hashomer Hatzair aims to create a just world through socialism, equality, and the betterment of Israel and the world.
There are currently kenim in Toronto, northern New Jersey (Tenafly), central New Jersey (East Brunswick), New York City, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. The United States is currently in the process of recreating kenim in Westchester, NY and Albany, NY.
Hashomer Hatzair has collaborated with Habonim Dror and other left-wing Zionist groups to form the Union of Progressive Zionists campus network.
In October 2011, Hashomer Hatzair participated in Occupy Toronto and built a sukkah at the site of the protest.
The movement organises weekly activities in Berlin for children and youth ages 8–21, led by the Ken Team, as well as an annual summer camp (Sommermachane). The activity year starts annually in September, around Rosh Hashana.
In 2021, Hashomer Hatzair Germany took part in the #2021JLID – Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland line of events and activities, to celebrate 1,700 years since the first evidence of Jewish lives in Germany and Europe. Following a Pessach Seminar in March 2021, a booklet on Jewish Lives in Germany by HHD and its sub-project ROSBOT was published in July 2021, and was dedicated to Esther Bejarano, Holocaust survivor, artist and activist, who died on the day of the official publication. The summer camp and booklet event were both reported in an article by Micha Brumlik as part of a book on the history of the Jewish youth movements in Germany, which describes the renewal process of the youth movement in Germany.Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland K.d.ö.R, Hrsg. Die jüdische Jugendbewegung: eine Geschichte von Aufbruch und Erneuerung. 1. Auflage. Leipzig: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021. The book was published in its second edition with the support of Berliner Landeszentrale für politische Bildung in 2022, and was also made available digitally.
HHD is currently in the process of growth, through intergenerational projects and initiatives aimed at educators and activists. It offers subsidised activities to its members, allowing participants with less means to take part.
In 2022, on its 10th anniversary of re-establishing the work in Germany, HHD was leading an intergenerational historical project to connect and commemorate the present generation to its generation in the 30s. As part of the project a team of volunteers was established, travelled to Israel to work around materials in the Kibbutzim archives and the Yad Yaari Research & Documentation Center, as well as meeting the former members and their families. The project outcome are "Chaverschaft - the Hashomer Hatzair Card Game" and a board game that is still being developed. For its work around the history of the youth association in Germany, Hashomer Hatzair Deutschland e.V. won the Shimon-Peres-Prize in 2023, given by the German foreign minister, for outstanding initiatives of successful cooperation between young people from Germany and Israel.
Every year the movement has a conference for the whole "Gub" ( Guf Boger, the guides of each ken, ages 15–18) to discuss a yearly topic related to Israeli society, the kenim, and the movement in general. At the end of the conference the members formulate the results of the discussions and chart the future of the movement. Examples of past topics include Zionism and peace, equality between genders, socialism, Judaism in Hashomer Hatzair, and so forth.
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party merged with other left wing parties to form Mapam, a socialist party, which became the political party of both the youth movement and the Kibbutz Artzi federation. In Israel it was traditionally aligned with Mapam and later Meretz; however, it was not officially aligned with Meretz. After the merger of the Meretz-aligned Kibbutz Artzi Federation with the Labor Party's United Kibbutz Movement in 1999, Hashomer Hatzair did not officially align with either party, though by tradition, it was close in outlook to Meretz.
Hashomer Hatzair Mexico was founded by Avner Aliphas, a Hebrew professor at the Yiddish school of Mexico and later founder of the "Tarbut" Jewish day school in 1942. Aliphas was born in Kolno, Poland, in 1911, and made aliyah (immigrated to Eretz Israel) in 1936 to join Kibbutz Negba, and in 1938 he helped establish Kibbutz Hanita. In 1939 he returned to Kolno after his mother died and luckily got out before the Nazi invasion to attend a Zionist conference in Paris. When the war broke out and he could not go back to Israel, he traveled to Mexico where he became active in the Zionist movement.
In 1940, supported by the Zionist Organization in Mexico, Aliphas founded Hashomer Hatzair in Mexico, thus giving an option for young people who had been educated towards Zionism at home. This was the first Jewish youth movement that existed in the country; its first Ken was in Tacuba 15, in the city center.
During the next decades, Hashomer Hatzair was one of the places for secular socialization for the Jewish community. As of the present day, the Mexican branch of Hashomer Hatzair comprises approximately fifty members who regularly attend cultural, educational and sporting events as a group.
The Ken Najshon the young of the Jewish community of Venezuela, every Saturday at the Hebraica club by peulot where they teach about Zionism, socialism and humanistic Judaism and are taught values of equality, social justice and brotherhood through non-formal education.
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