Rabin Seminar

Last weekend, around 100 members of Habonim Dror from all over the world gathered together to learn about Yitzhak Rabin and his lasting legacy of peace. All of the participants were post-high school gap year students, though in significantly different places in the workshop program. The South Americans had been here for 9 months already, and the Australians and South Africans had been here for 8 months. Only the Americans and the British had been in Israel for 2 months upon arriving at the seminar.

From the beginning it was apparent that every group was extremely different. First of all, the South Americans spoke either Portuguese or Spanish and had long hair, held back by thick colorful headbands. The South Africans and Australians looked gritty, weathered by their time in Israel and were laid back, without cares. The British were clean and dressed up, worrying about their appearances.  The Americans appeared and acted entirely different. We were clean but without worrying too much what we looked like, and always a little bit more uptight than the other groups. We arrived to peulot (activities) on time (or a little early) and went to bed before anyone else. In other words, we were a slightly more responsible group (perhaps too responsible).

The structure of the seminar included small groups based on the language in which the seminar was took. Since I decided to do the seminar in Hebrew, I had an extremely diverse group, dominated by South American boys. The Hebrew was tricky, but with a little help, I managed to participate in the peulot and express myself openly. The peulot mostly revolved around Rabin's life or how to achieve peace (not necessarily how to bring peace about, but what ideas are needed within a peace process. For example, is peace a strategy or a value and how does that impact a process?) I found everything to be extremely interesting, and since I had to spend more energy than other people who took the seminar in their native language, I believe that it was more rewarding for me to be in such a difficult group.

My group included a few American girls, 5 South American boys, 2 South American girls, and an Australian girl. Being part of a group that was not dominantly American allowed me to understand how other Jews think, and especially how they perceive Americans. In one activity we were looking at hypothetical countries and trying to make treaties between them. My country was characterized as large and dominating. Their major goal was to have complete military control of the area and were willing to invade a smaller nearby country to control their resources. My partner in the activity, a boy from Uruguay, commented that it sounded exactly like America. Now I don't always agree with America's actions all the time, but for some reason I was deeply offended and felt the need to defend the United States. I started pointing out all of the other world powers that were more problematic, but I don't think I made a difference to him. It was just so interesting to see someone openly criticize America without thinking it could be offensive, especially knowing that there were four American girls sitting there, able to understand them.

After a little more than 24 hours, the seminar concluded with a tekes (ceremony) in which we heard a few poems and songs performed and then sang Shir Le'Shalom (song of peace which is connected to Yizhak Rabin). The ceremony was moving, and all the participants walked away feeling fulfilled and excited for a continuing participation in the peace process.