Recollections of Detroit Habonim
Daniel J. Elazar
I was a member of Habonim during most of the years I lived in
Detroit -- from 1949 until 1953, that is, for my last two years of
high school and first two of college. I was not yet in Habonim
when the State of Israel was established (in fact, I was in the
hospital recovering from viral pneumonia) so I was not part of the
initial celebration, but the new state was still a fresh
experience for all of us. As young people we were less engaged by
the wonder of it than by the struggles over aliya and particularly
over kibbutziut as distinct from mere aliya. A number of "elders"
in the movement rushed off to Israel in 1948 and early 1949;
unfortunately, many of those from Detroit returned disillusioned
two or three years later, which had its effect on us all.
Detroit Habonim in the late 1940s and early 1950s was on the
fringes of radicalism in a city which was noted for its urban
radical movements in the 1930s. We grew up in the shadow of the
Reuther brothers, the UAW, sitdown strikes, and militant unionism,
and were all influenced accordingly. We sang the right labor
songs and were moved by them. The Spanish Civil War was merely a
decade before, and was still a potent factor in determining
allegiances and attitudes. Indeed, looking back on the period,
the Spanish Civil War was probably a greater force in our lives
than the Holocaust, even though Habonim itself absorbed a number
of Holocaust survivors who had settled in Detroit. We had
considerable contact with the panoply of radical groups that
existed in Detroit, not only Zionist radicals like Hashomer
Hatzair, but Communists, Trotskyites, Socialist Labor Party
people, and even a few surviving Wobblies. Of course we were in
the vanguard of the folk song revival, with Pete Seeger and the
Weavers number one on our hit parade.
In some respects, my Habonim ties were an unexpected match. I was
a strongly committed Zionist and sought a strong and committed
Zionist youth movement. My earlier experiences with Young Judea
had convinced me that a movement so much under the thumb of its
parent organizations, particularly Hadassah, was doomed to remain
parve; it never could take a stand on the crucial issues that
mattered to young Zionists at the time, particularly the issue of
aliya. I was one of those who seceded from Young Judea in 1949
when an effort was made to establish an American branch of Hanoar
Hatzioni, but the effort failed and, in any case, I was the only
member of Hanoar Hatzioni west of the Appalachians.
In Detroit I could not find any kindred spirits who were committed
to intensive Zionism, without an equal commitment to Zionist
socialism or some dimension thereof, such as the kibbutz. There
is, where Habonim and I diverged since I was not a socialist (not
even then). Labor Zionism did not hold that kind of ideological
appeal for me. Moreover, I was observant. Friday nights at the
moadon were off limits for me by my choice. Our family spent leyl
Shabbat together and even if we had not, the character of Shabbat
at the moadon was not to my taste. To compound matters, Habonim
in those days was still closely tied to the Eastern European
origins of most of its active members and placed a great deal of
emphasis on Yiddish. I, a Sephardi and Hebraist, had little
sympathy, much less afinity, for that aspect of the movement.
Finally, I was committed to taking my studies seriously,
especially my Hebrew and Jewish studies, whereas my peers in
Habonim tended to view the movement as a surrogate for serious
Jewish study. Nevertheless, I became a wholehearted member,
deeply involved in Habonim affairs, and count the experience as
one of the important formative experiences of my life.
I think that the success of my klita into Habonim had to do with
the particular group which I encountered, which was somewhat
atypical from a Habonim point of view, although it certainly
furnished its share of leaders for the movement. Paradoxically,
what set it aside as special was that it was more Americanized
than the other Habonim groups in Detroit and, from my limited
experience with the rest of the country, most other places as well
in those days.
In any case, Habonim furnished me with a hevrah in a city where I
was notably alone. We had moved to Detroit early in 1948 when I
was in 9th grade, a difficult time to fit into a new school
framework, especially one in which most of my classmates had been
together since kindergarten. Moreover, while over 90 percent of
the students in the school I attended were Jewish, few had serious
Jewish interests. While I attended Hebrew high school and later
the Midrasha (College of Jewish Studies), there were not many like
me who did so and few of them were of my age or shared other
interests with me outside of the classroom. Thus, Habonim filled
an important gap in my life. While I have since lost contact with
most of my friends of those days, the only Detroiters or former
Detroiters with whom I have any contact are ex-Habonim members and
my ties with the rest of the Habonim network, especially in
Israel, if not intense, are still very real.
My parents were tolerant of all this, recognizing my need, but not
encouraging. Habonim in those days, and perhaps in others, was
looked upon as a bit wild; young people who did not want to accept
the discipline and learn from the experience of their elders. We
wanted to do everything ourselves, from building our camp (a task
in which I took part with some relish even though I never attended
the camp since I was not much for summer camps altogether,
preferring to travel, and when I did attend camp, attended
Hebrew-speaking ones), or advocating aliya in the face of an
increasingly lethargic Labor Zionist movement, or simply in the
way most Habonim members dressed (my group dressed more neatly, a
point in their favor in my parents' eyes), and stayed out to all
hours. No doubt their attitude had some inhibiting effect on the
depth of my involvement. For example, they talked me out of going
on the Habonim Workshop, since they were very opposed to any
interruption of my studies.
By and large, my Habonim experience was confined to Detroit.
However, I did maintain close contact with the group in
Minneapolis, my native city, since I was back there frequently.
There I played a modest leadership role, more so than in my own
city, working closely with Jonathan Paradise who was reorganizing
local Habonim, helping him with educational materials and
programs.
By the early 1950s there was a great dampening of sentiment for
aliya and the kibbutz in Detroit and Habonim began to grope its
way toward different goals. It was then that I went away to the
University of Chicago. In Chicago I had limited connections with
Habonim and ex-Habonim. I found my time absorbed by another
network, that of my friends from Camp Ramah.
