By: Kathryn Henning

Over the past few months, the Netzer Madrichim have been volunteering in Kliptown, Soweto, as a part of Netzers Ideology of Tikkun Olam (Repairing the world).

Netzer has five main pillars of ideology that we base many of our activities around. A youth movement is nothing without its unique ideas and beliefs. These “Pillars” range from our Jewish identity to our responsibilities as humans and South Africans. Tikkun Olam is the main pillar where we can do practical activities in the Madrichim Body as well as with the children of our Movement. With this we learn about other people, the world, and the importance of community. Social outreach projects are important for the comunity and other comunites to unite people and educate people at either an “education level” and a social level.

We’ve been to many places to volunteer in the past few years, but none have been as sucessful as our frequent trips to Kliptown. The enthusiastic Madrichim spend the afternoon helping children from all ages with things like, reading, writing, drawing and maths. While our main intention is to spend time with the kids sharing our “book knowledge” the real prize is that we’re all learning about different cultures, backgrounds and people.

The older children in Kliptown are really welcoming and helpful when we’re there. They enjoy asking us questions and answering any of ours. The younger kids are a bit of a challenge due to us being strangers and having a language barrier, but with perserverance and help from the older kids everyone has a good time.

After spending a few afternoons with these kids, they’ll really change your perspective on your own life. They really make you think that you can do anything you want. Anything that you put your mind too can be yours. Young ladys who aspire to being Doctors to help people. Boys with amazing artistic talent. The next police chief. Mathematicians. Scientists. You name it!

These kids are filled with passion and determination, and you cant help being inspired by that.

We’re not superheros, and we shouldn’t expect any praise for what we’ve been doing. We’re just kids interacting with different kids.

We’re just inspired by each other.

You should be too.

For years I watched Shnatties return from their year in Israel, wiser and more confident, and of course, full of incredible stories about the journey they had been on that year. And now it’s my turn. I have only been in Israel for 4 months (I have another 6 to go) but I am confident and proud to say that I can feel how much I have learnt, gained and grown in this short time. There are so many issues surrounding us in Israel that cause us to ask questions and to challenge our beliefs and views on the world. I guess that the best way to explain this to you is to tell you a little bit about my personal experiences and the journey that I’ve experienced thus far.

I arrived on the program lacking a bit in confidence (a bit unusual for me). I felt insecure about the fact that I was in Israel, away from family, friends and the comforts of home. I was intimidated by the Australians and how smart they sound when they speak. I felt lacking in Jewish knowledge and knowledge of my movement. “How can I be on this program if I don’t know anything?” I would ask myself. And then it dawned on me: that is the very reason why I came here. To learn. To experience the world. To grow. To open my mind. To become a better Jewish leader. So I changed my attitude a bit, gave myself a confidence booster and opened my mind to just about everything. I must be honest and say that I still don’t have all the answers. If anything, I’m more confused than I’ve ever been. I’m confused about my Judaism and whether or not I feel connected, I’m confused about my definition of Zionism and where I fit in, I’m confused about how to solve the Middle East crisis.

But that is the beauty of Shnat. As much as it sucks to be confused, I believe that the clarity that comes after that is what this is all about. We are being challenged in so many ways to shape our minds into the best and most well informed minds that we could have as young informal educators. Every day we are gaining more educational tools to bring back to our movements

So what exactly is the point that I’m trying to make? Shnat is an incredible opportunity for personal growth and development. It is invaluable for the very reason that it forces us to think critically about everything. One of Netzer South Africa’s key beliefs is the idea of informed decision making, and that is why Shnat is such an important year. By asking questions and not blindly accepting what we are taught as truth, by meeting people from all walks of society, by experiencing new things every day, by being exposed to some of the challenges that the Jewish world faces and by learning so much every day, we are being empowered to make that informed decision. This year gives us so much understanding within a Jewish context that I don’t think can be found in many other ways. It is an invaluable year in terms of personal growth, development and understanding

Already I can feel how much I have grown. I am more independent, open minded, passionate, knowledgeable and eager to find a meaningful connection to my Judaism than I have ever been before.

Despite the big issues that we face every day, the small things, the small encounters, offer us so much growth too… Today, for example, a few friends and I were followed by a dog and ended up looking after it for a couple of hours whilst searching for its owners. I learnt about persistence, resourcefulness, parenthood and how frustrating it is that EVERYTHING is closed on Shabbat… But I won’t get into that now.

Looking back on my journey thus far, I could not think of anything else I’d rather be doing this year. It’s not without its difficulties, but overcoming these is in itself a form of growth and what makes the year that much more meaningful. Every day I’m learning, growing and living a bit more. I really am having the journey of a lifetime. A journey across the Holy Land of our forefathers and mothers. A journey of self –discovery. A journey of understanding.

Sofia Zway

‘Facebook’; ‘Twitter’ ;  ‘google +’;‘bbm’ and the like. It doesn’t take a Hollywood blockbuster to dictate the social milieu today’s youth generation is networking in. Young people today are steadily interacting on a virtual level. The desire for exclusivity, intimacy and keeping the personal, personal  are replaced by a need to get one’s individual ‘status’  or thoughts out there, increasing contacts and ‘friends’ groups and generally striving to be connected and in tune with the rest of the world.

So how does this surge of a virtual interactive culture apply to youth movements who are the drivers of creating Jewish youth counter culture?  Well, we flourish in it.  It sounds a tad paradoxical that movements which aim to create a membership body that functions at odds with the imperfect outside world in order for it to live up to its Jewish Ideological ethos, will flourish in this virtual interaction of the masses.  However this is simply not the case, in fact, it poses no challenge to us but further encourages us to live out our pillar of Reform Judaism.

Reform Judaism emerged in a changing and turbulent world for Jews.  The Enlightenment was reviving Renaissance concepts of the ‘Universal Man’, religious doctrine was being questioned by the emergence of science and the concept of the power of God was being replaced by the power of man. There was no set direction for European Jewry at the time but multiple ones. Some wished to assimilate, others chose to immigrate and others chose to isolate themselves from a world too much with them.  Reform Jews chose to integrate. They began synthesising the modern world around them with their age old Jewish traditions and customs. It took a while to merge to new with the established which often led to Reform Jews becoming extreme in their changes, but slowly they developed a healthy manner of practicing their Judaism in tandem with the external world  whilst still holding on dearly to their core Jewish values.

In the same way as the early pioneers of Reform Judaism strived to make Judaism relevant to them and applicable to the dynamic world around them so are Reform Jews and in particular Netzer, as  Reform Jewish youth  are integrating and working within the confines of our social network today.  Netzer has ‘facebook’, email, ‘bbm’, ‘twitter’, its own website, and much more. As a movement we use such avenues of communication to interact with our Chanichim and madrichim, spreading the news of upcoming events, initiating important discussion forums, connecting with Netzer Olami and other international sniffim, keeping up to date with current events of central importance to us as a movement and our membership body and of course, letting our voice be heard!

Check it out : facebook.com/NetzerSA

Lauren Kessler

So how does Netzer South Africa fit into this definition? Well, we embody an ideology that rests on five fundamental pillars – Progressive Judaism; Progressive Zionism; South Africa; Youth and of course , Tikkun Olam. The beauty of such a framework of beliefs is that each is relative to and has an impact on the other.  This means that we contextualise a holistic conception of our ideal world.
Netzer attempts to tikkun the Olam by not only engaging in social action and upliftment projects in the country, but rigorously educates our channichim about the purpose and origin of the concept of tikkun olam, how it evoloved and what are its implications for a contemporary South African society. In this way our pillars of ‘Youth’; ‘Tikkun Olam’ and ‘South Africa’ are intertwined , strengthening each other.

In addition to our pillars, stands our maxim: ‘Nilmad ve’na aseh – we will learn and we will do’. This expresses the manner in which we live out our ideology and is central to the value of informed decision making in Progressive Judaism. In this sense, Netzer South Africa has a unique vision and a plan of action to implement it – through collective education, social action and Jewish communal life, we live out our principles, (pillars) to hone and exemplify both our personal and collective Jewish existence.

In essence, if we were to describe the counter culture that we aim to create for our channichim and madrichim in Netzer, this quote from  Athol Fuguard’s ‘’Master Harold and the Boys ‘’ would capture it;  ‘There’s no collisions out there. Nobody trips or stumbles or bumps into anyone else. That is what the moment is all about. It is like being in a dream about a world in which accidents don’t happen. And it is beautiful because that is what we want life to be like.’

Each day we had around 3-4 activities where we wrote our own activities for specific age groups, learned how to deal with certain scenarios, identified our own leadership styles, haggled on religious and cultural points of view and ideology as well as bond as a community.

Personally, the weekend was amazing and I had a great time. Hadsem taught me things that are not only useful for me as a madricha, but for my normal day to day life.

On our last day of Hadsem we all went to Soweto for an outreach program at Kliptown Youth Project, which is a project that creates facilities for all the young children in the community to go to on a daily basis after school and have facilities available for them to help them with their homework, give the children food as well as deal with their life issues. When we got there we were taken around the township and were shown their lifestyle; which was quite a shock for all of us. We then spent the afternoon with the kids drawing pictures, making cards, learning Maths or English and reading books. It was such an eye opening experience! To see our small contribution make their community so happy was fantastic; they were all so open and accepting of us. Netzer plan to make frequent visits to the Kliptown Youth Project in the future and get quite involved with them, which I can’t wait for!

The Netzer community is one filled with fun times, a lot of love for each other and one that I look forward to sharing many amazing memories with.

-Melissa Brower 18 (Nelspruit)

In other international news, Gareth Hall has just returned from the USA, where he attended The World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) and NFTY (North American Netzer) convention. He was an excellent ambassador for our humble movement and has engraved our movements name as a player in world Jewry.

Bringing it back to the tip of Africa, Netzer members from Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg attended the Israel Advocacy Seminar, participants discussed important current issues and how to handle pressing questions in society.

We are currently planning our leadership seminars, HADSEM, across the country where our young madrachim will learn the tricks of the trade and other useful skills.

We are also registering our delegates for the National Zionist Youth Conference and the Zionist Conference, where we hope to have some meaningful debates with our fellow youth movements and discuss some of the big issues in the Zionist South Africa of today – Sign up now! (082 339 0246)

Next came our adventure down south. We created eco friendly mud bricks on kibbutz
Lotan, woke up at 3am to climb mount Masada and with stinging cuts and bruised
knees made our way to the Dead Sea for a long and painful swim. The Ein Gedi hike,
even in the blistering heat was nothing compared to the strenuous hike up Masada
but splashing around under the waterfalls in Ein Gedi could never have been more
welcome.

After a couple of days down south visiting a Bedouin village and riding the iconic
desert camels we made our way up north to experience a minority culture of a
different kind – the Druze community near Haifa. One of the most incredible
experiences we had was celebrating Simchat Torah at Kibbutz Har Chalutz.
Following the celebration we went off with our host families to sample Israeli home
life, which turned out to be quite entertaining!

As the itinerary list was like a never-ending story and each experience was as
memorable as the next we can only mention a few things here; eating in pitch black
darkness in the Na Laga’ at Theatre whilst being served by blind people; touring the
old city of Jaffa; visiting Save a Child’ s Heart in Tel Aviv, listening to the history
of the Golan Heights; explored the caves of Rosh Hanikra and the Kotel tunnels of
David in Jerusalem and being moved to tears in Yad Vashem are just a few of the
lessons we learned and memories we made.

The time eventually came for us to gather up our dirty clothes, copious amounts
of halva and hippy pants, ready to depart for Africa. Leaving was by far one of the
saddest moments of the tour, some of us were even as desperate to tell the madrichim
to lose our passports in order to stay, and unfortunately this wasn’ t the case. As we
bordered the plane we looked out the window at this beautiful, phenomenal and
complex country we were leaving behind. Although this was merely a small slice of
the amazing country, we hope return to Israel one day. It definitely left an indelible
impression.

Shnat is when the movement sends these enthusiastic individuals on the great trek to Israel to come back as well rounded competent leaders ambitious to take on the management of the movement and implement the ideology. When phrased like this, it sounds like indoctrination machine designed to churn out Netzer gimps and visionaries. Essentially the Netzer Year is indeed a chance to live out the Netzer Ideology but through extensive learning, touring and experiences in a multitude of contexts.

Firstly ‘Shnatties’ are exposed to and live with other Netzerniks from across the globe. Australians Germans, British and Americans are but a few of these. So, in addition to being immersed in the overwhelming Israeli culture, they too have to endure the Australian slang and American twang. This exposure allows Shnatties to actually engage with the international Diaspora whilst relating and evaluating the Movement in other branches of the world.

Secondly the statement ‘Shnat makes a leader out of you’ doesn’t mean you come back with the notion that ‘Herzl is your homeboy’. The rigorous leadership training provided on shnat through the four month programs of the pluralist Machon and progressive Etgar, are informally structured. This means learning ranges from classroom and theory based study to peer led initiatives. Leadership training is a focal point of the many structured hikes, tours seminars and events shanties partake in.

Finally, Shnat above all else is an introspective experience in coming to terms with ones newly established independence. It is a chance to obviously grow as a person but through the ideals espoused by the movement. Shnat, (besides being a hell of a lot of wacky fun) is that surge of idealistic optimism, that powerful adrenalin rush that is sorely lacking in the youth of today. This formative year equips young people with passion and conviction for their Judaism and for their belief in the ability of the youth to change the world.

Nilmad ve’na aseh – ‘we will learn and we will do’
Lauren Kessler
Rosh Chinnuch Cape Town
Netzer South Africa