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By Daniel Neely and Joshua Lipchin, HDANZ Shnat 2023

How does a chanich take care of their things?
How does a chanich look after their friends?
How todes a chanich organise an event for camp?
How does a chanich care of a group of chanichimot?
How does a chanich make a life-changing decision?
How does a chanich take accountability over their kvutza?
How does a chanich have a say over Habonim Dror’s future?
How does a chanich have a say over their people’s future?

Many people ask us why we stayed. Why after all our friends left Israel due to the war of October 7th we chose to continue our messima journey. It comes down to responsibility, or excessive responsibility as George Stevens would call it. A concept where an unusual amount of responsibility is placed onto youth to empower them to care about their people and community. This responsibility starts out slow with a chanich being told to take care of themselves and their friends, then to take responsibility over the movement and the Jewish people.

By Emma Pasternack, Bogeret of HDNA, Madricha at Eshbal Youth Village

*content warning* - Emma describes survivors’ graphic accounts of the horrors of the attack on their kibbutzim

Eilat the city has around 50,000 residents normally. There are currently around 50,000 refugees from the south in Eilats hotels.
I spent my week in Eilat, volunteering with the movement in a hotel of refugees from the envelope. In the hotel were mainly two communities- Kibbutz Reim and Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. Both kibbutzim have NOAL kenim.

I spent the majority of my time making bracelets with kids or chatting with the madrichot from the kibbutz. People kept asking me how I am doing and isn’t it so hard what we are doing here. The main emotion I felt was shock. Shock because I had never realized or thought much about what it’s like to survive a pogrom. I had never realized until now - the sheer number of things you don’t think about when you think about war and being a refugee.

By Giulio Supino, 2023 Shaliach to HDNA Machaneh Gesher

On the night of the 6th of October I was dancing with my friends at a seminar I had on Ravid, HaNoar HaOved VeHalomed seminar center and a kibbutz - my favorite place and my safe place.

The next morning, Saturday the 7th, instead of waking up to the beautiful Kinneret view, I woke up to one of my friends saying few words that will stick to me forever - “there is balagan”

By Etz Greenfeld, Bogeret of HDNA, Member of Ma'agal Iftach and Dror Israel

My father told me he hates the Palestinians. His brother said the same thing. My mother and I were the only opposing voices at the table. This was just last week. I had gone to visit my family in Vancouver, Canada, coincidentally one day before the war broke out.

In Ulpan I felt the same way. A lone voice for the humanity of Palestinians facing the rampant fear and hatred many of my classmates were expressing.

It's not comfortable being in those spaces. It makes me feel hopeless and angry and afraid.

As I told my father, it's that same vitriolic rhetoric that brings about this terror and violence on either side.

Polarization leads to radicalization. Radicalization leads to violence.

By Erica Kushner, Recent Mazkirol of HDNA

There is despair in my water and I cannot help but drink it. It enters my bloodstream, contaminates my veins and fills my marrow. It sits deep in my bones.

I feel this is understandable, as there is much to be despaired about. Even before the war, no one would say the situation in Israel was perfect, but now it seems there is a hole dug deeper than we can escape and the dirt we are shoveling out may just as soon bury us.

I feel the privilege of being able to sit in my despair, in my childhood bedroom of my parents’ house. I am not experiencing sirens, the need to run to a shelter, the need of a shelter and having none exist, or the knowledge that there will be more bombs to come raining down upon me. I am not experiencing vitriol from the immediate persons around me, I am not in a city nor on a college campus. Based on my surroundings alone, the worst thing that is happening is the abundance of grass lawns which do not benefit the environment.