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...The
[Youth] Movement now has before it far more tasks to fulfill
than before the war. In the group named "Mitorerim"
it has now become necessary to set up a self-help organization
for members who are in need. This self-help can take two
forms, according to the capacity of the "Nest"
(club) and the objective conditions: it can either consist of
an educational element alone, or it can develop into a
successful combination of the educational element and economic
"Nest" that will really be able to supply the
material needs of the members. Both in the first case and in
the second it will fulfill the high aim of a home working
constructively for the future of the spirit of Jewish youth.
There is no social education based on a single element: the
educator must here find the exact synthesis that he requires.
But
the task of "Mitorerim" does not end with the
fulfillment of these demands. Apart from educational aims
which must be fulfilled from the point of view of the young
peoples own needs, there is the problem of national existence.
These times are marked by the total loss of the will to fight
among the Jews. The invaders terror methods have entirely
broken the will to opposition to say nothing any longer of any
opposition in the physical sense and it is the adolescent
youth that must become the stronghold and tower of the Jewish
spirit of freedom. The need of the hour is to spread among the
Jewish masses faith in our aims and real existence. Our youth
which gather in the groups of "Mitorerim" and
"Magshimim" must therefore set up cells of
spiritual opposition, which will awaken in the Jewish
masses faith in a better future and the desire to survive. To
fight against the spreading pessimism and the mood of
depression here, this is one of the most important tasks of
the older youth, which they must carry out among the general
Jewish population. And they themselves, when they have guarded
in their hearts their faith in the future existence of the
Jewish people as a whole, will have to be ready also for the
practical effort that will be demanded of them by the reality
of Eretz Israel after the war....
It
thus becomes completely clear that the aims and demands of the
educational youth movement, and the work program planned in
the days before the war, have lost nothing of their value.
If
in the years before the war education within the Movement was
directed towards the pioneering effort in Eretz Israel, then
at this time we must emphasize that in the education of the
youth we must combine the demand for pioneering effort in
Eretz Israel with the need to be active here, in order that we
may stand fast, and exist and remain alive. In this way the
framework of education has been greatly extended.
We
cannot, therefore, omit anything at all from the educational
program of former years, but must add to it the campaign to
accept life at this time. For we shall not succeed in
shaping the future of our life in Eretz [Israel] if we do not
succeed in preserving the position of the youth in this
period. It is equally necessary to have concern for material
lives and for the
creation of suitable conditions for their continuous spiritual
development....
Yad
Vashem Archives, JM/210.
*
From the underground newspaper of Gordonia youth, Slowo
Mlodych ("Youth Speaks"), No. 25 (II), June
1942. |
