Year Course: What are we doing here?

"Back in the day..."

It used to be that Year Course was a year of physical labor on a kibbutz or moshav or volunteering in a development town helping to build the land of Israel. Back in the day full garinim of participants made Aliyah together. Arguably the greatest example of this undying dedication was that of a garin in 1969 that established Kibbutz Ketura as the Young Judaea kibbutz. In the years and decades that followed, Young Judaea always had a strong presence down there in this small patch of land in the Arava with participants coming to volunteer for months at a time, Year Coursers returning at the end of their year to help out and stay for longer and Judaeans making Aliyah right to Ketura. The recent Year Course decision to not send volunteers down to Ketura is a sad reflection of the direction the program has taken.

In an article in Haaretz about the change in leadership of Year Course one statement particularly resonated with me: "...diluting the course's roots to attract more participants." Though this business decision of marketing to teenagers who were not part of the movement has obviously proved successful as reflected in the stats from recent years, it has also made the program shift steadily away from the movement. As I always describe it: Young Judaea (YJ) the movement is absent from Year Course (YC) the organization. So much of what makes YJ unique is lacking in the YC program.

KEHILA (community)
There is virtually no sense of kehila. From the little things like madrichim never doing ice breakers during orientation to significant things like no longer having organized tiyulim for bonding and on a more profound level, the lack of a common purpose for being here. Too many participants view this year as time away from parents and responsibility with the added bonus of lots of alcohol and few restrictions. It makes little difference to them that we're in Israel. Though there are certainly Judaeans who choose to make this Beer Course, I feel that for the most part those of us who made our way through the camps and conventions and were instilled with the values of Zionism and tikkun olam from an early age take away much more from this year than the others. While this shared background in the movement unites us it also created a divide (significantly more noticeable in the beginning) between old and new Judaeans. For example, when holding a pot luck Friday night dinner for the whole section, it is primarily the old Judaeans who are present.

ZIONISM
We're in Israel- that's Zionist enough. That's the impression I get from many participants as well as the staff. For example, our most recent siyur to Sderot people were complaining it was too much Zionism. I was also complaining. But my grievance was that there was no discussion before or no sikkum after the siyur, no background info provided for those not so well versed in Israel's history. The madrichim didn't even tell us what we were doing other than "meet the bus at 8:30. Pack lunch. We're going to Sderot." We sit down to listen to a woman resettled from Gaza and the girl next to me leans over and whispers, "What's Gush Katif?"
My appreciation and love for this land and its history stems from all that I learned in and because of Young Judaea. My sense of Zionism is not being enriched or furthered by the program YC has become.

I hear the stories of what Young Judaea Year Course used to be and all it accomplished and it makes me want to fight for what was. With the movement getting weaker and the only elements still going strong are those like YC that are run as essentially separate entitities, it forces me to question Young Judaea's purpose in this age.

When first established in 1909 its goal was the establishment of the State of Israel. The original focus of Year Course was very heavily placed on making Aliyah. Throughout the 20the century our goal was helping to ensure the existence of the Jewish state be it through a strong Zionist presence in America or making Aliyah. When YJ began and for many years after it was unique in what it did. It was the largest and most successful Zionist youth movement. Now with a plethora of Jewish youth groups all of which are on the whole very similar and our original goal of securing a Medinat Yisrael fulfilled I wonder what is the Young Judaea of the future. I think it is extraordinarily important for Judaeans to know our history (besides for that the stories are just down right fascinating), partly to understand the significance of the movement we're a part of but even more so to learn from the past in order to create an even stronger future.