From The Movement Archive (and the Internet) by David Chester, May 2011.
When exactly was our Movement founded? The subject is confusing because there are at least
two different viewpoints. Most of us would agree that it began in 1929, when it appears that
Gedud Trumpeldor first met. This is what is written as the starting year on pages 10 and 13 of
the Movement history book “Habonim in Britain 1929 – 1955”, published by Irgun Vatikei
Habonim in 1989, to correspond with what seems to have been the 60th anniversary. Also the
Jamboree Camp of August 1939 was timed to supposedly celebrate the 10th anniversary. But
on page 58 of this same history, Wellesley Aron states that he founded the Movement in 1928.
He has consistently claimed that it started then and not in 1929. Chaim Lipshitz, who became
Rosh of Gedud Trumpeldor, also wrote that his group of boys began to meet in 1928. So what
we actually commemorate is the subsequent and formal naming of his Gedud. Even so, its
timing is somewhat indefinite, as explained below.
Browsing in the Movement Archive at Yad Tabenkin in Ramat Efal and gleaning data from the
internet, has brought to light many features of interest about the way the Movement got going
and about the personalities of those involved. The details are taken from various sources. There
are letters, minutes of committee meetings, interviews, newspaper articles and their notices of
public events, as well as diverse accounts from memory of past events, which were recorded on
tape. This information enables a review to be made of the work of the initiators of Habonim:
Chaim Lipshitz, Wellesley Aron and Norman Lourie, whose founding activities follow.
1. From Chaim Lipshitz: who wrote in 1968:
“The Movement was founded in 1928 in London. The first edition of the Habonim Handbook
which contained the syllabus and instructions for running gedudim was written and published in
1929, when the first units were already organized in East and West London and the principal
centres in England”.
Chaim had helped to run Chederim and Talmud Torah study groups for young children of the
mainly Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants. Their families still lived in the East End slums of
London, Whitechapel and Stepney, where Chaim was born. His father, a self-styled Lithuanian
Rabbi, taught Jewish boys at his “progressive” Cheder where secular subjects were included.
(There was no formal qualification necessary to start a Cheder at that time in the East End.
Many of them were miserable places, where only Biblical Hebrew and Torah were taught to the
boys and physical punishment inflicted.)
Chaim had been in the Scouting Movement and later studied languages and music at University
College London. On holiday in France in the summer of 1927, he had been favourably
impressed with some of their well-organized Jewish scouting camps. Early in 1928, in
coordination with the Association of Jewish Youth (A.J.Y.), he started to train a group of potential
youth leaders from the ‘Young Judean Group’, by running a series of lectures about Jewish
Culture and History. The A.J.Y. acted as a kind of father figure, which at that time encouraged
and advised many small groups for Jewish youth education. Chaim’s lectures were at Teesdale
Road Talmud Torah, but by February 1928 they failed to hold much attention and he commented
that “the numbers had dwindled to 7”, and the project was abandoned. (Teesdale Street today is
in Bethnal Green, just north of Stepney, but two sources in the Archives call it Teesdale Road.
Comparison with a 1922 map of the East End shows that the names of some of the “roads”
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subsequently became “streets” and certain alleys in these slums were cleared away. So this
Talmud Torah probably was located in the present-day Teesdale Street.)
Chaim was more successful later in that year with teaching Modern Hebrew and Palestinian
songs and dances to the younger boys. The sing-songs in this group were particularly
successful including the heroic one about Joseph Trumpeldor, which had become internationally
popular due to a well-known French singer. He wrote: “I started a group in my father’s Cheder in
Lower Chapman Street. By Chanukah we were well established”. Presumably this was in 1928
because Chaim does not call his group by any specific title and it was a few months later, in the
spring of 1929, that the name Habonim was introduced, see below. As his group grew in
numbers and developed in context, their meetings moved to The Cheder, 106 Cannon Street
Road, E1., and later to the Talmud Torah in Commercial Road, both places being in Stepney.
Also in the article by Chaim, was the note that his group first met at The Cheder and that “a few
boys from the Redman Road Talmud Torah joined us and the Gedud was formed.” Chaim
added: “The heart of (Gedud) Trumpeldor was undoubtedly in the Cheder.”
The first two meeting places were unsatisfactory. The Chederim were too small and the use of
the Talmud Torah was for a brief period only. Chaim explains: “We were looking for a venue –
given the Talmud Torah to use for one evening (a week) and we met there once or twice, but
were given the boot after they realized that we were not religious enough.” It is possible that this
was due to their loud singing of Hebrew songs in an unfamiliar pronunciation with uncovered
heads, as well as Hatikva (followed of course, by the British National Anthem). The use of
Modern Hebrew in this way later caused some embarrassment, when Notting Hill’s Gedud Bar
Kochba performed a Hakadasha ceremony in public, during AJY’s annual 1930 fund-raising
celebration in December, at the Scalla Theatre in London.
In a letter in June 1958 to the Jewish Chronicle (the popular weekly newspaper, known as the
J.C.), Chaim referred to an article by Jack Rosen, one of his first Bonim, who wrote that: “Gedud
Trumpeldor was founded in October 1929.” Jack continues ”A subsequent document also claims
that Gedud Trumpeldor started in 1929, but that it was established only at their third meetingplace, the LCC (London County Council) School, Christian Street E1.”, which was used by the
Gedud in November. (This information conflicts with the last possible month when Trumpeldor
could have been named, being October, see below. Also this school was actually the fourth
meeting-place and probably was first used by Habonim in the spring of that year.)
According to Jack Rosen there was a later meeting-place at The Jewish Institute, Mulberry
Street, E1. This is confirmed by the first published (hand-written) Habonim bulletin for bonim,
“The Trumpeldor Review” (price two pence). Regrettably it is undated and there is only one
issue in our archives. An article by Chaim in this bulletin states that the Institute was first used by
Chaim’s second (senior) Gedud as an alternative to the school.
The same article by Chaim recalls the start of the Gedud, how 27 months earlier in freezing
conditions 35 bonim first waited for the keys to their meeting place in Christian Street, London
E1. This was not yet the school, but at the “Oxford and St. Georges” Jewish youth centre run by
Basil Henriques. This incident could only have happened during the 1928/29 winter. Not long
after this they began and continued to meet in the LCC School over a period of roughly two
years. The Institute was not used as the main centre for Habonim meetings until two years later,
after certain anti-Zionists, including Henriques (!) and Nettie Adler in particular, had persuaded
the Jewish dominated Council to deny Habonim further use of the LCC school.
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The 20 year anniversary celebration was arranged for December 1948, according to certain
letters and invitations. By 1977, in a letter from Chaim to the Habonim Office, he requested a
ticket to the Movement’s 50th. Year Golden Jubilee Celebrations in Hillel House, central London,
and signed himself “C.L. Rosh Gedud Trumpeldor 1928”. An asepha for organizing this
celebration was on arranged on 13th.June 1977. Several other letters offering help or asking for
tickets were written in the summer of 1977 to the Habonim Offices. The planned dates of these
two celebrations imply that the origins of the Movement were then taken as having been in 1928.
2. From Wellesley Aron, in a letter to Bernhard Goldman, 9th. February 1959:
“In the summer of 1928 I had a meeting with some of the managers of the Cambridge and
Bethnal Green Club (a separate Jewish youth club also in the East End), who had been
contempories of me at Cambridge (University) in the years 1923 – 1926, prior to my departure to
Palestine”. Wellesley characteristically had visited some additional Jewish youth clubs too, as
our other documents show. He was disappointed by the absence of any Jewish history being
taught or recent Palestinian news being given.
Wellesley then goes on to describe various problems of Jewish youth education at the time, and
then…..“By October 1928 I thought I had the answer and called a meeting at 77 Great Russell
Street, (Bloomsbury, EC1.) in the board room of the Zionist Executive on a foggy early
November night”. In a subsequent interview with Tony Lerman in 1977, Wellesley claimed that
the fog was so thick that his wife thought it best for him not to go, but this meeting had been
advertised in the J.C., as Wellesley explained and that for the meeting “I traipsed all the way
down from Hampstead where we were living”.
Unfortunately some of this information is incorrect. This meeting and the one that followed
actually took place in January 1929, see below. Data on atmospheric pollution taken from a
national source, shows that there were no infamous London fogs in November 1928. Fog only
occurred on January 7th., 8th. and 9th., 1929, which exclude both the imagined and actual dates
of these two meetings.
He had prepared a lecture, somewhat awkwardly titled: “How to Bring the Youth of the Anglo
Saxon Community to a Knowledge of Jewish Values and Palestine”. This lecture lasted for three
quarters of an hour and outlined what was to be Habonim. The first meeting attracted only 5
people. They were Norman Lourie and his lady friend Nadia Kleinman (who Norman later
married), Chaim Lipshitz, Levi Berstansky (from the Zionist Federation) and Louis Boxer.
(Louis had been a Patrol Leader with Wellesley as Scout Master, for a troop of Jewish Boy
Scouts in Stepney in 1920. Wellesley, then aged 19, had taken over this faltering troop and run it
with great success, following a request from Basil Henriques, who managed various clubs for the
Jewish youth of Stepney. After attending Talmud Torah, many of the older children continued
their education at the British secular schools, where they were expected to be good at sports. So
it is not surprising that these youths flocked to Basil Henrique’s clubs where they could train.
Basil later received a MBE and a knighthood for his life’s work in providing this service to the
poverty-struck community. At this time the local Maccabi sports clubs, also began to serve these
youthful needs.)
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Wellesley continues: “At this (first) meeting, which was in fact the founding of the Habonim
Movement, (Norman) Lourie, after my lecture, enthusiastically offered to call a subsequent
meeting of (Jewish) students from Oxford, Cambridge and London Universities for the following
week where I repeated my talk.” This second meeting was crowded with between 40 to 50
people present. The lecture was very warmly received and it resulted in a discussion and the
formation of an organization committee.
However, these meetings actually took place on the 3rd. and 10th. January 1929. The title of the
lecture was changed to “Palestine as it Should be Presented to Children”, but when written-up
as a memorandum it was also called “Scheme for the Training of Leaders from Jewish Cultural
and National Education, Among the Jewish Youth.” The day after the second meeting Wellesley
wrote to Dr. S. Brodetsky, (then working in the Zionist Federation) describing the representation
at this meeting of seven different youth and students’ groups and of the lecture’s good reception.
He also asked Brodetsky for help with setting up the new Movement.
In this letter he mentioned the previous meeting where only 5 people turned up apart from
himself, as happening a week before. However, that January the 3rd. lecture, as given to ‘The
Young Zionist and Leader Group’ was called ‘How to Bring the Young English Jews to a
Knowledge of Their Heritage and Palestine’. This implies that after the fictitious November
meetings, there would have been a two-month delay before Wellesley tried again. Also it badly
conflicts with the other details (above), about the titles and particularly with the dates of these
two meetings.
Wellesley’s short ‘Memorandum on a Proposed Jewish Cultural Youth Movement’ may have
been written earlier. His hand-written notes for this lecture were less detailed. The full text of a
more detailed and longer memo is given in Appendix 1 of ‘Habonim in Britain’, with the year
1928 probably being incorrect. Wellesley’s other memos and instructions were undated and
some were unsigned (for reasons explained below). Another of his memos was called ‘Zionist
Education and the Jewish Youth’ and it was printed in ‘The Young Zionist’, Volume III number
14, of 29th.April 1929.
Wellesley explains: “The J.C. in the latter part of 1928 printed an interview with me in which I
outlined the scope of the Movement and several articles of mine can be found in the Literary
Supplement of the J.C. at that time…” However, in 1977, during his work of gathering material
for the History of the Movement, Tony Lerman discovered that the J.C. interview actually was in
1929. (A recent search the J.C.s of 1928, has also failed to yield any of Wellesley’s articles or
interviews. He is only mentioned in the J.C.s of that year by an announcement under
‘forthcoming events’, for a lecture on ‘Palestine’ to be given by him on November 23rd., and for
an evening lecture to The Kadima Society on the 4th. January 1929 in Soho Square, entitled
‘Zionism—Methods of Inspiration’.)
Wellesley continues: “Before the end of 1928, Hymie Lipshitz, who readily absorbed the whole
idea, opened the first Gedud in Cannon Street Road, St. Georges and I let him have information
as to terminology, insignia etc., from week to week as it was developed.” (This came from the
work of the new committees, the formation of which followed the discussion after the second
“Jewish Cultural Youth” meeting.) ‘Oxford and St. Georges’ was the name of the club, where at
that time Basil Henriques organized sporting activities for the Jewish youth. The Cheder was
also in that street, so Wellesley may have mistaken the name and location or perhaps the
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difficulty in finding a suitable meeting place resulted in a few Gedud meetings being held in St.
Georges. Chaim had of course, begun his group earlier than this, but it was not yet a Gedud.
It should be noted that the booklet issued for Habonim’s 65th celebration (which by default
became the first issue of “Kol Vatikei Habonim”), unfortunately contained the wrong year. Its
editor the late Avraham Greenspan ‫ז”ל‬, included an extract from one of Wellesley’s articles,
which shows the year 1929 as when he visited the Cambridge and Bethnal Green Jewish lad’s
club and was concerned when he found that no Jewish history was taught. Wellesley has always
described this incident as occurring in 1928 and this is consistent with his memo-writing, lectures
etc. Later he called additional meetings in other English communities, for spreading the word
about the new Movement and for training madrichim.
3. The Early Development of Habonim
Wellesley’s committees collected money, chose the Hebrew terminology including the name
Habonim (as suggested by lawyer David Goitein, after the others had become exhausted from
arguing over suitable alternatives). On February 18th. 1929 Wellesley wrote to Elias Epstein “we
are going to call the Movement ‘Habonim’." Basil Henriques was the treasurer and worked
together with the 3 founders in the executive committee.
The first edition of the Handbook was developed with help from a different committee including, I
quote: “Mr. Leon Simon (who was later knighted), Rabbi (Dayan) Gallop, Mr. Elias Epstein, Mr.
Albert Lowy, Mr. H.S. Lipshitz (that is Chaim), Mr. Norman Lourie and Mr. Wellesley Aron.”
Arthur Blok also played a role here. The Handbook was partly based on that of the Scouting
Movement, but it carried the name of Habonim and was written by Wellesley and initially
published by him in May 1929. It first consisted of a blue-covered booklet, having 27 foolscappages of mimeographed proposals for running the Movement as well as a very brief outline of
Jewish History. (The stencils for it were cut with the assistance of Wellesley’s shared
secretary/typist Miss Silver, who did not realize until 10 years later what it was all about!) 150
copies were unofficially run off over-night on the Zionist Federation’s Gestetner duplicator by
Chaim and Nadia.
Wellesley soon revised and expanded this version into a printed Handbook in July 1929 after
receiving a generous donation from James de Rothschild. Its wide distribution led to the start of
many gedudim and plugot, both at home and abroad. Wellesley was careful to avoid any
association between the Movement and the Zionists. He avoided putting his name to many of
these publicised writings about the need for Habonim, as well as in the Handbook itself, where
he simply called himself “The Editor”.
The year that Habonim started is given in “Habonim in Britain 1929 – 1955”, on the cover and
subsequently (with one exception). It adds that some publicity was given in the J.C. late in 1929,
(without noting Wellesley’s earlier memoranda or the fictitious date of this J.C. interview in
1928). On page 20 of that history, is shown part of a page from the J.C. supplement for “spring
1929”, with a group photograph having the name ‘Habonim’. The subscript mentions the
Handbook that Wellesley was to re-publish, after obtaining financial help.
The first Madrichim of the new Gedudim did not wait for this formal document and they
improvised in various ways. Wellesley wrote on 22nd. April 1929 that: “We have a Gedud at
present at work in the East End of London”. “By March 1929 I personally organized and ran the
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first course for Roshé Gedudum at the St. John’s Wood synagogue in Abbey Road.” This course
lasted until June 1929 and he ran a second one from November. He added that: “These courses
in Hadracha soon resulted in 3 additional Gedudim in London”. They were Notting Hill (Gedud
Bar Kochba), Brondersbury (Gedud Hebron) and Hackney (Gedud Hertzl). This was confirmed
by Chaim Lipshitz in an article in July 1929.
Wellesley added: “by 1930 barely a year after the first Habonim Gedud had opened in Christian
Street, there were (established) a dozen Gedudim”. It says something for Wellesley’s leadership
that almost all of the participants of his two hadracha courses subsequently ran their own
gedudim. However, Chaim Lipshitz trained all four of Trumpeldor’s Roshé Kvutzot on his own.
During this period the various symbolic badges, names, sayings, songs, uniforms etc. came into
use in the gedudim. The “levana” or cardboard brick, which every Boneh or Bonah was expected
to construct for presentation at his/her initiation ceremony, was designed by committee member
Arthur Blok, an engineer employed in the Patent Office. In its original decorated form it carried
the Gedud name and date of the Hakdasha Ceremony. This design was clearly illustrated in
Volume 4 issue 1 of KVH. It has the name Trumpeldor and the date 23rd. October 1929, (which
was a Wednesday in the middle of Succot), so Gedud Trumpeldor must have ‘officially’ begun
no later and probably in spring of that year.
Late in 1929, when Wellesley really was interviewed by the J.C., he also wrote articles for them
about the new Non-Zionist Jewish Youth Movement, which unlike the Scouting Movement taught
Hebrew with songs and dances from Palestine, as well as camp-craft, map-reading etc. He left
the London based Zionist Federation in December 1930 after Weitzman found that they no
longer needed to employ him. He gradually passed the Movement leadership over to Joe
Gilbert. Wellesley was always seeking more activity and he returned to Palestine in 1931. By
1932 there were 21 Gedudim in London, with many more in the provinces, Scotland and abroad.
In spite of giving his help, Basil Henriques was anti-Zionist and regarded Judaism as being just a
religion. Later he opposed Habonim, obliquely mentioning it during a public A.J.Y. meeting. He
was one of the anti-Zionists who stopped Gedud Trumpeldor’s meetings at the L.C.C. School,
even though the Movement was non-Zionist then. In common with His Majesty’s Government’s
‘Balfour Declaration’ (of 1917), Habonim also “viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine
of a Jewish National Home”, but at that time our Movement went no further than teaching about
Eretz Yisrael.
4. Brief Biography of Wellesley
Wellesley’s background is interesting. We get it from a tape-recorded interview with Tony
Lerman in 1977, which was later written out. Wellesley’s Jewish father had German nationality.
Wellesley’s name was due to his birthday (18th. June) being on the anniversary of the Battle of
Waterloo, when Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, later named the First Duke of Wellington, finally
beat Napoleon’s forces. Many years later, Moshe Sharet persuaded Wellesley to change his
name to Pinkas, in memory of his grandfather.
The Aron family lived in Devon and were somewhat aristocratic. Wellesley’s father’s first wife
being Christian, had raised their older English-born children in that faith. Wellesley, the fifth child,
was born in 1901 to a second Jewish wife, but he received virtually no Jewish upbringing. As a
young man Wellesley was a keen and successful sportsman and he was active in the Scouting
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Movement with distinction, having qualified for the famous “Wood Badge” in Baden-Powell’s
troop at the Gilwell Park camping-grounds. Before or during the First World War, Wellesley and
his mother moved to Bayswater, London, but during wartime his elderly German father had to
live in Switzerland, where he died. Wellesley just missed serving in the War, where one of his
older brothers was killed.
In 1923 Wellesley went to study at Cambridge University. He joined the various sports clubs
there and fully participated, but never received the “blue” which normally was awarded to
university sportsmen. This was the first time he encountered anti-Semitism, having met and
associated with the local Jewish society, including some Zionists. As a result, in about 1925 he
discovered his Hebrew roots and obligations, in what he described as a personal flashrevelation!
Having graduated in 1926 he broke away from his almost fully-assimilated English family, by
going to see for himself in Palestine how the Jews were managing. Once there, Wellesley
gained a limited knowledge of Zionism, married, fathered a daughter, and taught English and
sports, first in Haifa at the Bet Sefer Realli and then in Tel Aviv at the Hertzlia Gymanisa. In 1927
Chaim Weizmann asked Wellesley a second time, to assist with the political work in the Zionist
Federation Office in London and in March of the following year Wellesley returned to England
with his young family to begin this job.
However, Leonard Stein, his boss was unwilling to share the work (with anyone) and Wellesley
found himself without much to do. In the summer of 1928 he was invited to visit the Jewish
Youth Clubs in Stepney and he enquired there if any teaching of Jewish history (and Palestinian
background news) was given in these clubs, some of which were managed by his friend Basil
Henriques. Wellesley recalls that except for the name over the door virtually nothing Jewish was
going on. Thus, one source of our Movement’s origin came from a lack of co-operation in Zionist
politics at its central London headquarters!
5. Additional Statements Supporting the Founding of Habonim in 1928
From Wellesley’s Article of 1960, ‘Habonim in Retrospect’:
“On various occasions during the last 30 years I have been asked what prompted me to found
Habonim in the latter part of 1928…”
From Wellesley’s Published Letter of 17 th. November 1964 -- to the Editor of ‘Mosaic’:
“I have enjoyed seeing your publication MOSAIC (autumn issue 1964) which has just reached
me courtesy of HABONIM. I was particularly interested in the article entitled “35 Years of
Habonim” by K.Z. My name may not be known to you or for that matter to K.Z., but I think for the
sake of historical accuracy and for the record, I must refer to the sentence on page 19, under the
caption “Purpose of Habonim” which states “Habonim was founded by young adults in 1929 …”
(K.Z. was the chief editor of Mosaic.)
“The truth is that I, personally, conceived, or invented put together and certainly launched
HABONIM in 1928.”
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From the Minutes of Various Meetings, to do with writing “The History of Habonim”: (which
materialized 20 years later). All were at Wellesley’s home, then in Tel Aviv.
On 25-09-1966, 8.30 pm.: “It is to be divided into various time periods, a) 1928 – 1930,
Foundation and Early years….”
October 1966: “Should divide the 38 years of Habonim’s existence into 7 periods.” (Taking 1966
minus 38 equals 1928, which confirms this as the starting year.) These minutes later also
mention: “Starting Period 1928 -1930”, as before.
January 1969: the minutes still noted: 1928 – 1930 for “The Beginnings” of the History.
6. Norman Lourie
This founder has also written about the early days of the Movement. His home was in
Johannesburg, South Africa, and previously he was in England to study law at the L.S.E.
(London School of Economics). He again travelled to England and arrived in 1928, after visiting
Palestine on the way. In London he met Chaim Lipshitz who was then involved with the Torah
Talmud in Teesdale Road. Later, Norman helped Chaim to run the new group of young boys,
before it was given any Movement names.
Norman does not mention his part in the founding meetings, but recalls attending a Wellesley
lecture in January 1929. Norman enthusiastically worked with Wellesley (he even stayed at
Wellesley’s home for a few weeks, so deeply was he committed) for the preparation of the
Movement terminology, the Handbook and other writings. Norman returned to South Africa in
1930. He and his bride Nadia carried the spirit of Habonim with them. They soon established the
first Habonim branch there, with Gedudim in Johannesburg and other southern African towns,
countries and a new branch in India.
7. To Summarize:
There were three founders of Habonim not one, and there are doubts about some of Wellesley
Aron’s recollections being correct. From the above extracts he claims that the initial meetings
outlining the Movement took place early in November 1928. This may have been when he
prepared memoranda for a proposed youth movement. However there is a contradiction
between his account of the two lectures being in early November and the meetings which
actually were on the 3rd. and 10th. of January 1929, as described in his letter written on the
following day to Dr. Brodetsky.
Over a period of several months before Chanukah 1928, a group of youngsters had met
independently and regularly with Chaim Lipshitz in Stepney, in the East End of London. Their
activities included learning Modern Hebrew and a knowledge about Palestine, with games,
songs and dances. It developed into Gedud Trumpeldor, with scouting activities, the use of
Hebrew names, sayings, uniforms, badges etc. ‘Habonim – A Cultural Jewish Youth Movement’
(i.e. non-Zionist) was so named in Spring 1929.
Chaim’s Gedud (with help from Norman Lourie) was subsequently named ‘Trumpeldor’, no later
than October 1929. These ideas were spread rapidly by the use of handbooks which Wellesley
wrote with advice on terminology from his committee including Norman. Had Norman not helped
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Chaim with the Gedud, nor arranged Wellesley’s second meeting of the university students, nor
advised about and printed the first Hand-Booklet (with Nadia), nor with her established the first
branches of Habonim abroad, then the Movement’s growth would have been significantly
delayed.
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