Assaf's (Central Shaliach) speech at the Reunion

Hello everyone,
I would like to start with a quote from 2400 years ago

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”― Socrates

These words, written by Socrates 2400 years ago, may resonate with parents in the audience.
However, here at Hashomer Hatzair Camp Shomria, we have proven that these words are not relevant to all youth. We prove that every year for the past 100 years! Over the past two weeks, we have been creating a unique and autonomous socialistic utopia. Our Chanichimot and Madrichimot have come together to build a society that strives to include everyone and educates ourselves to create a better world. Our guiding principle is the "equality of human worth," and our main focus is Tikkun olam.

As we celebrate our 100th anniversary and 110 years of Hashomer Hazair worldwide, we find ourselves in a rapidly changing world, which is not always progressing for the better. We are confronted with a significant question: What will Hagshama look like in the next 100 years? What challenges will we take on? And how can we mend this broken world?

During the weekend, I had the opportunity to listen to some of the conversations, and I understand that we have generated some great ideas. However, now comes the challenging part – turning these ideas into reality. In gaining insight on this matter, we can draw inspiration from Tzivia Lubetkin, the second in command to Mordechai Anielewicz in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

"The secret of the movement’s strength"/Zivia LubetkinWe have lived and still live with the conviction that our fate would have been very different had we not been members of the movement, if we had not absorbed the values that it gave us from childhood.This is the real secret of the movement’s strength. The movement always knew how to demand everything from its members. The movement’s goal had always been to educate a new kind of person, capable of enduring the most adverse conditions and difficult times while standing up for the emancipation of our people, the Jews and Humankind. It was our movement education which gave us the strength to endure.I don’t know if I succeeded in describing how much we tried to live up to those values. I did describe how we were almost obsessed at times with preserving the unblemished personal morality of each of our members as individuals, and the movement as a whole...

I have full belief in the strength of all youth and adults to actively engage in Tikkun olam, both within their homes, communities, and the world.

Today, we are also making amends. We understand that even as a movement, we are not exempt from making mistakes. However, today, we are taking responsibility for those mistakes and actively working towards a small act of Tikkun olam for ourselves.

For those of you who don’t know up until a “few” years ago if you didn’t make aliyah to israel you did not get a bogrim pin, today we want to correct this wrong
Please step forward if you didn't get a bogrim pin because you didn’t make aliya and you feel that you are living a life of Shomric Hagshama
Repeat after me:

Hineni mavtiach/a behavtacha shlema lihiyot Shomerol neeman. La am hayehudi le sfato u lemoladeto. Lehavek avur chayey tzedek, achvat amim ve avur zchut kiyumo shel ha am hayehudi be eretz israel. Leyasem et derech ha Haghsama hashomrit, Kechol Yecholti, ve lihiyot masur latnua hashomrit.

I promise in a full oath to be a loyal Shomerol. To the Jewish people, it’s language, and homeland. To embrace a life of justice, fraternity of nations, and the right of the existence of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. To actualize the way of Shomeric actualization, to to the best of my abilities , and to be committed to the Shomeric movement.

Chazak ve ematz!!!!!