The songbooks of Jewish youth movements

Jewish youth movements came into being at the end of the 19th century. Their emergence was linked to the rise of nationalism and anti-Semitism in Europe, which gradually excluded young Jews from many associations. In response, they founded youth movements in Austria in the late 1870s, and in Germany at the end of 1890[1]See Geneviève Humbert-Knitel’s article on “Les mouvements de jeunesse “juifs” de la fin du XIXe siècle jusqu’en 1938”, Recherches Germaniques, 2009, pp. 183-201.

But this phenomenon was not confined to Western Jewish society, but also to Eastern Europe, as “testified by the history of the youth movements Zeirei Zion and Haschomer Hazair (…) which, from 1903, brought together a section of Jewish youth from Galicia, including those from Lemberg/Lwov, but also from Brody and Tarnopol, the two bastions of the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment. Coming from the well-to-do, cultivated bourgeoisie, confronted with anti-Semitism from the Poles and Ruthenians, this section of youth, like Western youth, broke with their family environment, blaming it for the loss of their identity, and organized themselves to find new landmarks. They spoke Polish and went back to the sources of Judaism, learning Hebrew, Arabic and the history of Palestine, in the hope of leaving for Palestine” [2]Geneviève Humbert-Knitel, op. cit, p. 187.

Hashomer Hatzaïr,1934, Poland

The first associations were sports clubs, in line with the Zionist youth movement’s desire to create a new man, strong and brave, regenerated by the practice of team sports. The Blau-Weiss movement is without doubt the most representative Jewish youth movement of Western Jewish Zionism. Born in 1912 from the merger of two hiking groups, the Wanderverein 1907 in Breslau and the Jüdischer Wanderbund Blau-Weiss in Berlin, this new group of boys and girls walked, played sports, shared meals and sang. Among its members were several Jewish scouts from Galicia. In 1921, several of its members emigrated to Palestine. There were also non-Zionist youth movements in Germany, whose aim was to integrate Jews into their society (such as the Arbeitsgemeinschaft jüdisch- liberale Jugendvereine, which in 1936 became the Ring, Bund der jüdischen Jugend).

In Eastern Europe, Bund youth movements (such as Tsukunft [The future], founded in the 1910s, SKIF (Sotsialisticher Kinder Farband)[3]SKIF provides a structure for children from an early age, with summer camps and the Bundist Youth Organization) advocated universal, secular, non-Zionist socialism

Also in France and England, there are several Jewish youth movements emerging from these different movements.

In France, Robert Gamzon (1905-1961) founded the Eclaireurs Israélites de France (EIF) in 1923. He received support from writer, poet and essayist Edmond Fleg (1874-1963), who “dreamed of a youth movement where practising and non-practising Jews, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, Orthodox and liberal… could come together to exchange, share and pass on.”[4]https://www.eeif.org/histoire-du-mouvementIn 1927, the movement opened up to girls and spread to Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. In 1969, the Eclaireurs Israelites de France officially became the Eclaireuses et Eclaireurs Israelites de France (EEIF).

Like in all youth movements, singing is omnipresent in the EEIF. The various daily and Shabbat prayers are sung [5]Listen to the EEIF prayers on their website https://www.eeif.org/siddour. In addition, during evenings around the log fire, the EEIF sing a repertoire in French or Hebrew, often accompanied by guitar. These songs are often collected in small notebooks which, like most youth movements, become an emblematic element of Jewish scouting, right up to the present day. During Covid, singing vigils were organized on-line or on social networks, bringing together up to 5,000 people.

The European Institute of Jewish Music has collected in its collections a number of songbooks from Jewish youth movements (published by EEIF, Histadrut, the Youth and Education Department of the Jewish National Fund, etc.) which we are delighted to present to you in the video below.

References:

More about Zionist youth movements 

More about EEIF

Consult our EEIF music archive

References
1 See Geneviève Humbert-Knitel’s article on “Les mouvements de jeunesse “juifs” de la fin du XIXe siècle jusqu’en 1938”, Recherches Germaniques, 2009, pp. 183-201
2 Geneviève Humbert-Knitel, op. cit, p. 187
3 SKIF provides a structure for children from an early age, with summer camps
4 https://www.eeif.org/histoire-du-mouvement
5 Listen to the EEIF prayers on their website https://www.eeif.org/siddour

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