International Betar Cooperation

Below is an example of World Betar cooperation.

In March 1971, a half year after my Aliyah, together with my wife Batya, while managing the Betar Student & Youth Hostel in Jerusalem's Old City (in the Kukiya House, where the Plugat HaKotel was stationed in 1938 and where an Irgun slick of arms was fashioned between the walls), a group of Betarim and others was unceremoniously removed from the Temple Mount on Ta'anit Esther.

As we left the gate area, we were set upon by some Ishmaelites and a close dialogue was immediately created, as you can see below in the picture that appeared on the front page of Yedioth Aharonot:-





From l-r: Yours truly, Yisrael Medad (USA/Israel); (?); Marcel Cohen [with back to camera] (France); David Darmon (former Mefaked Machoz Paris); Adi Halperin (Israel); Yossie Uziel, aka "Catastropha" [in white turtleneck] (Israel).

In the above confrontation, we won but only after Darmon had his forehead slashed and I, in a desperate defensive move, emptied a whole carton of oranges faster than any pitching-machine could.

Netzivut Members, November 1962

November 1962 Members of the Netzivut

Standing Larry (Levi) Silverman; Jacobo Esses; Manny (David) Sprung:
Benny Rosen; Ben Rappaport.
Sitting and taking it easy -Butch Brody

FinkHoist

Barak Koffler writes:

At Camp Betar sometime in the mid to late 1960s, a FINKHOIST was organized. I don't remember all the details, but I think it was based on some rivalry between the girls'' and boys' cabins.

One dark, cloudy, moonless night, some of the boys silently snuck into the girls' section, and raided a number of cabins. They stole a bunch of their underwear, hoisted it up the flagpoles, and cut the ropes. I do not remember the background to the Fink in Finkhoist-- but the hoist part was obvious.

In the morning, the girls could not find a lot of their undies. When they paraded out to the Misdar ground, they saw the missing "unmentionables" hanging from the flagpoles, and they could not get to them because the flag hoisting ropes had been cut.

Some of the boys also kept some of the underwear and wore it over their own clothing to the Misdar ground and into breakfast.

The girls were screaming but it was al;l in good humor, and eventually they got everything back.

Does anybody else have any more background details?

I also have (and will have to find) a photo taken during the start of Color War, when the camp rented a small aircraft and pilot combo, and he dropped Marcelo Kreisel from several hundred feet up in the air, down onto the Misdar ground.

Marcelo's parachute failed to open and he hit the ground or the platform with a sickening thud. Everybody screamed, and ran to Marcelo. They found they had been tricked and a dummy --made up to look like him, in the same clothes and wearing a simulated parachute-- had been dropped from the plane.

The organizers then yelled Color War!, Marcelo emerged from the background and ran over onto the Misdar ground, and color war began.

Enjoying the Music of Betar

As requested today by Winkie & Batya,

I have attached two photos from the mid-to-late 1960s at Camp Betar.

The top one shows Naomi Atzmoni (on the left) and Emily Shertz in the dining hall at night; they are listening to a tape recording of Betar songs played by Shimshon Feder on his accordion. I am not sure that I spelled Emily's last name correctly.

The lower photo shows Naomi, with a smiling Yitzchak Aptowitzer standing in the background.

I have many more summer and winter camp photos, that I will slowly find and post as I have time. Many are in albums at my office and at home. Many others are in more than one location, in unmarked boxes with lots of other files --and not readily accessible. So, it may be awhile before I can find them all and post them.

Best Regards,
Bruce Barak Koffler

The Frimmerman Teuda 1934

From Barak:

To all, while I was looking through my Betar photos and other memorabilia, I found this Teudah from 1934





It is stamped along the folded section, Imprime en France -- printed in France.

It was issued to a "Freidl Frimmerman" in Hebrew script on the back.I knew the late Harry Frimmerman and his late wife Doris were in Toronto Betar in the 1930s and 40s.

This might be his wife's Teudah.

Harry died around 5 years ago, and his wife Doris passed away perhaps than a year ago.

I will pass this document along to their son Gordie, who did spend some time at Camp Betar. He lives in Toronto.

The menorah is a relatively unusual "interwoven branch design", a departure from the normal style where each branch is stand-alone.

This same interwoven branch design is found etched into the door glass and window glasses of a large Toronto synagogue, Adath Israel.

About 15 years ago, I constructed a chanukiah at my factory, based on this interwoven branch design; I built it from heavy brass strips and rods. At home, we rotate various chanukiot, from one year to the next, and this one that I built is sometimes brought out and used.

Does anybody know the history or development of the interwoven branch menorah? What period does it date back to?

Note that the blue Hebrew text at the top and bottom of the cover page is quite stylized and difficult for me to decipher.

I was not certain that this was a Betar Teudah, from the Hebrew inside or outside.

However, on the back, it says quite clearly in English and in French:

"The aim of Zionism is the gradual transformation of Palestine (Transjordan included) into a Jewish State".

Note the serial number-- 70,532
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P.S. From Winkie

It is a membership card for the Revisionist-Zionist Movement - Brit HaTzohar.

Betarim at Rosh Betar's 68th Yahrtzeit

At the ceremony marking the 68th yahrtzeit of Rosh Betar:

Josh and Shmuel Adler

Chaim Fischgrund, Baruch Kraus and Nissan Teman (and So. African Rodney Saunders)

Chandi (born on Khaf-Tet Tammuz) and Yisrael (Winkie) Medad

The crowd (Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu can be discerned)