Tag #127859 - Interview #98363 (Aron Ishakh)

The youth Zionist organizations Maccabi [3] and ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ [5] and mass events like maccabiada and moshav [summer camps of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’] were very important for Jewish communal life. The maccabiads were accompanied by gymnastic competitions. So, once a year, almost the whole Jewish community gathered together. For example, in 1930 a big gym was built on 20 Vidin Street in the Jewish neighborhood. Every day when classes were over, you could hear the hubbub of the Jewish children playing in the yard. The noticeable ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ youth leaders, were Elika Ayzner, Yonel Markus, Iko Konorti, Sofi Kapon, Yako Yakov and Tinka Dzhain. And for ‘Maccabi’ – Mimi Bensusan, Moni Hakim, Fifi Mashiah, Miko Yulzari, Itsko Ayzner and Rafael Kauli. The yard of the old Jewish school, which was opposite the Odeon cinema, was the girls' and boys' meeting place, fans of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’; they sang Jewish songs, whose lyrics and melodies I, personally, do not remember; played Jewish dances; and learned to love Palestine, which was also called ‘The Jews' Promised Land’. During summer vacations they sent groups of boys and girls to hakhsharah in state agricultural farms such as Obraztsov Chiflik [meaning ‘Model Farm’ in Bulgarian] – in Ruse and Sadovo, in the Plovdiv region, where they worked and learned how to cultivate the land. They were being prepared to be future members of kibbutzim and in fact, after the emigration of Bulgarian Jews from the shomrim [in Hebrew - members of ‘Hashomer Hatzair’], flourishing kibbutzim were created in bare, rocky areas. In 1939, an aliyah for Palestine was organized, and a group of young men from Ruse took part in it. Such an aliyah was also organized in 1941.