Jewish
Frontier

Moshe Kerem, one of the most influential Labor Zionist thinkers and teachers of the post-war generation, died on December 7, at the kibbutz he helped found, Gesher Haziv, a seacoast settlement, north of Haifa on the Mediterranean.

Born May 10, 1924 in the Bronx, Kerem completed his high school studies and undergraduate studies at Yeshiva University in the 1940s and was among the founders of Garin Aleph of American Habonim which made aliyah in 1948. He met his wife Evie and they married in 1948, right before their coming to Israel.

In 1949, Americans from Habonim, along with others from Kibbutz Bet Ha'arava, founded Gesher Haziv. Over a fifty-year span, he served as mazkir (secretary) of the kibbutz numerous times and taught at the regional high school.

He was a much beloved teacher at Oranim, the kibbutz teacher's college, at Haifa University where he was a professor of education, and upon his retirement as head of the academic department of the Yad Natan regional college.

Influential in Labor Zionist and even nonZionist organizations such as Reform and Conservative rabbinical groups, Kerem went on schlichut (emissarial work) to America on several occasions and was instrumental in not only bringing the unique message of the kibbutz philosophy to American Jews but also was one of the founders of what is today called the "Israel Experience" program, that is bringing vouth to Israel not simolv as tourists but for in-depth, long-term educational purposes. The Habonim Workshops at Gesher Haziv and Urim were among the first of this type.

Danny Mann, National President of the Labor Zionist Alliance and a close friend of Kerem, said that Kerem was the "guiding spirit of such programs as well as a key ideological leader of the kibbutz movement." Gidon Elad of Kibbutz Chatzerim noted: "I met him several times and watched him working in the public arena, very much concerned with the Jewish aspect of young Israelis. He enlightened me as to the special relations that had existed between the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) and the kibbutz movement. He paved the way to establish a cooperative Reform community in Israel."

Kerem is best known for his classic book Life on a Kibbutz, which he wrote under his English name Murray Weingarten (Kerem means "vineyard" in Hebrew).

Aliyah Cheskis-Cotel of Manhattan, a former Habonim/Dror leader, relates this partly mythic tale: "When Moshe was in the U.S. studying at Columbia University while serving as Central Shaliach, he took a small intimate sociology seminar as part of his assigned course work for the Ph.D. The professor assigned each person a piece of seminal writing related to sociology and told students to read the book and critique it. Imagine Moshe Kerem's surprise when the professor handed him Life on a Kibbutz by Murray Weingarten!"

Amnon Hadary, another renowned teacher and leader at Gesher Haziv, now living in Jerusalem, said of Kerem: "Moshe was one of my culture-heroes, a father-figure too...I bear a great sense of loss."

Kerem left hundreds of students with that same sense of loss, including such former Habonim leaders as Aaron and Iris Soiriff, Chaim and Malka Stopak, Leon Jick, Sid Troy, Leonard Fein, Arthur Goren, Ben Cohen, and Abba and Devorah Caspi.

Kerem is survived by his three children, Eitan of Hod Hasharon, Rachel of Cleveland, and Miriam of Nahariya, and five grandchildren: Yael, Ruth, Omer, Guy, and Noam.