The Grumpy Parent’s Guide to Bnei Akiva

This past Shabbat signified the end (Baruch Hashem) of what is called in our part of the world, Chodesh Irgun. This refers to the first month of the year in terms of Bnei Akiva, the Dati Leumi youth group. Kids start in fourth grade and continue until the end of high school, although most of the acitivites slow down at ninth grade. In tenth grade some of the teenagers are picked to be madrichim (counselors) and they are now in charge of the younger kids. The other teenagers basically have an acitivity once in a while, but if they are not chosen to be madrichim then Bnei Akiva loses some significance.

I have a love/hate relationship with Bnei Akiva. During the regular year I love it – but during Chodesh Irgun I hate it.  The main problem I have with this month is the timing. Just when your kids get back into the swing of things after the Jewish holidays, this month comes along to mess things up. Things become even more intense the during the last week, when even small kids are up to all hours practicing their play and painting their wall in the clubhouse.

One of the “highlights” of the ceremony on Motzei Shabbat is the official naming of the current Shevet (“tribe” – which refers to the current ninth graders). This year’s Shevet is called Dvir, which is not bad as names go.

At one stage of the ceremony, (held outside on the basketball court) as I sat shivering and wishing that they would hurry up already, I started to think of alternate names for the Shevet – particularly appropriate to be given by a grumpy parent – to grumpy teenagers.

(These are mostly slang terms in Hebrew, and even Arabic, and I don’t have the patience to translate – my apologies!)

Westbankmama’s alternate names for the Shevet:

Al hapanim

OOOOOF

Nudnik

Aizeh Bassah

Fashlah

Fadicha

Lo Mashihoo

Feel free to chime in with some of your own….