The song and dance of the Tzofim Friendship Caravan returns to the US
Teen Israeli scouts to spend more than two months putting on 160 shows in America for Jewish and non-Jewish communities; due to security concerns, their shows won’t be publicized
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
This week, the Tzofim Friendship Caravan set off for some 160 “top-secret” shows throughout the United States. The 51-year-old tradition sees groups of Israeli 12th-grade scouts travel around North America performing an Israeli-themed song and dance revue.
Given the post-October 7 climate in the US and security concerns around Israeli events during the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, planning and logistics for this year’s shows were done in great secrecy to avoid swarms of protests, organizers said.
“The communities we visit are not allowed to say where the shows will be. The actual route is the most secretive document we have — I guard it with my life. No one can know,” said Eran Tzivon, director of the Friendship Caravan program.
This summer the program is fielding two separate caravans, each comprising 10 Israeli 17-year-olds (five girls and five boys) and two counselors/drivers in their early 20s. Traveling in rented vans with attached trailers for equipment, the groups are dividing the country between them, with one taking the East Coast and one the West, performing for some 24,000 people over more than two months on the road.
As the caravans make their way around the country, the performers are usually put up by families in various host communities, which can lead to further, continued connections.
“It’s a 45-minute to one-hour Israeli show, in English. The biggest part is bringing Israel to communities that don’t get a chance to see a lot of Israelis. It’s really about the relationships we create after the show,” said Tzivon, speaking with The Times of Israel along with several of the counselors via Zoom from the US, a few days before the Israeli high schoolers were due to arrive.
The Friendship Caravan is a project of Tzofim Tzabar, the “Israel Scouts,” a secular Zionist scout movement founded in 1919 and associated with similar groups such as the Boy Scouts of America. Besides visiting smaller Jewish communities, the performances also reach non-Jewish audiences, and Tzivon described a performance last year “at a camp for 3,000 American Boy Scouts” as “one of the best shows, unbelievable.”
Tradition, tradition
With the long history of Tzofim Tzabar and the Friendship Caravan, and given the intense bonding the experience provides for the young participants, it’s only natural that “we are seeing a lot of second-generation members… we’ve seen weddings, divorces and unfortunately funerals,” said Tzivon.
One of the second-generation members is Shai Birnbaum, 23, who is serving as a counselor this summer. “I was born into the caravan, my mom was a caravan member when she was 17, in 1983, and she still meets with her team,” she said.
Birnbaum herself was selected to be on the caravan when she was in 12th grade — “When I got to that age, I didn’t have a choice” — and described the experience as life-changing.
After the October 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel, “all the American hosting families we met back then, six or seven years ago, they immediately supported us, stood with us, it was very powerful,” Birnbaum said, adding that this kind of solidarity “had a great impact” on the current group of counselors, all of whom are long-time participants in the Tzofim Tzabar movement and were caravan members themselves.
Joining the caravan is highly competitive. This year, about 2,000 Israeli teens tried out for the caravan’s 20 spots. Once selected, participants work for five months, meeting each weekend to get ready, said counselor Noa Drukman, also 23.
“For us, this project is so important. We gave up on a lot of things to come. The kids, they are 17, they gave up their weekends, they miss some school, because this is such an important mission, especially at this time,” Drukman said.
The teen participants also voluntarily give up their phones during their time on the caravan — they are allowed one hour a week to stay in touch with family and friends — which organizers said adds to the immediacy of the experience.
“It’s incredible. You see the kids, driving for a full day, and instead of being on their phones, they speak with each other. Instead of talking with their mom, they get support and hugs from each other,” Drukman said.
Being on the road in the US for two months without her phone when she herself was on the caravan at age 17 was “one of my favorite things” about the experience, Drukman said.
The show must go on
When asked about the tenor of the show as the country continues to battle Hamas and to process the tragedy of October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists butchered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 251 to the Gaza Strip, organizer Tzivon said that it “was a fragile dance to create the show this year.”
“It’s not a memorial on wheels, but it’s not a Brazilian samba while Israel is at war,” he said.
“We don’t talk directly about October 7,” Tzivon said, but the show addresses it “on a personal level” by dedicating one segment to Yuval Halivni, an IDF reserve soldier who died fighting terrorist infiltrators in Sderot on October 9.
Halivni and his wife Amit “were a caravan couple, they had met on the caravan, and their wedding was full of caravan members,” Tzivon said.
Despite the secrecy and security concerns surrounding their route this year, one stop was certain: the Friendship Caravan, along with other members of the greater Tzofim community and the Friends of the Israel Scouts group, participated at the head of the annual Israel Day Parade in New York City on Sunday, an event that was held this year under extra-heavy security.
“We feel we need to be here this specific summer to tell our true story,” said Birnbaum, who noted that it was “a little bit complicated and hard to leave home,” as all the counselors had been in and out of reserve IDF duty since the war began.
“I really love Israel. My grandfather wasn’t able to see it because of the Holocaust. I have to fight to protect this story… this is one of the things I am thinking about this summer. It’s really personal,” Birnbaum said.
