Corona in the City

Due to the corona-related cancellation of the Netzer Summer weekend 2020, which would have taken place in the weekend of 5-7 June, Netzer, the liberal Jewish and Zionist youth association of the Netherlands, decided to let the weekend go on, but in a slightly different way. It was the perfect opportunity for an online ‘ZOOMerweekend’, with activities to follow throughout the weekend via the video calling platform Zoom.

This first online weekend replaced the regular weekend. Netzer finds it very important to organize activities in this uncertain corona time to bring Jewish youth together, even though this time it wasn’t physically possible. A compiled ‘Zoomerpakket’ including a t-shirt, a netzer bag, all kinds of stuff to participate in the activities and much more were sent to the 45 participants.

We kicked off with Netzer’s first online Kabbalat Shabbat service ever. The service was largely taken over by the children who sang tefilot from home, what made this a real youth service, organized by and for Jewish youth.

Netzer Nederland is a branch of Netzer Olami that counts more than 15 youth associations all over the world. Madrichiem (youth leaders) from our sister movements abroad have been invited to take over part of the online Kabbalat Shabbat service. The invited associations were Colônia from Brazil and Netzer Germany, who brought a lot of enthusiasm and their own sound to the service. In this way our chanichiem (members) could clearly see that Netzer is part of a large international youth association, from other Netzers around the world. During the service more than 60 people from the Netherlands, Brazil and Germany were present.

On Shabbat the first activity was a creative workshop. In the ZOOMer package there was a tile with a porcelain marker. The children were instructed to decorate it according to the theme ‘What does Netzer mean to you? After this activity we saw a large number of creatively decorated tiles that will fit very nicely on the wall of our new youth space (Moadon) in the LJG Amsterdam. This made the ZOOMerweekend extra interactive. The parasha of the week was also briefly discussed.

In the evening a Netzer Game-Night was held in which children could follow different games for five laps, accompanied by madrichiem. (youth leaders)

The children had the opportunity to follow all these games and also the opportunity to catch up with their Netzer friends in ‘breakout rooms’.
The Saturday evening ended as usual with havdala. This time extra special because it was the very first online havdala. In this way we were able to experience the feeling of being together at the end of the Sabbath.

This special Netzerweekend ended, as usual, with an endgame. This took place on Sunday afternoon, and was called ‘Netzer Mystery’. During this mystery the madrichim (youth leaders), ‘controlled’ by the chanichim with a ‘bodycam’ by the LJG Amsterdam were searching for a lost box of money. By means of pe’oelot (activities) from different stations in the LJG Amsterdam a right or wrong letter could be earned by the different teams, depending on how well it was executed. With all these letters a word could be formed that pointed to the place of the missing box, after which the mystery is solved.

The mazkirout (board) of Netzer looks back with satisfaction on the first online Netzer weekend ever, the ‘Zoomerweekend’. Where we brought together a very large group of almost 50 Jewish youths, despite the corona crisis. In any case, we are not sitting still. Nevertheless, we cannot wait until we can start organizing physical activities and weekends for all our chanichiem (members) again.

by Netzer Nederland