A Matter of Correspondence

We get a lot of letters for B'tnua. A lot. Most of them aren't written to us but people want us to print them. So as they stack up until we print them all at once. Some are wierd, some are important and some are silly. You decide which are which. -Chaver Mike d.

April 3, 2002

Dear Jamie,

Kol Hakavod!

Linguistically speaking, Habonim Dror is now batting .500 by having attended a ve'ida. Now, if you change the name of your publication to Batnua, you average will rise to .1000, because you will be describing what is taking place in the movement, not just a movement, since the preposition `b' means merely in a, whereas `ba' means in the.

If you can find a contrary opinion, I would welcome learning its source.

Shalom,

Irving

Dear Irving,

I am glad that someone has finally written to note the name change of our publication! B'Tnua has been in print for almost three years and I was afraid that no one had taken notice! The name change, from Batnua to B'Tnua, was a not, as you suggest, a mistake it was a deliberate alteration.

You are correct that the preposition `ba' means `in the' and that `b' means `in a.' The periodical, which ceased publication in 1996, was entitled Batnua. Literally translated Batnua means in the movement. When the Mazkirut Artzit

found funding (through grants and generous donations) to reestablish a movement magazine we wanted to find a name that paid homage to our past while symbolically charting our future.

"On the Move" was created for Winter Seminar 1998 but died as a single issue `zine. It apparently took only one issue to satisfy the goal of On The Move: " . . . [to] give you a little idea of where we've [HDNA] come from, where we are going and what we are doing as we speak."

The Mazkirut Artzit committed itself to producing a regular publication in 1999. The first issue of B'tnua reached our chaverim in March of that year. The name was chosen based on its literal translation, B'Tnua means: in movement, in motion, or in a movement. The name acknowledges our past while stating unequivocally that Habonim Dror is about activism. Habonim Dror is B'tnua!

Whether we are batting a .500 or .1000 doesn't really matter remember, its not a competition (this IS Habonim Dror!).

Aleh V'Hagshem

Jamie Levin

Mazkir Tnua