Maccabi Hatzair youth movement was founded in 1929 as the educational arm of Maccabi World Union and Maccabi Israel. It currently operates more than 20 chapters throughout the country.
Maccabi Hatzair defines itself as an educational, national, sports and apolitical youth movement based on the values of Judaism and Zionism, that guides and educates its members to pioneership and activity in all areas of life, based on present needs, through creative individual initiative.
Maccabi Hatzair educates according to informal education principles and upholds the notion of “youth educate youth” as a means of empowering and developing Israeli youth. The youth movement’s educational aim is to shape a whole individual, in body and spirit, since the path of Maccabi is “a healthy mind in a healthy body”, the moral individual, the good friend, cultured in his and her ways, as well as educating towards activity and hagshama in all areas of life (realization in Hebrew, a youth movement term referring to processes the members undergo in the aim of realizing their purpose, aspirations and values as they were educated in the youth movement, usually referring to the Service Year and Nahal tracks).
Maccabi Hatzair conducts routine activities in its chapters, in addition to field trips, summer camps, training seminars and youth movement councils. It maintains a tradition of unique national enterprises, among them: the main torch trail, sending delegations abroad, and the torch trail for the senior age-group - a three-day journey in which the senior age-group takes part in activity for the community.
Maccabi Hatzair strives for all its graduates to internalize and realize the values it fosters through various educational processes. It offers several structured hagshama tracks that its senior age-group can choose to join during their last year in the youth movement or after their army service (Shnat Sherut– service year; army service in the Nahal; an adult garin operating in the community - garin refers to a broad group comprised of several small groups). As from 2000, Maccabi Hatzair sends Service Year garinim on national missions such as immigration absorption, narrowing gaps in Israeli society and assistance to special needs persons. Service Year members also serve as a significant cadre of counselors in the youth movement’s chapters.
