Instructors of the Hanoar Hatzioni Zionist youth movement at a summer camp in Lwów, Poland, 1936

This group portrait shows instructors of the Hanoar Hatzioni Zionist youth movement at a summer camp in Lwów in 1936. The uniforms the young men wear, combined with the summer camp setting, bear similarities to the wider European scouting movement. Between World War I and World War II, scouting was very popular in Poland among young people. Scouting had a strongly national character. It inspired youth movements for Jews, who were excluded from scouting or who wanted to express their own national aspirations. Some of these groups promoted alternative ideologies or were affiliated with political parties. The ideological and political orientation of these movements reflected Jewish diversity in interwar Poland. Hanoar Hatzioni was one of several scouting movements that espoused Zionism. Zionism advocated for an independent Jewish state in the ancient Jewish homeland.