Ma’abarot: Israeli immigrant transit camps revisited

This article suggests a re-periodisation of the transit camps in which hundreds of thousands of immigrants were housed in Israel’s first three decades. It anchors the meaning of these temporal housing spaces–known as Ma’abarot–and rebuts the perception of their temporality, presenting new data about institutional policies regarding these allegedly temporary living spaces and the everyday reality of their inhabitants. It suggests a re-periodisation that includes not only the initial handling of the massive Jewish immigration wave during the ‘Mass Aliyah’ (1948–51) but also the longer-term settling of the immigrants.