Ma'abarot

The Ma'abarot (Hebrew: מַעְבָּרוֹת plural) were refugee absorption camps in Israel in the 1950s. The Ma'abarot were meant to provide accommodation for the large influx of Jewish refugees and new Jewish immigrants (olim) arriving to the newly independent State of Israel, replacing the less habitable immigrant camps or tent cities. The ma'abarot began to decline by mid-1950s and were largely transformed into Development Towns. The last Ma'abara was closed in 1963.

Term origin

The Hebrew word Ma'abara (singular) derives from the word ma'avar (Hebrew: מעבר‎, transit). Ma'abarot (plural) were meant to be temporary communities for the new arrivals. Immigrants housed in these communities were Jewish refugees mainly from Middle East and North Africa, as well as Holocaust survivors from Europe.

History

Immigrant camps

The sudden arrival of over 130,000 Iraqi Jews in Israel in the early 1950s meant that almost a third of immigrant camp dwellers were of Iraqi Jewish origin. At the end of 1949 there had been 90,000 Jews housed in immigration camps; by the end of 1951 this population rose to over 220,000 people, in about 125 separate communities.