Low-Temperature Melting Pot

Immediately upon the establishment of the State of Israel, approximately 720,000 people were absorbed as part of the Great Aliyah. More than one third of these newcomers, immigrants and refugees, were housed in immigrant camps and later in transit camps known as "maabarot". Some were removed from them or left them over time; others remained in the maabarot for many years, and the maabarot remained within them. In their early years, the "maabarot" played an important social role and gave rise to new interethnic relations and new identities. Within a short period, and in a space intended to serve as a temporary way station, a shared form of existence emerged in the "maabarot". It established principles of organization, fostered cooperation that crossed boundaries of ethnic and communal origin, and created communal cohesion that developed despite the limitations imposed by the absorbing establishment. This book reexamines life in the "maabarot" through a division into three distinct subperiods that reflect profound changes in social composition, in patterns of power, and in the immigrants’ consciousness of identity. The elimination of the heterogeneity that had characterized the social fabric not only changed the status of the residents in the eyes of the state and society, but also narrowed the social and future possibilities that had opened before them. Through an examination of diverse sources, a detailed depiction of everyday life, and a thematic analysis of language, religion, and education, a formative chapter in the social history of Israel is revealed through the world of the immigrants as they themselves shaped it. From a charged encounter among diasporas, social groups, and a harsh, brutal, and impossible daily routine, a society emerges that has until now remained at the margins of historical research.