Mahal (Israel)

Not to be confused with מחל‎, the identically pronounced election symbol of Likud, a major political party in Israel.

Mahal, more often spelled Machal (Hebrew: מח"ל), refers to the group of overseas volunteers who fought alongside Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Some 4,000 volunteers, mostly Jews, arrived from all over the world. Mahal is an acronym of Mitnadvei Hutz LaAretz (מתנדבי חוץ לארץ‎, lit. 'volunteers from abroad').

Mahal was disbanded after the war and most of the volunteers went home, although some remained in the country as permanent residents.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.