The Ma‘abarah (The Immigrant Transit Camp)

Shimon Ballas

1964

Sensitive Content

This entry portrays racism and xenophobia encountered by Mizrahi Jews in Israel. The text provides insight into history; however, The Posen Library does not condone or promote oppression of any kind.

Pounding, heavy feet climbed the muddy path up the hill that looked out over wild bushes. The walkers’ steps sank in the earth next to each other and on top of each other on the path upward, in the form of a broken arc, up to the entrance to a wooden shed, which stood, wrapped in the last light of day. [ . . . ] When they reached the entrance of…

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Creator Bio

Shimon Ballas

1930–2019

Shimon Ballas—author, translator, and editor—was born in Baghdad and immigrated to Israel in 1951 at the age of twenty-one, later earning a doctoral degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. Ballas wrote articles and criticism in Arabic and taught Arabic literature at Haifa University. He published several works of prose and nonfiction and served as editor of the journal Al Karmel. His first Hebrew novel, Ha-Ma‘abarah (The Transit Camp, 1964), is one of the first accounts of the harsh realities and struggles faced by immigrants settling in Israel in the 1950s. Ballas was awarded the President’s Prize in 2006.

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