The Nahal Beka Experience: Ethiopian and Soviet Immigrant Jews in a Caravan Absorption Center

The Nahal Beka caravan absorption center, located outside of Be’er Sheva, was one of the largest facilities of its kind to house Ethiopian and Russian immigrants in Israel during the early 1990s. Established as a temporary “way station” to permanent housing and absorption, the facility has been compared to the ma’barot (transit camps) created for immigrants from Arab countries who flooded into Israel during the 1950s and 1960s.