Gahal was the Hebrew acronym for overseas recruitment, bringing recruits from abroad into the Jewish forces and, after May 1948, the Israel Defense Forces. Many came from European displaced persons camps and were Holocaust survivors. They joined a rapidly expanding military during Israel’s War of Independence, serving alongside people recruited in the country.
Recruitment from the DP camps
After the war, displaced persons camps held Jewish survivors waiting to emigrate. The Jewish Agency and Haganah organizers recruited among this population; recruitment operated in Europe and in Cyprus detention camps. The acronym Gahal distinguishes these recruits from Machal, the foreign volunteers who came from abroad to serve. Historian Ori Yehudai describes Gahal recruits as mainly survivors recruited in DP camps in his study of survivors in the Israeli Army.
Gahal reflected both the survivors’ search for a home and the new state’s urgent need for trained and able personnel. The journey from a camp to military service could be abrupt. Individual recruits had different backgrounds and levels of training; the category alone does not describe a uniform experience.
From pre-state mobilization to the IDF
Military recruitment began before independence. The Jewish Agency and National Committee established a National Census Bureau in November 1947 to register prospective recruits. Formal recruitment began on February 1, 1948. After the state was declared, a Ministry of Defense recruitment center took over the work in June 1948.
The Ministry of Defense and IDF Archive reports that more than 200,000 men and women reported for service, and 116,184 were drafted from February 1948 through June 1949. These figures cover the full recruitment system, not Gahal alone. A Ben-Gurion diary entry from August 1948 separately records Gahal in the defense budget as recruitment of volunteers from abroad, in the Ben-Gurion Archive diary.
Survivors among a broad fighting force
Gahal recruits served within units of a military force that was still taking shape. The IDF’s historical account identifies Gahal soldiers recruited in Europe, most of them Holocaust survivors, as a substantial element in the fighting force. Survivors also served in many other capacities and entered the country through different routes; it is inaccurate to treat every survivor as a Gahal recruit.
The migration route often preceded enlistment. Learn about Berihah, Aliyah Bet, and Cyprus, then see how survivors established communities after the war.