page_title: Mahal (Israel)
section_title: Legacy and commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: Mahal (Israel) / Legacy and commemoration
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial to Machal - Foreign Volunteers who served in Israel's War of Independence
context_page_description: Mahal, more often spelled Machal, refers to the group of overseas volunteers who fought alongside Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Some 4,000 volunteers, mostly Jews but also non-Jews, arrived from all over the world. Mahal is an acronym of מתנדבי חוץ לארץ.
  Mahal was disbanded after the war and most of the volunteers went home, although some remained in the country as permanent residents.
context_section_description: After the end of the war in 1949, the majority of the Mahal returned to their home countries. Some remained to live in Israel; the village of Kfar Daniel near Lod was founded by Mahal veterans from North America and the United Kingdom. Then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said "the Mahal Forces were the Diaspora's most important contribution to the survival of the State of Israel."
  
  A memorial honoring the Mahal volunteers was erected near Sha'ar HaGai on the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On it is inscribed a verse from Joshua 1:14: "All those of valour shall pass armed among your brethren, and shall help them."
  Over the years, changing road configurations made accessibility to the Sha'ar HaGai memorial obscure with a corresponding, significant, drop off in visitation. Contemporary awareness of the vital role of Mahal in the birth of Israel diminished. The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation recognized the problem and the necessity for historical memory.  December 2017, a new Mahal memorial was dedicated on Mahal street in Jerusalem directly across from Jerusalem's Ammunition Hill Museum to the Battle of Ammunition Hill during the Six Days War.
  The memorial, funded by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, and the American Veterans of Israel Legacy Corporation, was designed by noted Israeli artist Sam Philipe.  The Memorial is a massive relief boulder symbolizing Mahal as one of the foundational rocks in the birth of Israel.  Mounted on the boulder are bronze sculpted symbols of branches of the Israel Defense Forces that Mahal contributed to, Air Force, Army, and Navy. The new Mahal memorial, with its interpretive historical signage, is seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
caption: Jerusalem Memorial to Machal, the Foreign Volunteers who helped found Israel during the War of Independence.
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