what “maapilim” (מעפילים) means in Hebrew

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/מעפילים-#.m4a” /]מַעְפִּילִים

This is a term with no real English equivalent: מעפילים[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/מעפילים-#.m4a” /] (the closest translation I found was internee, but who knows what that is). The Modern-Hebrew term refers to Jews, mostly displaced persons after the Holocaust, trying to break the blockade of the British Mandate before the State of Israel was established.

Here’s the term in context:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/מעפילים-#.m4a” /]חלק מעליית הנוער הגיעו ארצה באוניות מעפילים.

Some of Youth Aliyah arrived to the land via maapilim ships.

This dramatic term harks back to the Biblical story of the Israelites who, after being told that their generation would die in the desert, tried and failed breaking through the divinely-enforced blockade to the promised land (במדבר י”ד[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/מעפילים-#.m4a” /] – Numbers 14).