The new wave of immigration is already here. Unlike the countries bordering Ukraine, Israel does not experience a surge of refugees that translates into dramatic images. There are no tens of thousands fleeing our land borders, and there are no tent camps for thousands of people knocking on our gates. However, it is enough to scratch the routine a bit to identify the next absorption challenge of the Jewish state.
To see history in the making, it is enough to go into some hotels in the capital, "Emperor Premier" or "Olive Tree" for example.
Instead of the usual tourist landscape, you will see hundreds of families of new immigrants who landed in Israel a few days or a few hours ago.
Some are still scared of the sights they have seen in Ukraine.
Others are happy that they managed to escape, perhaps at the very last minute.
And everyone shares the feeling of sudden turmoil.
You will hardly see men here.
Already in the first days of the war the Ukrainian authorities banned the departure of men of conscription age, from 18 to 60. Many Ukrainian Jews report that due to this restriction they decided to stay, despite the obvious risk to everyone.
Other families were torn apart.
Survived from the inferno: Hundreds of immigrants from Ukraine arrived in Israel // Photo: Moshe Ben Simhon
The men who nevertheless managed to escape from the country that is currently fighting for its life, are not happy to tell how they did so.
And this is not the only thing that many of the immigrants seek not to reveal.
Joe and his family begs not to publish their names.
"You never know who will rule Ukraine in a week," he tells me, and the look in his eyes conveys fear.
"We have properties there and relatives, and if anyone wants to harass us - he will know how to do it."
Formally, G.'s family, who came from the city of Dnipro, are not considered new immigrants.
They had already immigrated to Israel in the 1990s, but returned to their hometown and made a force there.
C. does not hide his mixed feelings as an "Israeli on paper": "On the one hand, I'm not happy that I did not manage to give anything to the Jewish state. Now I have received the most precious of all - the opportunity to escape war and dangers. "A day will come, if we stay here or return to Ukraine at the first opportunity. It fell on us like thunder on a clear day, I have not yet internalized the new reality."
The immense difficulty of understanding the new reality can actually be felt in the air of the hotels accommodating the new immigrants.
However, not everyone there continues to hesitate, like Joe and his family.
Olga Chukhov, who landed in Israel just a week ago with her daughter Alina (14) and her son Daniel (2.5), is not struggling.
"We are Jews, and Israel is my country and that of my children," she says naturally.
"I had planned to immigrate for a long time. Alina even managed to pass the screenings for the 'Na'aleh' program ('Youth Immigrates Before Parents') - and was supposed to start high school in Israel, but the war devastated the orderly planning."
Olga and her children after immigrating to Israel from the Ukraine, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
A day after landing at Ben Gurion Airport, Olga and the children showed up at the synagogue near the hotel to hear the reading of the Book of Esther. A religious Jewish book, but she fears that not everyone shares her approach: "There will be many immigrants who arrive without prior knowledge of Judaism, and seek refuge here, at least in the first stage, and not beyond.
Bringing them closer to Judaism and cultivating a sense of partnership will be a great challenge. "
The other's concern concerns the possible frictions between Ukrainian and Russian immigrants, although as is well known, most of them also share a negative opinion regarding the Russian president and the war he initiated.
Olga says that on her way to Israel the immigrants shared advice that maybe when they arrived in Israel it would be wise to avoid talking about the situation in Ukraine, in order not to get into too emotional quarrels, adding: "I wish everyone was smart enough to live in Israel peacefully as Israelis.
Her hotel also has new immigrants who fled Russia, and Olga willingly helped them fill out forms.
Meanwhile, she reports with satisfaction, no vocal arguments have been recorded against a war background.
Fears on the one hand, and hopes for a good future in the Jewish state on the other, unite everyone.
"The train just did not arrive"
Olga knows that Israel is used to accepting immigrants, but on the other hand she wants to point out the difference between her immigration and everything we knew before: "It should be understood that many immigrants now come voluntarily, but simply flee without choice. And it will not be easy to bridge cultural differences. But the shock of the war will not go away immediately, although I already feel good. Okay".
Olga's optimism and zest for life are in stark contrast to her memories of the war.
They lived in Kharkiv.
When the explosions awoke them at five in the morning on February 24, the day of the Russian invasion, Olga was afraid to stay at home and decided to move with the children to her father's house.
There, and in another hiding place, spent 10 days under the bombs, with no electricity and communications cut off immediately.
"From the window we saw the Ukrainian tanks firing out of the city," she recalls, and it is clear that the plays are still in front of her eyes.
"The artillery and rocket barrages of the Russians passed right by the house. In the dark we saw white and red trails in the air, and immediately afterwards we heard explosions that shook the environment - the walls, doors and windows.
Russian armored vehicle abandoned and destroyed in battles in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Photo: AP
"On the first day of the war we tried to go down to a public shelter. Later we stopped. In any case, I would not be able to dress my little son in clothes that match the cold outside, and it is not really a shelter, just a musty basement. "More of the apartment, and despite his young age he got used to running to this corner when the explosions were heard."
The Chukhov family's escape route was difficult.
Kharkiv was besieged on several sides by the Russian army, and hopes of leaving it on the train shattered: "We waited at the station, and the train just did not arrive. The roads were filled with horrific spectacles - burned vehicles, ruined houses. "We went to the Jewish community in Dnipro, from where we had already embarked on a long 26-hour journey to the border with Moldova. The Dnipro Jewish community provided us with police escort all the way, and thanks to him our bus at least did not stop at all the many checkpoints."
Olga explains that the assistance and mutual guarantee on the part of the Jewish communities did not stop at the Ukrainian border.
In Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, the local Jewish community spread its sponsorship over them and other Jewish refugees, found accommodation, provided food and care for everything else.
Contrary to this mobilization and what is thought in Israel, the official Israeli arms were actually absent from the escape route of Olga and her children.
The thousands of kilometers from their homes in eastern Ukraine or in the center to the western borders - future immigrants have to cross alone, and not everyone is able to do so.
Olga sadly tells me that her late grandmother's partner, an 87-year-old man, was forced to stay in the besieged Kharkiv because he knew he would not withstand the hardships of the road.
Even former immigrants were sometimes forced to leave behind property or things they could not carry, but the Chukhalov family immigrated to Israel literally, literally.
Olga and her children came to Jerusalem with some of the belongings they had taken with them when they left the house on February 24, when they could not yet know that they were leaving it for the last time, and that after three weeks of dangers and wanderings they would find themselves in a new land.
New immigrants from Ukraine at Ben Gurion Airport, Photo: AFP
The clothes they wore that morning were worn all this time, and only in Israel - thanks to the support and donations of organizations and volunteers - did they receive little of what was needed to live.
Olga notes that the day of absorption at Ben Gurion Airport was full of chaos and lack of knowledge, but full of gratitude for the help given to them.
In the first week in Israel, it has not yet received any government financial assistance, but even the good atmosphere of the Jewish state is doing its part.
Without the explosions around little Daniel becomes much calmer, and the family begins to build plans for the future.
Studying Hebrew will be the first challenge, she says with a smile, and says that she solved the language problem in the first week only thanks to the volunteers who accompanied her at every step: in grocery shopping, light rail and official institutions, such as the Ministry of Absorption.
Adaptation and employment
The members of the "Israeli Shabbat Saturday" association, which fills the corridors of the hotels, have become "volunteer angels" for the new immigrants.
In the days since their amendment, this organization has been busy building a warm community and developing a Jewish and Zionist identity among Russian-speaking young immigrants throughout the country, through cultural events, trips, lectures, Saturdays and holidays.
From the first day of the war in Ukraine attention was diverted to other needs.
Members of the association began volunteering with state institutions, in Israel and within the borders of Ukraine, to assist in bringing those entitled to the Law of Return to Israel.
"Shabbat Shabbat Yisraeli" has developed a pool of hundreds of volunteers who speak Russian and other languages, and recently added salaried workers - "The wave of immigration is so great, and the needs are so many," says the association's director Linda Friedburg, "without our organized system. Of immigrant suitable volunteers, they were at a loss. "
The confirmation, she says, comes immediately from Vladimir and Alexandra Stefanov, a couple of fresh immigrants from Kiev.
Alexandra needed dental care, and without the dedicated volunteers she would not have been able to get through the obstacle course, which included enrolling in a health fund, searching for a doctor and locating his clinic in a city that had become her home just a few days ago.
Civil Hospital of Ukraine,
The members of the Stefanov family, like all their brothers in trouble, begin their story with the explosions they heard when the war broke out.
They lived in the center of the Ukrainian capital, near government buildings that attracted Russian fire, so in the first week they had to stay all the time in the bathroom, the most protected place in the apartment.
Their mood these days ranges from panic to indifference.
The urge to flee was strong, but the mind warned that there was no safe escape from the war.
"On March 1, the phone suddenly rang," Vladimir says excitedly.
"The narrator was Israeli and unfamiliar. The man who spoke to me introduced himself as an employee of the Jewish Agency, and at first out of suspicion we refused to believe him and questioned him to understand how he located us. About two years ago, thanks to Alexandra's Judaism, we began promoting "But the proceedings were not completed due to the corona plague. A representative of the agency urged us to leave the city immediately, within an hour, as he said, because there would be no further opportunity."
Despite the initial market, the couple acted on the recommendation.
They boarded the first train west they could find, not knowing where it was going, and after a few days of hardship they managed to reach the town of Truskavets near the Polish border.
Only there did they realize that it is possible to breathe a sigh of relief.
After about two weeks, Alexandra Vladimir feels veteran in the country, helping new immigrants.
Unlike the members of the previous aliyahs, they have already found themselves initial employment.
"We are both academics, researchers in the field of sociology of medicine, and in recent days, after meeting with university representatives, we managed to be interviewed and accepted into a special scholarship program for Ukrainian immigrants at the Hebrew University," Alexandra explains.
At the same time, they run between the institutions and praise the Israeli response to the wave of immigrants that is beginning to flood the country: Representatives of government ministries and the Jerusalem municipality come to them at the hotel, trying to help and facilitate as much as possible.
Even the bureaucratic problems of the Stefanovs' cat were successfully resolved, thanks to the volunteers.
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