Many Ukrainian families have escaped to Israel since Russia’s war started, and as Israel celebrates the country’s 75th anniversary, those families are finding comfort in their new home.
Elena Ivanova is among those who fled Ukraine for Israel.
“I loved my life,” she said, and why wouldn’t she? She had a husband, with whom she owned a clothing store, two young sons and a close family.
But everything changed Feb. 24, 2022.
“It began, the war began,” she said. “We knew, but we couldn’t believe it. I realized I needed to take my children away.”
She and her children drove 30 hours from Odesa, Ukraine, to Poland.
“I was trying to make my grandpa — he’s 93 years old — to move to my parents, just to keep them together, but he won’t leave his apartment anymore because he was evacuated when he was like my son, at the same age,” she said. “He told me like, no.”
Passing burning cars, damaged roads, Ivanova saw the panic. Her husband was forced to stay behind.
Elise Udelson of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation provides some perspective.
“These people had to flee,” she said. “They had 10 minutes, some of them. They had to take what they could and run.”
Ultimately, Ivanova ended up in a long line at the Polish border having no idea what to do.
“We saw saw doctors, we saw professionals, university professors, real, everyday people who were homeless, basically, other than the shelter they were given at the time,” Udelson said.
A group called the Jewish Agency, working with Jewish federations in the United States, including the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, set up temporary places to stay, stocking them with food and clothes and classrooms set up for the children.
“We were in place there to provide shelter and medicine and food to anyone who needed it,” said Jeff Levin of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, “and for Jews who came across the border also to provide — if they wanted and needed — an option to go somewhere to build a new home here in Israel.”
Ultimately, that’s what Ivanova did, even though she left behind a thriving business and found herself having to ask for help.
“That’s the most…” she said and scoffed. “It’s very hard because I used to have a good life. I used to be a volunteer in my previous life, you know. I helped orphans, elderly people.”
On Thursday, Ivanova and her eldest son joined the Miami Jewish Federation at an event during their visit to Israel. Her husband has since joined them there as well.
She said her experience gave her a deeper understanding of the past.
“It’s so difficult to understand how much violence there is in the world,” she said, “how this history is repeating and repeating.”
She took her son to Yad Vashem, a museum of the Holocaust, to explain a little of why her grandfather, who fled his home in the 1930s, would not leave this time.
“We find a Jew community only here,” she said, “and it’s like a miracle for us.”
Since Ivanova left Ukraine, she has not seen her parents or her grandfather, who is currently in the hospital.
She’s not sure when or if she will ever see them again.
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