Previously: Men Aged 18-60 Banned from Leaving Ukraine! Women Cleared to Fly to America!
It really makes you think.
A red carpet, applause and dozens of blue and white flags were waiting for the first Jewish Ukrainian refugees to arrive in Israel as part of a huge rescue operation triggered by Moscow’s invasion.
About 400 people on four flights from Poland, Moldova and Romania landed in Tel Aviv on Sunday, among them 100 children who had been living in a Jewish orphanage in the northern city of Zhytomyr. Most of the new arrivals were visibly relieved to have reached safety; as is tradition, several people touched and kissed the ground after disembarking.
Related: Jews Move Ukrainian Orphans to Israel, Europe
Many of the new arrivals had never been to Israel before, and did not imagine they would be making aliyah – the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the Holy Land – under these circumstances. But as so often in the two weeks since Russia announced the military operation against its neighbour, history appears to be repeating itself.
“Israel is not what I expected … Well, I did not really know what to expect,” said 17-year-old computer programmer Yohor Sereda, who fled Kyiv with his father and grandfather. After a dangerous journey to the Polish border, for two days the trio took turns to stand in line and nap in the car before they were allowed to cross. In Warsaw, they were reunited with Sereda’s mother and two younger sisters, who had been on holiday in Egypt when the war broke out.
Yohor Sereda
About 1 million Ukrainian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, but Ukraine and Russia are still home to large Jewish communities. Israeli interior minister Ayelet Shaked said on Tuesday that the state is preparing to take in up to 100,000 Jews from the two countries and other former soviet republics after the onset of Europe’s new war as part of Operation Israel Guarantees.
Up to 5,000 non-Jewish Ukrainians will be allowed to come to Israel and another 20,000 who arrived before the fighting will be able to stay temporarily. A heavily criticised policy of forcing Ukrainian nationals or their Israeli hosts to pay a 10,000 shekel (£2,330) bond on arrival at Ben Gurion airport has now been scrapped.
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At a four-star hotel next to West Jerusalem’s main bus station on Wednesday, the lobby and restaurant were chaotic: suitcases and bags of clothes were left next to sofas while Ukrainian olim, or migrants, spoke into their mobiles in Ukrainian and Russian to loved ones and lawyers sorting out their paperwork. Small children ran around playing while teenagers made TikTok videos.
Immigration ministry employees and volunteer interpreters were on hand to help. But for Igor Fedyaev, from the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia near the contested regions of Donbas and Crimea, the enormity of what has happened has not yet sunk in. While the state will help, he doesn’t yet know where his family will live, or learn Hebrew.
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Fedyaev thought about making aliyah in 2019 after visiting a friend in the Israeli city of Netanya, but forgot about it during the pandemic.
I mean – the reason is “because the Holocaust”?
Igor Fedyaev and his son.
This whole “because the Holocaust” thing is really just a cover for their own belief that they are the master race.
“My ancestors suffered so now I am superior to everyone else on earth and get to control everyone and have all of these special privileges” doesn’t follow logically.