Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Yohor Sereda, 17
Yohor Sereda, 17: ‘It was very scary driving out of Kyiv: there were explosions everywhere. It felt like being in a movie.’ Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum
Yohor Sereda, 17: ‘It was very scary driving out of Kyiv: there were explosions everywhere. It felt like being in a movie.’ Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum

‘No one really believed it would happen’: first Jewish Ukrainian refugees arrive in Israel

This article is more than 2 years old

Influx of 100,000 refugees from the war zone expected as members of the diaspora exercise the country’s law of return

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.

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 Israel – 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.

“I just took my laptop and a rucksack of clothes. It was very scary driving out of Kyiv: there were explosions everywhere. It felt like being in a movie,” he said. “But we are definitely the luckier ones.”

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.

The country’s law of return – much reviled by Palestinians, to whom it does not apply – gives people born Jewish, converts, spouses of Jewish people and those with Jewish parents or grandparents the right to move to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship.

Since 1950, Israel has seen several waves of aliyah immigration from countries such as Sudan, Ethiopia and Yemen. Operation Israel Guarantees, however, is an emergency undertaking on a scale not seen since the influx of more than 1 million people after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989.

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.

Igor Fedyaev, 43, and his son Maksim Fedyaev. The family embarked on a 680-mile car journey away from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum

Fedyaev was not following the news before 24 February, when the invasion began. As usual, he got up early for his weekly five-a-side football game before work, only to realise that something was wrong: the roads were empty, and the gym was closed.

“No one really believed it would happen. It was only the next day we realised we needed to look at escaping,” the 43-year-old father of two said.

Fedyaev thought about making aliyah in 2019 after visiting a friend in the Israeli city of Netanya, but forgot about it during the pandemic.

The family realised they would need permission from Fedyaev’s first wife in order to take his 16-year-old son, Maksim. While she was keen to help, no lawyers were available to assist with notarising the paperwork, and government databases had shut down. In the end, they had to leave with just a written note from Maksim’s mother before embarking on a 680-mile car journey, making lengthy detours to avoid bombed out towns and roads.

“The images we are seeing, it looks like the second world war,” he said. “In the end in every war you see the same sort of things. Most people love their home and the country they were born in. Just because [you are Jewish] it doesn’t mean you want to leave.”

Most viewed

Most viewed