By: Nicole Yoder, ICEJ Vice President for Aid & Aliyah

“Everything that has happened brought me here”, began Lana as we settled onto a comfortable sofa in her new apartment, which she shares with a newly arrived Russian immigrant. Acknowledging the difficulties with her being a recent immigrant from Ukraine, Lana insisted: “We’ve agreed not to bring the war here though. We’re both Jewish and that is enough!”

Lana quickly launched into her life story, noting that at age 20 she had already spent six months in Israel and fully intended to make Aliyah but first returned to Ukraine to complete her university studies. However, love intervened! She got married in Ukraine, became a mother, started two businesses, divorced, and only fifteen years later began thinking again of making Aliyah. She could not come sooner because her ex-husband did not permit her to bring their daughter here. In the meantime, she worked hard with her tourism and pet shop businesses.

Unfortunately, coronavirus finished off the tourism business and impacted her pet shop as well. Health problems also set in last year, and all of this made Lana consider some changes in her life.

Unhappy and wanting to explore another line of work, Lana revisited her dream of making Aliyah. This time her ex-husband agreed to let their daughter join her in Israel, so she began the immigration process. They agreed that once Lana got her Aliyah visa, she would go to Israel first to get established, find work and study Hebrew while her daughter remained the first year with her father’s parents. The plan was for her to join Lana this summer, to adjust to the new surroundings before the new school year began.

All seemed to be going well. In early February this year, Lana received her Aliyah visa. Her pet shop had a buyer which would allow Lana to show up in Israel with a little money to get started. Her flight was scheduled for February 24^th. However, days before departure it was unexpectedly moved forward to the 20^th, just when she was traveling and could not catch the flight. This delayed her departure several extra weeks, but she continued to arrange for leaving … driver’s license renewal, final doctor appointments, signing over the business… Things were looking good!

Relaxed in an easy chair chatting with our ICEJ Aid team, Lana recalled how in those final, fateful days of February, while busily preparing to leave, she was blissfully unaware of what was soon to take place. She had no TV and being ‘apolitical’, she had no interest in current events. Two friends also unexpectedly needed to move into her apartment that week before she could move out as planned. Looking back, Lana shrugged her shoulders at what a crazy time it was in the old apartment.

“There were piles of boxes everywhere”, she explained. “I cleared off a shelf into a box and they cleared out a box onto the shelf… They were like family to me, especially as I hadn’t been talking to my parents since we had a quarrel a few years ago.”

“On February 23^rd, just seven hours before the Russian invasion began, a friend told me that a war would begin tomorrow and asked if I had packed an emergency bag. I had no idea. It totally caught me by surprise”, Lana recounted. “The calls began already before dawn with the terrifying news of war.”

At first, she remained in a Kyiv basement. Her phone was dead because she did not have a charger cord. She could not reach her ex-husband who was called up for duty. Her daughter was with parents, but she could not reach them for three days. They were planning to flee and take her daughter with them. She did not agree, but they left anyway. Amid the confusion, she did not know where they went. Should she wait for them to return?

Lana also could not stay in her third-floor apartment, so she ended up spending ten days with her neighbors in a first-floor corridor. However, just sitting there waiting without knowing what to do was making her crazy.

Then she heard that her store manager was stuck in a basement for 10 days without food or water due to the constant shelling, while all the animals in her pet store were killed. With no business to sell, Lana’s plans were collapsing, but she knew she had to act.

“It was the hardest decision of my life, to move on and leave my daughter behind. I’m still trying not to punish myself for it,” she confided.

No flights were available, but a window opened when the neighbors offered her a train ticket to Poland they could not use themselves. Lana had two days until departure, but then a two-day curfew was declared starting that evening. She knew she had to act quickly to board that train. From that moment, she had just six hours to get home, pack, and make it to the train station.

What does one pack at such a moment? To make matters worse, the electric power plant had been bombed that day, leaving the city in darkness.

“We had to pack without any light”, she recounted. “I got the cat and put it in a carrier, grabbed a sleeping bag and a backpack. Truthfully, I could barely function. My younger brother did most of the packing for me. At that moment you are living and not living. The apartment was a mountain of boxes. You couldn’t see anything. It was a paralyzing situation. I used to write a list of things to do each day. Now, if I did one thing in a day it was a victory.”

Lana laughed about what made it into the backpack.

“It was an unimaginable array of disparate items, the strangest 20 kilos you could imagine. A wine opener, a black sheep chalk-board refrigerator magnet which ironically had written on it: ‘You are stronger than you think you are!’ There was a variety of clothes that I had outgrown and intended to give away, and only one under-garment.”

With these she set out to start a new life in Israel.

“When you are packing up 35 years of your life, looking at black painted signs at the train station, passing bombed out buildings and dead bodies, and everyone is tired, silent, crying… you see only the shell of a person, but the inside is empty.”

Lana had no money to take with her, so the neighbors were kind enough to give her $380 in cash. She took her cat, sleeping bag and backpack, and rushed to the train station to await.

Fortunately, she made it safely to a friend in Poland. Later, the Jewish Agency assisted her with a flight to Israel, where she and ‘Nika’ the cat landed on April 5^th.  Showing remarkable resilience, Lana completed her Aliyah process within 12 days, secured her temporary Israeli ID, opened a bank account, and somehow found the energy to start waitressing – hoping to send some money back home. However, it was not going to be easy, given her poor Hebrew and how expensive life is in Israel.

Tragically, just three days into her new job, Lana was run over by a motorized bicycle whose driver fled the scene, leaving her with a hair fracture in one leg and a broken lateral ankle in the other. Fortunately, she had just received her Israeli health insurance card the day before and could get treatment. They covered the biggest expenses of surgery and inserting titanium into the leg, but she still had several smaller medical bills to pay.

“Suddenly I couldn’t even get up to get myself a drink of water”, said Lana. “No family! No money! I couldn’t work or even dress myself. I was in a wheelchair for a month with a cast on my leg and then a boot. I’m strong, but these kinds of things break people. Yet I knew that I’d have to stand on my own feet again because I have a daughter that I need to care for.”

Fortunately, unexpected assistance came from two new friends who helped with Lana’s basic needs, and her new roommate also chipped in. Others donated clothing in the right size. Amazed, Lana said, “sometimes help comes from a place you don’t know – like the help from the ICEJ.”

“When this happened to my legs, in one second I was helpless”, Lana told us. “But these legs and this problem also brought me into contact with such good people. I’m believing again in something better than war. These experiences have restored my faith in good people. Here in Israel, people who saw you for the first time in their lives were helpful… The worst part was lying in bed here without family to rely on… Your gift enabled me to buy food and cover some medical and living expenses. I can’t thank you enough.”

Hearing Lana’s harrowing story first-hand touched us deeply. When we gave her a gift package with items for her home, Lana was delighted!

“Oh my! This is about my ‘nesting’ in my new home”, she exclaimed. “You are doing such a great thing. It’s just unbelievable!”

Then, as she opened our greeting card, she broke down in tears.

“You didn’t just buy a card with some generic message. You carefully thought out and selected each word, then translated it into my own language.”

Asked about her dreams for the future, Lana replied: “I want to be happy. I want to have my daughter with me. I want safety for my family and an end to the war. I dream of establishing a new life here in Israel and I don’t want to do the same things that I was doing before. I want to do something useful, something that I believe in and something that will help other people like I’ve been helped. I know sales and marketing, but I want to do something creative and new.”

We want to echo Lana’s thanks for your generous donations which enable us to help her and many other Jewish immigrants who have arrived in Israel after very arduous journeys with next to nothing. Your gifts are truly bringing encouragement, practical help and hope. We cannot thank you enough.

To support our Aliyah and Integration efforts, give via the donate button below.