Vlad Eliyahu Priymuk
Ukraine, Kyiv
Israel, Ramat Gan
“I didn’t really believe that the war with Russia would break out and that Russia would invade Ukraine. I lived in the center of Kyiv and the battles over the years against Russia were in the east and south of the country, so I didn’t really believe that the war would reach Kyiv as well. I was sure that Russia was trying to ‘show off its muscles’ and in the end it wouldn’t really start a full-scale war against us.
When the war broke out on February 24th, I was in Budapest at a conference of the Jewish Agency and I was supposed to return four days later to Kyiv, but all the flights to Ukraine were canceled. Being away from your country during such a crisis, with no way to get back, is an incredibly difficult and unsettling experience.
In the first month, in Budapest, I did everything I could to help the huge wave of refugees that arrived from Ukraine. I volunteered to assist refugees who crossed the border and needed to sort out their documents and visas before continuing to their next destination. We are talking about millions of people who in one moment became refugees. It took me a while to internalize this fact, but I too have become a refugee, who does not know when he will be able to return to Ukraine.
Because I had previously visited Israel several times and participated in the Jewish Agency’s ‘Masa’ program, it was clear to me from the first moment that if I could not return to Ukraine I would come to Israel. I decided to make ‘Aliyah’ to Israel with my friend Yana, who has since become my wife, and we decided to start our life anew in Israel.
When the war in Israel began, my main concern was for my wife Yana, an active-duty soldier that was stationed at a base in the north of the country that Saturday.
As a refugee, who came from Ukraine, I felt strange that my wife serves in the army and has a weapon, while I am in Ramat Gan, finding shelter to secure myself from missiles fired into the center of Israel. However, the wars in Ukraine and Israel taught me that some things in life are beyond my control, and I should try to deal with them in the best way I can.
My friends are already laughing at me that everywhere I go I bring ‘bad luck’ with me… I left Ukraine for a week, and a war started. When I arrived in Georgia, protests erupted over the ‘Russian law,’ and when I arrived in Israel, a war broke out. I don’t think I bring ‘bad luck’ with me. It’s just life that happens. That’s precisely why I think we need to celebrate life anew every signal morning.”