ARIEL SETTLEMENT, WEST COAST The life of the visual artist from St. Petersburg has thrown a somersault several times in the last year.
– It’s as if we died and woke up from paradise, says the visual artist Sonia Mnina42.
The decision to leave the country was clear to the politically active Mnina as soon as Russia started the war of aggression in Ukraine. Mnina felt that there were not many countries left in the world where Russians would have been welcome.
However, there was one option – Mnina’s late grandmother was Jewish. So he had the right to Israeli citizenship. The family grasped at straws and found themselves in the middle of a new conflict.
We meet Mnina in the city of Ariel. Mnina and her husband were just studying Hebrew, as they do five days a week.
– It is strange that in 2023 someone will still welcome us, says Mnina.
Mnina moved to Israel under the so-called law of return. According to the law, a person has the right to Israeli citizenship if at least one of his parents or grandparents is Jewish.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Immigration, more than 44,000 Russians had taken refuge in Oljenkorte by the end of last year.
The paperwork to prove Jewishness took almost a year.
– I had to prove that my grandmother, who died in the 1990s, really was my mother’s biological parent, Mnina says.
The family ended up in Ariel after being lured by a distant relative. The peaceful city has offered the family a long-awaited respite after a hard year. Now Mnina has had time to take care of the lemon trees in her backyard.
– This place would be perfect for retirement days, Mnina says about her new hometown.
The family’s two teenage daughters go to school while Mnina and her husband earn income by doing cleaning jobs. The profession of an artist and the familiar life in St. Petersburg were left behind. In Ariel, however, the family uses their mother tongue a lot, because a large part of the neighbors are like them, people of Jewish background who came from Russia or Ukraine.
– Everyone here is so friendly.
Paradise has a dark side. Ariel is a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. For example, the UN considers settlements built in Palestinian territories to be illegal.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for West Bank settlements, saw an opportunity.
According to Neeman, the organization has assisted newcomers in, for example, obtaining an apartment, bureaucracy, finding schools and health services. The organization has even sent representatives to the Ukrainian border and advertised the settlements on Russian Telegram channels to attract new residents.
The most important task of the State of Israel is to develop the Israeli settlement of the West Bank, the representative of the organization tells Yelle.
– All the Jews who arrive here are an important part of the development of these communities, says the chairman Shlomo Neeman.
Mnina’s family’s goal was just to find a safe home that they could afford – living in the settlements is often cheaper than the rest of Israel.
The family did not delve deeper into the background of the conflict related to the settlements, but the reality hit them in the face on the spot. Mnina feels that living among walls, soldiers and checkpoints is suffocating.
– In Russia, we held our breath when we saw the police, because we knew that we were the enemy. Here, the soldiers don’t care about us, but they blame the Palestinians who live here. I hate it, Mina says.
Israel is again debating who is a Jew
According to Mnina, even before the war, many Russians kept Jews in mind as their family roots or even acquired Israeli citizenship – just in case.
Recently, especially the old parties have criticized the so-called “grandchild clause” in the law of return and demanded its removal. According to critics, many immigrants are not truly Jewish, but rather come to the country only for economic reasons and to obtain a passport.
In the 1990s, a huge number of people of Jewish background immigrated to Israel from the territory of the former Soviet Union, and today 15 percent of the country’s population is Russian-speaking. The removal of the article on grandchildren has also received fierce opposition.
During the last year, a lot of young humanities professionals and technology experts have moved to Israel. Among the immigrated Russians of Jewish background, there are also many young men who are in the country to avoid being on the war front.
Yuri, a 35-year-old sound designer from Moscow, fled to Israel in Jerusalem with his younger brother precisely because of a business venture.
“If the state says that mobilization does not apply to you, then you should really prepare for mobilization,” Juri says.
The entire family of filmmaker Nina Bruni, 31, is Jewish. He acquired an Israeli passport already four years ago.
A year ago, he had to use his passport much earlier than he had dreamed.
“Before, I was a Jew in Russia. Now I’m Russian in Israel,” says Bruni, who lives near Tel Aviv.
In the end, only a small number of Russians and Ukrainians have come to Israeli settlements. According to the estimate of the Yesha Council, about a thousand families arrived on the West Bank.
Many of the arrivals eventually moved elsewhere, as Mnina and her family plan to do as well.
– The children have not enjoyed school here, so we are looking for a more suitable school for them. But living surrounded by walls also feels oppressive to me, says Mnina.
does not publish Juri’s last name due to the sensitive nature of the content of the interview. The last name is known to .