Спочатку армія, потім все інше: українки про Ізраїль. Гроші, мова та виховання дітей | З України
Israel is completely surrounded by enemies. It is a country that first created an army and then everything else.. Israel and Ukraine are on the one hand very different countries, but on the other hand they have a lot in common. Hello friends, we are continuing to talk about how and where our Ukrainians have settled down, escaping the war that Russia has started. Today we are going to tell you about life in the country which has the best protection for the sky - the Iron Dome. Yes, this is Israel.
It may be a little strange to seek refuge in a country that is engaged in war. But according to our heroines, they feel safe in this country. How did Israel surprise them? And how did it disappoint? Watch on. Have a good time watching it. I jog here in the mornings, so I like it here. There are fountains and an alley. There are very beautiful trees here, I've never seen anything like this before.
But as a creative person, as an artist, I am very interested in observing this nature, the trees, the branches and the roots of the trees. I don't know what it's called, but it's very inspiring, very beautiful. My name is Svitlana Rudikova, I am a children's illustrator. I came to Israel with my two sons. We moved from war six months ago. We are from Kyiv. We try to adapt somehow here.
My name is Diana Buchman. I'm from Odesa. My first impression of Israel was few years ago. I came to visit Israel. It was very cool. It is a wonderful country, everything is different here, different houses, different architecture, different people, unusual language, unusual letters... There was a lot of educational... I apologize for my surzhyk, I'm from Odesa. Yes, I studied in the Ukrainian Gymnasium, but over time I forgot the Ukrainian language.
Most of the time I communicated in Russian, so excuse me, but I will speak using surzhyk. My name is Tanya Mokrenko. I am from Ukraine, from Kyiv. I had my own SMM agency in Kyiv. Mokko, hi! And now I'm in Israel. I used to be in Israel, my husband is from Israel. My first impression of this country hasn't changed, it's the same as it was.
This is a country of people who are much less bothered than Ukrainians. People here have an easier attitude to life, to their appearance, to rubbish in the streets. They have easier attitude towards everything, they have easy mood.
Take it easy - I think this is a slogan of Israel. My name is Kateryna, I'm an English teacher. I like this country, there's a lot of sunshine. We can enjoy life because of the sun. My name is Avital. In Ukraine my name was Valentyna. I was born in Donetsk. The first time I came to Israel was in 2013.
I came as a tourist, to visit my friend. We travelled a lot, walked around. Israel made a very strong impression on me, first of all because of its family atmosphere. People were willing to open their homes, their hearts, to invite a stranger over for a meal, for a visit. From the moment I decided to stay in Israel permanently, I faced other challenges.
These were difficulties, both external and internal. There were difficulties related to the Israeli bureaucracy and the language barrier. As they say: Don't confuse emigration with tourism. The second or third time you go to Israel, it's a new experience for you. You find out how people live here, what the problems are, you understand the difficulties here, that it's not so easy.
It was difficult for me in terms of architecture. I'm used to a somewhat different environment. And these houses that look more like little boxes on legs. Then, as I began to understand this country more, as I began to travel around this country, I found that there are parks, there is the desert. The desert fascinated me. I went with a tour group for a whole night in the desert, which we wandered around, walked around, and it was an incredible experience. Why did I come to this particular country, Israel? Why didn't I go to Europe, or Canada or the USA? I had that opportunity.
At some point I realized that Israel is the only country in the world where I can feel at home and be welcomed because I belong here. So I made this decision very quickly and came here as if it was my home. This is the place where I could feel part of a large Jewish family. And this is the family I always dreamed of. I always wanted to belong to something bigger.
This is the kind of family on a national level that convinced me to move to Israel. I have known for a long time that I was eligible for repatriation because my sister has been living in Israel since 2011. My mother was Jewish. But I thought it would be better for me to move here to Israel when I was already retired. But it happened that I came here now because of the war in Ukraine. My dad is disabled, he's 82 years old. And when there were air raids, it was impossible to go down to the bomb shelter with him, because he can only move around on a walker and only in our flat.
So it was impossible for him, he stayed in his room and I stayed with him. I didn't decide where to go. It wasn't my idea, it wasn't my dream. Yes, I'm 38 years old, but I'm a Jewish child who still obeys her mother. When the war started, my mother told me to take my children and leave. I didn't want to, I wanted to stay and help. But she made me do it, she said I should help my children now.
Sometimes the adults decide what to do and sometimes the children make the decisions. My youngest daughter wanted to study in Israel in the Mossad youth program. And she said that she took all her valuable documents with her, when we left home in Kyiv, she took the most valuable - a bag of documents. And she said she wanted to go to Israel. Our agency worked with the Ministry of Defence.
On the first day of the war, I opened my computer and started working with the military. I have a little daughter, she is five years old. I called my husband and said: Pack your things and Miriam and you are going to Israel. My husband and daughter are both Israeli citizens. They left, and I stayed to work further.
When I called my daughter, I realized she was stressed. I talked to her psychologist from her kindergarten, and the psychologist said that the child had PTSD and that I had to go to her immediately. It was a difficult decision for me to make. But my maternal instinct won out and I grabbed my suitcase and flew here. My name is Tetiana and I'm from Odesa. Our son has been living in Israel for 5 years now.
Since last year he kept telling us to think about moving. After the 24th of February, when the first strike in Odesa region was heard in our house, when there were strong explosions, we came to the conclusion that we had to leave. Israel is not an easy country to immigrate to. There is a nuance that it is a Jewish state. You can move to Israel only if you have Jewish roots. In Israel there are also humanitarian visas for refugees, for stateless people fleeing from war.
And now that war is going on in Ukraine, Israel has a quota that increases for refugees, displaced persons. We were very quickly given all the documents for repatriation. There was a very big influx of people, everyone was in shock, everyone was very confused. I am very grateful to the country, to the Absorption Department for being able to organize and process all our documents very quickly.
I and my sons were repatriated, and they helped us, too, with the social service, with the Absorption Department. In Israel, there is an excellent system of assistance for new repatriates. There is monetary assistance, as well as subsidies for renting a flat, for studying, for continuing education courses. There's financial aid for the elderly here, it's not a pension, because my father didn't work here.
He came here already in such a condition that he cannot work, so he gets help from the state, it's 3800 shekels. He is entitled to a service...in Hebrew in Israel, it's called Metapelet, it's a woman who looks after him. As of today, this job is done by me, because in Ukraine I also looked after him. And I receive a salary as a nanny for my father. When I left Ukraine, I had 500 euros in my pocket and that was it.
Three children, zero things in a rucksack. And when we came here, regardless of what other people gave us, the state helped people like me and my children a lot. were several payments, thanks to which we were able to rent a flat, eat normally, and solve our everyday problems.
My mother was right saying that Israel helped the returnees. For half a year they pay the basket of money, which is about 5000 shekels, if you translate it to our money it's 50 thousand hryvnias. And when we arrived, we had no documents, we had no idea where or what was located, and the state provided us with a hotel where we could stay until our documents were drawn up. It takes from two weeks to a month, but if you don't make it in time - because there's a lot of bureaucracy and there's a very long queue to process documents - so people were allowed to stay in hotels for more 2-3 months, until the documents are ready. Because without documents you cannot rent a flat.
Now they have made a program that helps people rent a flat. For one year, once a month you receive 2,500 shekels for renting a flat. This is help, because it is very difficult and very expensive here.
There are problems with the price and the contract, and with the quality of the accommodation itself. Landlords want to protect themselves; they want the tenant to have a bank account, a stable job and a guarantor. It's difficult for a first-time visitor to meet all those requirements. My flat costs 3,500 shekels a month and utilities. At the moment it is not considered very expensive for a place to live.
We also had to provide a guarantee cheque, it's called a bitahon cheque, for as much as three months rent. This is a check as a guarantee that the accommodation will be in the same condition as we checked in. The landlord will check the condition of the accommodation and if everything is satisfactory, he will give us back this cheque. We had found a flat through a real estate agent. We bought the furniture ourselves.
We bought the equipment ourselves. settled and arranged my life here as I was used to living in Kyiv. The only thing that is different is the architecture, the flat externally and internally is different. It is very difficult to find a place where you want to stay. You realise that you had to flee because of the war, and now you have to live in conditions in which you are not comfortable.
And to find that comfort that you're used to, it's very difficult to do. I had three indicators that were fundamental for me, it's laminate flooring, it's probably 1% in all Israel of these flats, there's basically tile everywhere. And when they showed me a flat with laminate, I immediately said, I'll stay here, I'll feel at home here.
My mother found us a flat with a very large balcony with two large Ukrainian flags and two small Israeli flags hanging on it. A peculiarity of the Israelis, you can see it here in my kitchen, these are the windows. For me it was a shock, because you can't see anything through them. We are used to curtains and shades on our windows, so everything is harmonized with the walls, furniture and so on. Here we have curtains, we inherited them from previous tenants who used to live here. But from what I understand it's not really a standard situation.
For me, it is still very difficult to see through these windows, through which you cannot see anything. As I understand those windows are in most of the flats. To a certain extent, this characterizes Israelis as people who very simply relate to everyday life, to their lives, to relationships.
They don't bother. It is much easier for them to put up windows with these windows once, through which they will not be seen by their neighbours, than every time to find new curtains that match the wallpaper, furniture, buy these curtains, then wash them, and so on. The flat here is rented completely empty. You rent a flat with nothing, just a toilet, a bathroom and a kitchen and that's it. And you arrive with one suitcase and have to move into a flat with nothing. I have to say a big thank you to the volunteers, the people here, who are very open.
Word travels fast here, and within a week people were giving us furniture. They brought me a washing machine, I don't even know who, they just rang the doorbell and said: This is for you. I don't even know who it is. Yesterday, someone rang the doorbell: Open up, there's a present for you. We open the door and there's a box of groceries. Volunteers, people, everyone here is very kind. Everyone helps out.
And if you need help, as for example in our case with the furniture for the flat, in a week we had everything we needed. When I arrived, I had one backpack with a few things in it. But within a month that backpack had turned into four cars. We transported things to this flat, things given to us by local people.
It was furniture and appliances, towels and forks, everything I have now I hardly ever bought. After about four months I realised I'd fallen in love with the country. And I'm starting to feel at home here.
Mostly it's because of the people who live here. I have been here 6 or 7 months, I lose count, but I already have people that I can call my friends. I got a lot of things here, including moral and material support. And it still helps me a lot to adapt here.
The people here I would say are particularly good. I mean that they really feel you. It doesn't matter what they tell you, what they say, what they say back. They have a slightly different form of communication. They're very noisy, in buses they can even shout, and it seems like there's noise and scandal everywhere... you know the first word I understand here is 'farce'.
I think in all the languages of the world it's clear what a farce means. There's a bit of a farce here, but as far as people are concerned, they're very conscious of you. And what do we need? We need to be understood and felt. On the one hand they are always smiling, always open, but on the other hand they are not well mannered. They don't have the rules that they brought up in us, that's some kind of respect. When you get off the bus, they do not let you out, and to get off the bus or the trolleybus, you have to step out like that...
When the bus stops, the doors open and a stream of people come at you, they do not let you off. But they're always smiling at you. They are always open, they smile... especially in public institutions, in medical institutions, they smile and do the wrong thing. And this is normal. There's no balance, I mean from the bottom to the top...
When you have a problem everyone will come to help you and do whatever you need to do. But when it comes to simple things, they light-heartedly say: Never mind. It's no big deal. So you get trampled... And also my mother sometimes says to us: Don't be like the Israeli children. They say children should be free. But I don't understand that, why yell and scream at the whole bus. You're standing with your friend, she's standing there, and you're standing there, and you're talking like that.
Walk up to her and talk to her. I don't understand why you have to sit on the bus and put your feet on the next seat. How can you do that? ...it's like....
But my children pick up on it very quickly and start being like that. And probably 100 times a day I repeat this phrase: Do not be like Israeli children! Here everyone walks around the apartment with shoes on, it's nonsense to me that people don't change their shoes when they come into the house. It's kind of weird for me. But overall people are very cool. People are very open, they communicate, they are easy to get in touch with. One of the unpleasant surprises for me were the prices here.
I was horrified by the prices and still am. In Ukraine, everything is much cheaper, both products and quality of food. As to the service sector, it was my pain. To find a good hairdresser or cosmetologist... you can find them of course, but I can not afford it. In Ukraine for money you get service.
Here for money you don't get this service, that is, you pay a lot of money, but you get nothing. It really pisses me off. Israel is a very expensive country. I've never understood people who want to come here to earn money to live here.
Why? Because the salaries here are high! But life is also very expensive. You get a high salary, but you spend a lot on food, on an apartment, on everything. I don't understand it. It's not justified. In a month at least, for the apartment, with all other expenses, I spend 10 thousand shekels. These are expenses for food, for clothes, for an apartment, utilities, arnona, that is, you have to pay land tax.
You rent an apartment, but you also pay land tax, every month. It is officially recognized that Tel Aviv is the most expensive city in the world. But despite the high cost of living and taxes, there is a feeling that ....
in return, you receive a certain comfort and security. I, for example, am willing to pay this money. And it is obvious that these taxes are not embezzled, but are invested in infrastructure, medicine and security, because Israel is a state at war, there is a lot of money spent on defense, all the citizens of Israel understand why we pay such high taxes. We should also take into account that the level of wages here is also appropriate. A driver gets 10 thousand shekels for example.
10 thousand shekels is 100 thousand hryvnias. And here it is necessary to take it into account. There is no point in complaining only because you don't have an Israeli job. The fact that Israel is an expensive country I do not feel it now, I just have not thought about it yet. But when you first come to Israel, on the first day, the second day, the third day, when you take money out of your pocket... I had a Ukrainian credit card at the time, which saved me.
We came here with practically nothing, some winter clothes and that's it. We had to buy, for example, scissors, various primitive things that are needed in everyday life. And then I realized that Israel is an expensive country.
I translated these prices into euros, dollars, hryvnias, when this whole chain appeared in my head, I was shocked. When you walk down the street and want to buy something to eat, some hot dog... when I started to count how much this hot dog costs, you can buy a huge salami for this money in Kyiv. As for the products, when you pay 500 hryvnias for a grape, it is of course a little wild, but the products here are good. I like the quality of food. There are some things that I like very much, for example 'shokovashe'.
Because it's very cool and very tasty. Choco is chocolate milk, like cocoa, only it's not really cocoa, it's cold and it's sold in bottles. It's very cool and Maryasha and I like it very much. I really like the fruits and vegetables here, and I love that it's year-round. We ate watermelons at the beginning of summer, and we still have them, plums, mangoes, a huge variety of fruits. It's very cool, and it's all year round.
Israeli cuisine differs from ours in that it is more fast food, they like to eat pitta and lots of different sauces. For us, it's an appetizer, but not always, because it will give you a stomachache. Here they eat pita for breakfast, lunch, dinner, with hummus... I used to make porridge, mashed potatoes, meat balls for school. They came home and said, "Mom, why are you embarrassing us? Cook us a pita with something.
We're like crazy with mashed potatoes and meatballs. There's no problem with the food here. There are a lot of dishes and individual products that I have discovered, and I like it a lot. For me for example it was fantastic to try the litchi.
I've never tasted it, it must be a berry. I really like hummus. They make very interesting dishes with aubergine. My body said: Thank you, Svitlana. So I am staying here to live.
My children had health problems, especially my youngest son, and he had a pretty tough diet in Kyiv. But when we came here it was like a blessing. I have discovered a lot of new products here. There are a lot of interesting spices. I don't know Hebrew, so the way I was asking, I opened my phone and showed a cabbage and asked which spice I should buy for it.
For example, I showed potatoes, and asked, what kind of spice is good for it? Then I'd show a cow, I'd look for spices for beef, for meat. Then I was showing chicken. So I was given so many different spices. I use a little bit of it and it tastes very interesting. There's a lot of vegetables, fruit. What have I discovered? You'll laugh, it's yams.
I thought all my life we've been eating normal potatoes from the garden, and everything was fine. But here yams are sold everywhere and everyone buys them. And I thought I'd give it a try. I baked the yams and again the spice seller was very helpful. I showed him the yams and he offered me some different spices.
And the yams turned out very tasty, the spices gave it a bit of a smoky flavour. When I started making borscht, I want to say that our neighbors come to visit and eat this borscht with pleasure. For them it is a delicacy, they don't cook it it and they don't understand how it can be made and they come to us with pleasure. We were given pumpkin and I made porridge with pumpkin. And Israeli friends came to us and it wanted to feed them. And all Israeli children and our children ate this porridge with great pleasure.
In every country, we check how much it costs to cook Ukrainian borscht using local products and local prices. Let's find out how much it costs to cook borscht in Israel. Here is a set of products for borscht. What we have here. Onions, beets, carrots,
that's cabbage, I found only such, it's already sliced, there were no more whole ones. Potatoes, and a jar of beans. I think beans borscht is also good. I didn't have time to buy chicken because the supermarket was closing.
It's Sukkot holiday and everything closes very early. How much did it all cost? It cost us... how do you read that in Hebrew? 39 shekels and 40 agorot. That's almost 400 hryvnias. I can calculate it accurately with a calculator. The current exchange rate is 10.42, that's 406 hryvnias. That's the cost of my borscht.
In Israel, they love children very much. A lot of attention is paid to motherhood and childhood. There is help for women who are going on maternity leave. There is a one-time payment for a child. The payments depend on the number of children. After the baby is three months old, a woman is supposed to go to work.
There is a well developed nursery system which takes children from the age of 3 months. Then the children go to nursery school. Until a child reaches the age of 3, nursery and kindergarten are a big expense.
It can cost 4000-5000 shekels. After your child has reached the age of three, the state pays for the day care costs. Parents are supposed to participate in financial payments, but the order of figures is different. So it is much easier financially after the age of three. To all Ukrainian mothers: Girls, we have the best kindergartens in the world.
The kindergartens here work until 2 p.m. in the afternoon. If you want to leave your child in the afternoon, that is until 4 or 5PM, then you have to pay extra 2,000 shekels per month. I can't tell you exactly. But 2,000 shekels is 20 thousand hryvnias. Girls, in Ukraine private kindergarten costs less than 20 thousand hryvnias. And it's only until 16 or 17:00.
And if you work and you don't have any help, how can you organize all this with a child? Second, they do not sleep there. Or they sleep on some mattresses. Kids don't sleep from the age of 3. They feed the children with bread with some kind of filling. In Ukraine you do not give your kids food when they are going to the kindergarten. Because all public and private kindergartens have a full diverse meal. And if it is a private kindergarten, you can choose what to feed your child, you can choose a diet, glucose-free, vegetarian.
If I paid 20 thousand hryvnias for a kindergarten in Kyiv, it would be all inclusive. In Odesa, they used to feed children in school. I didn't have to cook. Here I have to cook breakfast and snack for my children.
I get up early, prepare food. They wake up I give them the food and they go to school. I have three children, my eldest son, he's an adult, he's 22, he goes to university here in Israel and lives separately. I also have two sons, who are 15 and 10 years old. They have the opportunity to go to school here. Israel is a country where you can adapt very well, especially when you have a tragedy in your life. People understand you here, the children met a lot of new friends.
My middle son even met his classmates with whom he went to school in Kyiv. It was a Jewish school. My children went to a Jewish school. My middle son went to a class with several boys from his Kyiv school. Their adaptation was very comfortable, calm.
The teachers are very interesting. The system of communication with children here is completely different than in Ukraine. And I like it very much. It was only now that I understood it when I went to Ulpan.
Ulpan is a Hebrew school. The state gives you the opportunity to learn the language for free. Which is what I'm trying to do right now. I don't know how successful it will be. I can't communicate yet. But I can read, and it's such a thrill to walk down the street and realize that it's not just some ridiculous symbols, it's not some joke, it actually means a word. And I walk around like a kid and I point with my finger and try to read.
I don't understand what I'm reading, but very often I read correctly. Hebrew is a language that for Ukrainians... you know, it's like another planet. It is like hieroglyphs which are totally incomprehensible, it is not something you can guess or anything like that. We know Latin more or less, we learned English at school and so on.
As for the words, they are not understandable at all, but with time you begin to perceive them intuitively. It's difficult to learn a language, everything is the other way around. And we are not young people anymore. But when I take a receipt from the shop, I twist it for a long time until I find the numbers, because only with numbers I understand which way to read the receipt. We're learning, we already understand something.
Some things we can say, maybe not yet understand what we've said, but we can pronounce. We are people from the south, Odesa is a southern city, so gesticulation is a familiar method of communication. My English helps me a lot. And here everybody, 95% of the population speaks English. I've improved my English communication skills here, I started to study English with a teacher. A lot of people came here at once and so there was no possibility for everyone to go to Ulpan. And even though I've been here for six months, it was only a fortnight ago that I went on a course.
I am 67 years old now, but my husband is not yet retired, so he is considering working in information technology. But now we are busy learning the language. My son came here five years ago. He took a long time to get settled here, he worked as a waiter, he took a long time to learn the language, and now he is working for an IT company. He is very satisfied with his job and salary. It depends on what field, if you want to go to work in a factory, work as a driver, if you want to go for a job that doesn't require language skills, jobs are quite easy to find and there are plenty of them. Factory workers and workers in such professions are needed everywhere.
If we're talking about jobs in marketing, it's important to get hooked. It's important to get a job and it may not be a super high-paying job, it's important to just find one. The main thing is to go to meetings, to get to know a lot of people and if you're not stupid and a good professional, you'll easily find a job in the IT field. If you have hard skills in the IT field it should be pretty easy.
The main thing is to get hooked, and then the growth will be rapid. You need to work in Israel for a year at a position like that, and then you can move from one company to another and raise your level. If you are a self-employed entrepreneur, you can't do it by yourself, you need a lawyer and an accountant, or at least a lawyer-accountant in one person, the person you will pay quite good money to. In fact, it is much easier to do in Ukraine. In terms of doing business in Ukraine, it is much more profitable and much easier.
As for jobs, Israel is a very good country. You can always find a job here, just don't be lazy. What I liked about it was when I went for an interview at one shop, it was a clothes shop.
I said to them: I've been in your shop, you have such young girls working at the cash register, either schoolgirls or students. How can I work here being an older woman? And they told me: We don't ask people about their age when they get a job here. That's why you love Israel. One of the reasons. When you mature, I won't say get old, in Ukraine you already feel it. In Ukraine they ask, - How old are you? - I'm past 40. Or past 50. And when they hear "after 50", they say "Goodbye".
It's a great achievement of this country that there's no inequality here. In Israel, I also really like the transportation system. I just enjoy it very much. You Google your destination and they show you all the buses that go by your route and they all arrive at the same time, unless it's rush hour, in which case there may be a delay. Moreover, buses have trackers on them and you can see where they are going and at what stop they are now and roughly estimate when they will be there. It's just such a thrill.
It's pretty convenient, there's public transport, and I also have an electro-bicycle which I use to get around with the kids. My husband has a car. We love it. I usually have two children on this bike, but the other child is not with me today. One of the reasons I stayed in Jerusalem is the tram, which goes from start to finish. The flat I'm renting has laminate flooring and is very close to the tram.
It's very convenient, it goes everywhere and stops wherever you are. The tram goes second to second. Second to second. As for the buses, that's a very interesting story.
Buses in Israel run however they want on time. It may be written that a bus will arrive in 5 minutes, but it may pass by because the driver feels like that, it may arrive in 10 minutes. But the most interesting thing is how they drive. They drive at high speed. They've got their lane, they're racing and they're not slowing down, and at the end, when you have to stop, he brakes sharply. And you're flying ahead of the bus from the end. I ride buses like that, it's impossible otherwise.
Otherwise you're like a sprat in a tomato bobbing about on that bus. But wherever you need to go, you can get anywhere. If you look at the whole, and don't look at some niches, for example hitech. It seems to me that Ukraine is more progressive in terms of digital, in terms of technology, trends, and this was evident when Ukrainians went around the world. 'Oh, you don't have that? You don't have that either?' In Israel we also don't have a lot of things, we don't have Diia, we don't have all of our applications, which we used to use very easily.
In terms of everyday things, we have a completely different system. They don't open you a card in a bank here, like it's possible in Kyiv. In Kyiv in 10 minutes you have a card in your hands, you have an account in euros or dollars or whatever you want. And you are free to go anywhere you want with the card.
There is no such thing here. Here you have to queue, wait in line, then wait until they make you this card. Then you have to have it delivered by post, by some postman. And basically this applies to many aspects here.
For example I feel more comfortable with our medical system in Ukraine. Maybe because I'm used to it. I have an acquaintance Lyuba there. And I call her: Lyuba, I need to take a blood test tomorrow. And she says: Okay, come. If a regular lab can't do it, we have a private one. It's not that expensive, it's okay, we can afford it. A nurse comes home and takes all your tests, you don't even have to get out of bed.
And in the evening the results are sent to you. Here the situation is completely different. Everyone says Israeli medicine, Israeli medicine. Everyone goes to Israel for treatment. Yeah, if you're dying, or if... you have some disease that's hard to diagnose, they'll save you here.
Everything else... What, that your finger's rotting? It's okay, here's some drops. Fever? It's nothing. Do you feel sick? Drink some coke. And make an appointment to see a doctor? To go to the doctor, for example, if you have a toothache... to get a dentist's appointment, you have to get on a waiting list, which can last a month. A month.
If you have a Covid, you have a Covid, you can make an appointment to see the doctor after 2 or 3 weeks. In other words, you will either be cured by that time, or you will have already been bounced because you will be dying. I don't understand. And medicine is not free here, it costs a lot of money too. You won't be resuscitated for free. You're going to be resuscitated and then billed. Insurance doesn't cover everything. You go to the doctor and they tell you: This is included in your insurance, but for.... you have to pay extra for blinking three times.
If you compare state medicine in Ukraine and state medicine in Israel, the later is certainly good. This is a great opportunity for the entire population. You come to the doctor, you take a turn, it's all digitalized.
You can make an appointment and you have apps. You go to the doctors you want to see. And the doctor gives you as much attention as you need. The doctor is obligated to do all this.
If you compare state healthcare systems, Israel is better. But if you compare state medicine in Israel and private medicine in Ukraine, the private medicine in Ukraine is much better. You can learn from the Israelis' heroism, their endurance. The way they treat combat, the way they defend their country, it's unbelievable.
Now we also have a surge of patriotism and so on. But still, there is a difference, when the Israelis, whatever the problem, become one organism. I think that today we can learn from the Israelis how they defend their country, how they protect their citizens. And how they know how to solve all these issues.
Israel is a country that first created the army, and then created everything else. So this is one of the most important points, one of the most painful. Today they are an example to follow. They have a very great confidence in the army.
The right approach to safety. Everyone has a protocol of action, it is clear and understandable what needs to be done. Every house has a bomb shelter.
Modern homes have a special protected room that prevents the house from collapsing. There is also a great deal of trust in people with guns. Everyone here undertakes either military or alternate service. So they know how to handle a gun.
What the Ukrainians can learn from the Israelis is to smile more and have a simpler attitude to life. A very important point, Israel is completely surrounded by enemies. And in the last war, all the neighboring countries attacked Israel. And accordingly, being in such an enemy environment, this country knows how to smile, this country knows how to relax. Every weekend, I really enjoy seeing people going out with their families to picnics, to the park, to restaurants.
What else can you learn? The family culture. It's very evident in Israel, when you come to a restaurant, there are huge families sitting at the table, several generations, great-grandparents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. And they're all at the same table. It seems to me that the war in Ukraine brought some rethinking to the notion of a refugee. If before it seemed that a refugee was...a person...for example, with a dark skin color, who does not know a foreign language, who has no savings... The war in Ukraine showed the world that anyone can be a refugee.
That war is a tragedy from which no one is immune. Ukraine is a large country in the center of Europe. And Ukrainians are forced to leave everything and take only a small suitcase and the closest people with them, and flee to save themselves. They find themselves in circumstances where they have nowhere to live, nothing to eat, where they are entirely at the mercy of the state or the people where they are coming to, where they are seeking asylum.
I think this whole situation will help us as a humanity to understand that refugees are not third class people, there are no illegal people, that this is a tragedy. At this point I haven't found myself here. I have a huge sense of guilt for my country.
I have a terrible sense of guilt to my team. To my country, because I'm not there, I'm not fighting. And I have these skills. I can work in the military. I have my team there, and it works without me. Yeah, they're tough. They've gotten so cool in these years, I don't think they need me there. But I still have guilt. If I were alone, I would go back to Kyiv. I cry every day, I want to go home. Every day I cry.
But as my children tell me, they love it here. I understand ... I don't know ... I don't see myself here. And ... I don't think I can "acclimatize" here. Get used to it. I'm dying to go home. Odesa is the meaning of life. But... what I'll do there now. I don't know.
And then? Restore the country? Yes. And what will the children do? I don't understand. I want to go, my parents are there, everything is there, all my life is there. But will life be the same? I'll have to start from scratch. Again from the beginning, like now. But at home. I don't know. Every day I ask myself that question. In the morning, in the evening, in transportation, everywhere. I don't know.
I really want to go back. Let's wait for this war to end. Then Ukraine will recover and I think it will be no worse than Israel, will be on par. Israel and Ukraine are two countries that have a lot of differences on the one hand and a lot in common on the other.
I really wish that when this war is over, when we can breathe a sigh of relief, that Europe, Israel, that there will be values that will teach us something good. I am optimistic about the future.
2022-11-06 00:46
