Israeli School for Russian speakers offer relief for refugees

 Full story at https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-702583

During Veronika Maidanova’s first two days attending school in Israel, the 8-year-old felt completely lost.

“Everyone spoke Hebrew and I didn’t understand anything,” she recalled, weeks after fleeing her native Ukraine for the safety — but unfamiliarity — of Israel.

 Then her mother heard about a school focused on new immigrants where 90% of students speak Russian. She quickly enrolled Veronica in the Shuvu Renanim school in Nof Hagalil, a city of 41,000 in the Galilee where an estimated 60% of families speak Russian at home.

“She’s really found her place, most of the students speak Russian, most of the teachers speak Russian and there are already friendships starting to happen,” Lena Maidanova said of her daughter. “It’s a huge relief.”

More than 600 Ukrainians have come to Nof Hagalil since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, setting off a massive migration of Ukrainians to whatever country can give them safety. About 4,000 Jewish refugees have already arrived in Israel, with potentially tens of thousands more expected.

The Ukrainian children who have landed in Nof Hagalil and at Shuvu Renanim were living safe, stable lives just over a month ago. Now they have wound up in a foreign land, usually without their fathers because of Ukraine’s ban on letting men younger than 60 leave the country, and often after experiencing trauma during the war’s early days and their flights from Ukraine.

“It’s horrifying to see a student shuddering in fear whenever a door is slammed too hard or an ambulance wails by,” said Sara Neder, who has been Shuvu Renanim’s principal for 12 years.

 Tetiana Denysenko, 36, stayed in Kyiv for as long as possible together with her 10-year-old son, Sasha, and his father in Kyiv.

 Now she and Sasha are staying in Nof Hagalil’s posh Plaza Hotel, where the city is temporarily housing new immigrants for up to a month as they look for apartments to rent. Buses bring Sasha and other children back to the hotel from the Shuvu school each day, part of a sweeping effort to make the city welcoming for the new arrivals.

At school, the staff talk and devote extra attention to the new arrivals to “try to make them feel as welcome and safe as possible,” said Neder. The school has not offered dedicated trauma counseling, but the newcomers are “doing better than when they first arrived,” she added.

 That’s in part because of Shuvu’s experience educating children who have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. The school is part of a network of 75 schools serving 6,000 students in more than a dozen Israeli cities that was established in the early 1990s specifically with the aim of inculcating Jewish values in children from the former Soviet Union.

 For a tuition of about $62 a month, parents at Shuvu get a school day two hours longer than state schools’ in classes 30% smaller than at public schools, as well as a warm meal and busing from their homes. Many secular parents are convinced to send their kids to Shuvu because of these benefits, coupled with how hospitable the schools are to Russian speakers.