From Immigrant Teen to Trapped Bride: Mika’s Harrowing Journey Through Abuse and Control

Mika's life was never easy. As an immigrant from Ukraine, she faced a very harsh reality as a child. “At home there was violence alongside financial hardship,” she recalls. “By the age of nine I had to go out and work to help support the family. I never really had a childhood, never enjoyed normal childhood experiences. I grew up too early.”

Immigration to Israel and a Sick Mother

Mika’s family immigrated to Israel when she was 12, in 1997. 

“My mother became ill already back in Ukraine, and the move to Israel made her condition worse, to the point that one of her legs had to be amputated. For about two years she was hospitalized most of the time, and my father stayed with her. We, the children, were left alone. There was no one to look after us. I was a young teenager, at the beginning of adolescence, still struggling to adjust to Israel and learn the language, without a mother or father.”

These difficulties created fertile ground for what came next.

Meeting Ali

“Ali was a young Palestinian man, 28 years old, fourteen years older than me,” she recounts. “We, like many others who came from the former Soviet Union, weren’t aware of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. We didn’t know who Arabs were, who Palestinian Arabs were, or anything about it. There was no one who could warn me – and even if there had been, I’m not sure I would have understood or listened.”

She sighs and continues: “It all began when I asked him for a cigarette. I was in the park with some girlfriends, instead of being at school, and he was sitting there. I saw a pack of cigarettes sticking out of his pocket, went over and asked for one.”

From then on, he didn’t leave Mika alone. “He followed me, found out where I lived, and started courting me, speaking sweetly. It felt nice. No one said a kind word to me back then or paid attention to me. I was lonely and abandoned. And suddenly, someone noticed me, was interested in me, and wanted to be close to me.”

A Promising Beginning That Turned Dark

At first, things looked hopeful. “We went out for five months. During that time he acted almost like a father figure and he was very protective. He seemed like a kind person and he even helped and supported my mother, who was at home in a wheelchair. When she passed away suddenly, he was a support at my side.

“Later my sister left for a boarding school, and my brother and I remained at home. My father was broken by my mother’s death and drank heavily. The difficult financial situation affected how he treated us. He demanded that I pay to live in the house and didn’t care how I did it. Eventually he brought another partner to live with us, and she stirred up conflict between us to the point that he threw me out. I had no money, and no relatives I could turn to for help.”

Moving to Ali’s Home

From there, the path to Ali’s home was very short.

“I had nowhere to go, only to him,” she says, trying to explain the sad situation she found herself in. “He took advantage of that – of my innocence and my weak Hebrew, and suggested we marry. ‘Just say a few words in court and then we can live together and be happy,’ he promised. Later I understood how significant those ‘few words’ really were,” Mika says in horror. “I had basically said that I wanted to convert to Islam, without understanding what I was saying.”

After that, Mika moved to the village. Ali had a small apartment next to his parents’ home. Until the wedding party, Mika lived with his parents.

“In the neighborhood they were preparing for the wedding celebration, and they were cooking for the party,” she remembers. “It was three weeks after I moved there. I was still confused, struggling to adjust to the place and the Arabic language, to the fact that I was about to get married. I didn’t know if I was alive or dead. It all felt unreal.

“Suddenly he got angry at me. About what? I don’t even remember. About nothing, really. He slapped me. I was stunned. I understood he wasn’t who I thought he was. But I was afraid to leave. Where would I go? To the street?”

Arrest, Pregnancy, and Growing Violence

Shortly after the wedding party, Ali was arrested by the police.

“He worked in Israel without a permit and was arrested as an illegal resident. He sat in prison for several months. During that time I moved from our apartment back into his parents’ home. I was pregnant with our first daughter. His parents actually treated me well, but they kept asking questions: ‘Where is it better, with us or with the Jews?’ What could I answer, standing in an Arab village, surrounded by Arabs, with no Jews around? ‘Of course it’s better with you,’ I would say, while crying inside.”

After a few months he was released, and their eldest daughter was born. Mika returned to their home, a new, exhausted mother, physically weak – and on top of that, gallstones were discovered and she suffered intense pain.

“If that wasn’t enough, he assaulted me violently and then threw me out of the house with the tiny baby. I had no formula or diapers. I went to his parents’ home and I told them that if they didn’t take me from there back to my father’s home, I’d reached my limit. I knew that kind of statement would move them. And indeed, his brother drove me to my father.”

A Lack of Support

“My father was completely indifferent to what I was going through,” she says, and it’s impossible to hear it without wanting to cry. “Even though I told him about the hell I was living in and begged for mercy for myself and the tiny baby, he responded coldly: ‘He’s your husband. Go back to him. There’s nothing to be done.’”

Meanwhile, Ali kept putting emotional pressure on her.

“He called and tried to persuade me not to turn to social services. ‘They’ll see a 17½-year-old girl with a baby and they’ll take her away from you,’ he warned. That terrified me. At the same time, he promised that if I came back to him, he would change and treat me well.”

“I went back to him,” she shrugs. “I felt I had no choice. My father wouldn’t let me stay with him. I tried to convince myself that maybe this time it would be different.”

Escalating Abuse

But reality was the opposite. “The situation got worse and worse. He would beat me very cruelly, ten times a week. For no reason, with no explanation. With his fists, with sticks, shoving, and more. The little girl saw everything. He didn’t spare her either.”

After two and a half years, she became pregnant again.

“His mother wanted to give me a present, and I must have said something he didn’t like. He attacked me violently, even though he knew I was pregnant.”

She was rushed to a gynecologist, a Jewish doctor of Russian origin who had also married an Arab man. “She examined me and told me sadly, ‘You were carrying triplets. One was lost; two remain.’”

Mika continued the pregnancy, and even though he knew the risk, Ali kept being violent. The babies survived despite everything.

“After the twins were born, he received permission to live in Israel. We rented an apartment in the country.”

New Year’s Eve: Violence and the Police

“On New Year’s Eve 2005, I set a beautiful table. That’s what we used to do at home, without any religious meaning — just a family custom. At the same time, I smoked. Cigarettes were my escape and my way to relax. I had no one to talk to about the suffering, no one to support, calm, or help me. Ali, on principle, didn’t drink and didn’t smoke. When he came home and discovered that I’d been smoking, he went into a rage. He smashed all the nice dishes I’d put on the table onto the floor, grabbed the broom handle, and hit me hard.

“The neighbors heard my screams and called the police. Before the officers broke into the house, he hissed at me, ‘If you complain about me, I’ll leave you without children.’ He knew my weak point: the children.”

She was taken to the hospital, and he was taken into custody. The police questioned her, but she didn’t tell the truth.

“I claimed I’d injured myself,” she says. At that time she was in severe emotional distress and had previously struggled with very dark thoughts about harming herself. The police accepted her story, and he was released.

A New Apartment – and Daily Terror

In 2006 she received a public-housing apartment from Amidar. She lived there with the children.

“The terrible suffering continued. There wasn’t a day without blows, curses, and humiliation – all in front of the little children.”

Mika pauses, takes a deep breath, and continues to the next chilling moment.

“One day I went to visit my father. Despite how he had treated me, I wanted to get out of the house, to breathe for a moment outside the daily hell. I came back a bit late, and he waited for me with a suspicious look and accused me of cheating on him. My explanations didn’t help. He cursed me harshly, and I felt I couldn’t take it anymore. I refused to stay silent — and answered him back.

“He was shocked that I dared raise my voice to him. He grabbed the lid of a pressure cooker, weighing about five kilos, and hit me on the head with it. Blood was running down my forehead. I pushed him away.”

In a fury, he grabbed a kitchen knife and threatened her. Mika describes feeling so broken at that moment that she no longer felt she had any strength to protect herself. He then stabbed her in the abdomen.

Regarding the children, Mika explains: “I had put them to sleep earlier. I was sure they were in bed and unaware of what was happening — but I was wrong. Later I found out that my eldest daughter woke up from the shouting, came out of the room, and saw everything.”

After the attempted murder, Mika was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, while Ali managed to escape before the police arrived. As he fled, he threatened her again that if she ever reported him, she and the children would suffer.

“I was taken into the trauma room,” she says. “I went through clinical death — and somehow, I survived.”

Alone Again – With Children to Feed

Social services and the police intervened. Ali was eventually caught and sent to prison. In the meantime, the children stayed with Mika’s father.

“But the very same day I was discharged from the hospital,” she says, “my father showed up at my place with all three children, said ‘Figure it out yourself,’ and left — leaving me alone.”

“I didn’t know what to do. I checked the hiding place where we kept our savings. I realized that before he ran away, Ali had thought of that too and took all the money. I was left without a single coin.”

Mika, still recovering from a life-threatening attack, now had to face basic survival with nothing.

“There was almost no money. The children needed food, rent had to be paid, electricity, water. I got into debt, and then I received a summons to a welfare committee to discuss my situation. Naively, I thought they would help me, understand my difficult situation, and extend a hand. However, the exact opposite happened. At the hearing they told me bluntly: ‘Either you find a job and start supporting your children, or we’ll place them in an institution.’”

A woman who had just survived a traumatic near-fatal attack, physically weak and emotionally exhausted after years with a violent man, was being told to go straight back to work, as if nothing had happened.

The Mistake That Cost Her the Children

Shattered and crushed, Mika made a mistake she regrets to this day.

“I thought his parents were decent and that I could trust them,” she explains sadly. “I felt I was about to collapse and needed a break to recover and find work. I couldn’t care for the children at the same time, and I decided to place them with his parents until I could get back on my feet.”

At that time, she had already decided to end the marriage for good and get divorced.

“I went to court and took the first lawyer who was in front of me, convinced he’d help me get out of the mess. Meanwhile, the children were in the village with his parents. I never imagined that my in-laws would contact the lawyer and bribe him with a large sum of money to have me sign documents giving up the children.”

“If only I had known, if only I had understood,” she cries. “I would never have signed those papers. But that wicked, corrupt lawyer took advantage of my innocence, my poor Hebrew, and especially my desperate situation. I so badly wanted a divorce and was afraid that if I didn’t do it then, I’d never manage to do it. He put forms in front of me, written in legal Hebrew that I of course didn’t understand, and said, ‘Sign.’ So I signed many forms, convinced he wanted what was best for me – not understanding what the signatures really meant and who this crook was that I was paying to represent me, and what he was doing to me.”

Another Violent Attack

“Late one evening, around 10 p.m., I was walking through a dark park. Two young women and a man were walking toward me. For no reason, they started shouting horrible curses at me. At that stage, after all the insults I’d endured from Ali, I wasn’t willing to stay silent when someone trampled my dignity. I answered them back. An argument started that turned violent, and they attacked me with a knife, injuring me all over.”

She was rushed to the hospital again in serious condition — and again, somehow, she survived.

“In 2009 I finally got divorced. I wanted to bring my children back to me, and then I discovered, in horror, what that rotten lawyer had done, and that I had unknowingly signed away my rights to them.”

Rejected by Her Own Children

“About a year and a half ago, I met by chance the gynecologist who had treated me back then,” she says. “In the meantime she herself had managed to leave that environment and wanted to help free the children. We coordinated a visit and went together to the village.

“My son saw me and recognized me, but instead of hugging me, he attacked me and hit me, shouting terrible curses.”

It’s shocking and hard to grasp, but this is the result of years of incitement the children absorbed from their father and grandparents. They do everything they can to make the children hate Mika, the mother who misses them so deeply.

“Once Ali called me and let the children speak to me,” she continues. “They cursed me: ‘We hate you, get out of our sight,’ and other words I’d rather not repeat — while I could hear him in the background telling them what to say.”

“I tried again,” she says. “I submitted a request for visitation rights, but I don’t know why the judge didn’t accept it.

“I admit, I’ve lost hope. I don’t see a way to bring them back to me.”

Turning Pain Into Support for Others

Despite everything she’s been through, Mika wants to give and support other women who went through similar experiences.

“Unfortunately, society judges women in my situation very harshly,” she explains. “People don’t really try to understand what they’re going through and how miserable they are. They’re afraid to talk and share, and they stay alone with the pain.

“I believe that a support group, where everyone has been through the same kind of experience, can help a lot — to offer a supportive shoulder and empathy to someone who desperately needs it.”

She also has a dream: “I want to publish a book that will tell my life story and help save girls and women, to prevent more of these tragedies in our community.

“I truly hope the day will come when I can publish this book. It hurts to think that there are girls who are tempted and think they’ll ‘have a good life’ and don’t think ahead at all. It’s so important that they read and hear my story, and internalize and understand reality.”

A Message to Women in Dangerous Relationships

“From the hundreds of cases I know,” she says, “I can tell you: there are no ‘winners’ in these situations. Everyone comes out wounded and scarred — physically and emotionally, even in the ‘lighter’ cases.

If you’ve decided that you want to cut ties and rebuild your life, do it without fear. That’s the only way it works.

If you’re afraid, he will grow stronger, and if you hide, he will chase you. But if you rise up, he will hide. And if you become stronger, he will be the one who’s afraid.

I am calling out to you: If there’s anyone who thinks ‘it won’t happen to me’ or ‘my situation is different’ — You’re living in an illusion.

Anyone who doesn’t get out of there, won’t get out at all.”