Mika's Struggle: A Journey from Turmoil to Triumph

Mika's life has never been easy. A newcomer from Ukraine, she faced challenges from an early age.

"At home, there was violence alongside economic hardship," she describes. "By the age of nine, I had to start working to help support the family. In fact, I was never a child who enjoyed normal childhood experiences. I matured prematurely."

Her family immigrated to Israel when she was 12, in 1997. The challenges she faced before were compounded further.

"My mother became ill while we were still in Ukraine, and the move to Israel worsened her condition to the point that they had to amputate one of her legs. For two years, she was hospitalized most of the time, and my father stayed by her side. We, the children, were left alone. No one was there to care for us. I was a young girl, in the early stages of adolescence, still struggling to acclimate to the country, to learn the language, without a mother, without a father, alone."

These difficulties laid fertile ground for what followed.

"Ali was a 28-year-old Palestinian, fourteen years older than me," she reflects. "We, like many others who immigrated from the Soviet Union, were not aware of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We didn't know what Arabs or Palestinian Arabs were at all. There was no one to warn me, but even if there had been, I'm not sure I would have understood or listened."

She sighs and continues, "It all started when I asked him for a cigarette. I was in the park with some friends, instead of at school, and he was sitting there. I saw a pack of cigarettes peeking out of his pocket and approached to ask for one."

From then on, Ali did not leave Mika alone.

"He followed me, found out where I lived, and courted me with sweet words. It was pleasant. Back then, no one said a kind word to me or paid attention. I was lonely and abandoned. Suddenly, someone noticed me, expressed interest, and wanted to be close to me."

Initially, the relationship seemed promising to Mika.

"We dated for five months. During that time, he seemed fatherly, protective, and safeguarding. Exactly what I lacked. He made an impression of a kind-hearted person. He even helped and supported my mother, who was then homebound in a wheelchair. Later, she suddenly died, and again, he was my support during that time."

Eventually, my sister left for a boarding school, and my brother and I were left at home. My father was devastated by my mother's death and indulged in heavy drinking, which negatively affected his behavior toward us. He demanded I pay for my stay at home, without caring how. Eventually, he brought another partner into our home, who stirred trouble between us to the point that he threw me out of the house. With no money, no belongings, and no relatives to turn to."

And so, the path to Ali's home was a short one.

"I had nowhere else to go, only to him," she says, attempting to justify the dire situation she found herself in. "He exploited this, my naivety, and my lack of mastery of the Hebrew language, and suggested we marry. 'Just say a few words in court, and we can live together and be happy,' he promised. Later, I realized how significant those 'few words' were," Mika states with shock, "I had essentially said that I wanted to convert to Islam without understanding what I was saying at all."

Afterward, Mika moved to live in the village. Ali had a unit next to his parents' home. Until the wedding party, Mika lived with his parents.

"The neighborhood was preparing for a celebration. A wedding feast. They prepared food for the party," she recalls. "It was three weeks after the move. I was still confused, struggling to adjust to the environment and the Arabic language, to the fact that I was about to marry, not knowing if I was alive or dead, a confusing reality."

Suddenly, he became angry with me. About what? I already can't remember. Essentially about nothing. He slapped me. I was stunned. I realized he was not what I thought. But I was afraid to leave. Where would I go, really? To the streets?"

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

"He had worked in Israel without a permit and was detained as an illegal resident. He spent several months in prison. During this time, I moved from our apartment back to his parents' home. I was pregnant with our first daughter. His parents treated me well, but they often questioned, 'Where is it better, here or among the Jews?' Surrounded by Arabs in an Arab village without a Jewish soul around, I answered, 'Of course here,' and cried in my heart."

After a few months, he was released, and our first daughter was born. I returned home, a new mother, weak and exhausted. Additionally, gallstones were discovered, causing unbearable pain. But if that were not enough, he brutally beat me and then threw me out from the house. With the delicate baby. Without formula. Without diapers. I went to his parents' house, stood firm, told them if they wouldn't take me back to my father's home, I'd end my life. I knew such a threat would impact them, and indeed, his brother drove me to my father."

But at home, an unpleasant surprise awaited Mika.

"My father was indifferent to my situation," she says, and it's impossible not to hear her story without crying, "Despite explaining the hell I was going through and begging for mercy for me and the tiny baby, he responded coldly, 'It's your husband, go back to him, there's nothing to be done.'

Meanwhile, Ali exerted emotional pressure on her, "He called and tried persuading me not to turn to social services. 'They'll see a 17-and-a-half-year-old girl with a baby, they'll take her away from you.' He frightened me, yet promised that if I returned to him, he would change and treat me well.

"I returned to him," she shrugs, "I felt I had no choice. My father wasn't willing to let me stay with him. I tried convincing myself maybe this time it would be different.

However, what happened was precisely the opposite. "The situation worsened. He beat me cruelly ten times a week. Without reason, without explanation. With fists, with sticks, shoves, and whatnot. The child saw everything. He didn't spare her either.

After two and a half years, I was pregnant again. His mother wanted to gift me something, and perhaps I said something he didn’t like, and he attacked me with terrible blows, despite knowing I was pregnant.

I was rushed to a gynecologist, a Jewish doctor of Russian descent who also married an Arab. She examined me and sorrowfully informed me, "You had triplets. One was lost, leaving two."

I continued the pregnancy, and despite knowing the risk, he continued to beat me. Yet the embryos miraculously survived.

After the twins were born, he received a permit to live in Israel. We rented an apartment in the country.

On New Year's Eve 2005, I set a beautiful table. That was customary in our home, without attributing any religious significance to it. Meanwhile, I smoked. Cigarettes were my escape. There was no one to talk to about the suffering, no one to support or calm or help. It was a relief. But he, in principle, neither drank nor smoked. When he entered the house and discovered I smoked, he was outraged. He smashed all the beautiful dishes I had set on the table. He grabbed a broomstick and broke it on me violently.

The neighbors heard my screams and called the police. Before the officers entered the house, he managed to mutter towards me, 'If you complain about me, I'll leave you without children,' he knew my weak spot. The children. I was taken to the hospital, and he was arrested. The officers interrogated me, but I didn't tell the truth. I claimed I injured myself. Since I was mentally unstable at the time and had made several suicide attempts, the officers believed it, and he was released.

In 2006, I received a public housing apartment. We lived there with the children. The awful suffering continued. Not a day went by without beatings, curses, and humiliations, all before the small children."

Mika takes a moment to breathe deeply before continuing with her chilling account: "One day, I went to visit my father. Despite his past attitude, I wanted to escape the house, to breathe from the daily hell I lived in. I returned a little late, and he waited for me with a suspicious face, accusing me of betrayal. All my explanations and claims were in vain. He cursed me thoroughly, and I felt I couldn’t take it anymore. I was no longer willing to stay silent. I answered him in the same language. He was shocked that I dared face him and took the lid of a pressure cooker, weighing five kilos, and struck it on my head. While massive blood ran down my forehead, I pushed him back hard.

He grabbed a kitchen knife, all heated up, 'Who are you to raise your hands against me? I'll stab you.'

I felt I didn't care. Let me die, I thought. ‘Stab,’ I replied.

And the madman showed no mercy and stabbed me in the stomach."

And if you wonder where the children were during this time, Mika responds, "I had put them to sleep earlier. I was sure they were in their beds, unaware of the events, but I was wrong. Later, I found out that my eldest daughter woke up from the screams, came out of her room, and saw everything."

After the attempted murder, Mika was taken to the hospital in serious condition. Meanwhile, Ali managed to escape before the officers arrived, threatening her moments before fleeing, "If you report on me, you and the children will die."

"I was put in a trauma room and underwent clinical death, but somehow, I stayed alive."

Social services intervened, and the police caught him. He was imprisoned. The children stayed at my father's place, but the same day I was released from the hospital, my father showed up with all three, 'Figure it out,' he said and left, leaving me alone.

I didn't know what to do. I checked the hiding spot where we kept our savings. It turned out that before he fled, Ali thought about it and took all the money, leaving me penniless."

Mika, still needing recovery from the attempted murder she survived, now had to face life’s hardships without a penny.

"There was barely any money. The children needed to eat; I had to pay rent, electricity, and water. I accumulated debts, and then came an invitation to a welfare committee to discuss my situation. Naively, I thought they would help me, understand my hardships, reach out a hand. Quite the opposite. The committee told me bluntly: either you find a job and start supporting your children, or we’ll take them to a boarding school.'

Is it possible to read this without feeling disturbed? A woman after a traumatic assassination attempt, weak physically and mentally, worn out from living alongside a ruthless madman, is asked to go out, work, and support as if nothing happened.

Mika, broken and crushed, made a mistake then she will regret all her life.

"I thought his parents were decent, and I could trust them," she explains with sorrow. "I felt I was about to collapse, needed time to recuperate, and find work. I couldn't take care of the children simultaneously, so I decided to send them to his parents until I recovered and stood on my feet.

During that time, I was determined to end life with him definitively and divorce. I turned to the court and hired the first lawyer I encountered, hoping he would help me out of the maze.

Meanwhile, the children were at his parents' village. I didn’t imagine that my in-laws would contact the lawyer, bride him with a large sum, to sign documents where I relinquish the children.

"If only I knew, if only I understood," she cries, "I would never have signed those documents. But the evil and corrupted lawyer exploited my naivety, my lack of Hebrew, and especially the desperate situation I was in. I wanted so much to divorce and feared if I didn’t do it now, I’d never manage. He presented forms in Hebrew, legal jargon I didn’t understand, and told me ‘sign’. So, I signed many forms, convinced he sought my good, not realizing what the signatures meant and who this crook was that I paid to represent me, causing such harm."

But Mika's suffering did not end there.

"Late one evening, around ten o'clock, I was walking in a dark park. Two girls and a man walked towards me, and for no reason, hurled terrible curses at me. Back then, after all the curses I endured from Ali, I was no longer willing to stay silent on insults. I replied to them. An altercation ensued, becoming violent, during which they stabbed me all over. Again, I was taken to the hospital in a critical state, and somehow, I survived that, staying alive.

In 2009, I finalized the divorce. I wanted to take back the children, and that’s when I discovered with shock, what the rogue lawyer did, and that unwittingly I signed giving them up."

Mika attempted to retrieve her children, "A year and a half ago, I randomly met the Jewish gynecologist who checked me back then. She had managed to escape herself in the meantime, wanted to rescue the children. We agreed to go to the village together.

My son saw me, recognized me, instead of hugging me, attacked and hit me, shouting harsh curses."

It’s shocking and hard to grasp, but it’s the result of the brainwashing the children undergo by their father and his parents. They do everything to poison the children against Mika, who misses them dearly.

"Once, Ali called me, let the kids talk to me; they cursed at me, 'We hate you,' 'Get out of our sight,' and more curses unworthy of mentioning, while I heard him in the background, telling them what to say."

I made another attempt, filing for visitation arrangements. But I do not know why the judge didn’t approve it.

I admit, I despaired. I don’t see hope in getting them back."

"The past haunts me, provides no rest. Makes it hard to rebuild my life. Ali doesn’t relent either. He still works in the city, deliberately near my home, I see him every day. He doesn't leave me be, starts conversations, presses to talk about the children, then swears. But I learned not to fear, learned to answer back. He realized I’m stronger, no longer threatening."

Despite everything, Mika desires to support and assist other women who went through similar experiences.

"Unfortunately, society judges women in my situation," she explains. "People don’t truly try to understand what they go through and how miserable they are. They are afraid to speak, share, and remain alone with their pain.

"I believe such a group, where everyone shared the same experience, can be very helpful. Offering a supportive shoulder and empathy to those who really need it."

Also, I dream of publishing a book telling my life story to save young girls and women to prevent missteps in our nation.

I truly hope the day will come when I can fulfill releasing this book. It pains me to think there are girls who are tempted, thinking it will be good without thinking ahead. It’s very important for them to read and hear my life story, understand, and realize the truth and life."

From the hundreds of cases I know, I say to you, there are no winners in these situations; all end wounded, scarred physically and mentally at their best.

If you decide you want to disconnect and recover, do it without fear and no fright – and that’s how it works.

If you fear, he’ll overcome, if you hide, he’ll chase, but if you’re strong, he’ll hide, if you grow strong, he will fear."

Mika calls out to you loudly.

If anyone thinks it won’t happen to them or that theirs is different –

You’re living in a movie

And I promise you, anyone who doesn’t leave will stay boxed forever

For details and contact, free of charge:

Shavuot – Department for the Prevention of Assimilation, Help, Reporting and Donations:

Tel: 073-2221333, Mobile: 052-9551591. Email:[email protected]