“I Chose to Flee Israel to Remain Human”: A Personal Journey from War to Dignity
An Israeli Woman Recounts Her Escape to Costa Rica Amid War Guilt, Moral Collapse, and the Need to Reclaim Her Humanity.
Watan-A month ago, my husband, children, and I fled abroad. I pulled the kids out of school, bought a one-way ticket, and we packed only four small suitcases. I had often debated the idea of emigration with myself, even before the regime shift. The thoughts would begin with a well-defined political deadlock, move through mental anguish and hope for a different future, and always stumble at the fear of relocating my life to a place that is not my homeland.
Since the war began, those thoughts became action. I obtained a foreign work permit, opened a bank account, and even attended several job interviews. But I didn’t succeed. Perhaps it’s the years of nationalist ideology coursing through us against our will. Perhaps it’s the immigrant fear ingrained in all descendants of migrants. Maybe I’m too old, or too used to comfort. But I failed. I built a smart infrastructure that brought me right to the edge of departure—but I couldn’t jump into the water.
Yet as this war drags on, it’s becoming clear: I can’t live in Israel anymore. The routine of war, with all its horrors, has shredded my soul. I wake up and go to bed with images of starving children, dying or already dead. I can’t hug my own children without thinking of the orphans just across the border.
From War Zones to “Pura Vida”: Choosing Exile to Preserve Humanity
In the hospital, in lengthy discussions about children with severe illnesses, I count the resources invested in one child—while 30 others are being killed nearby. These aren’t troubling thoughts that linger—they are ongoing trauma threatening to consume me and my family. Fleeing wasn’t a savvy economic or career move. It was simply the only option left.
And so we found ourselves in Costa Rica, sitting on the porch of a house that isn’t ours, in a vast jungle—where there are no Israeli bulldozers next door, no traffic jams on Ayalon Highway, and no one curses me at work or in the supermarket. When a loud noise breaks the silence here, it’s a monkey—not a siren. After a few weeks, you discover that the urban chaos of a blood-drenched country hasn’t been replaced by eerie silence, but by a different kind of noise: the sound of nature. The rush of river water, the croaking of frogs, the chirping of thousands of birds. It takes time to truly hear it—to face the contrast between everything we knew and a world untouched by human destruction.
Of course, there are people here who work hard and suffer, just like anywhere else. But some things speak for themselves. There’s no army. No war. Elderly women stroll down the street carrying machetes—just to cut coconuts. I, the outsider, see them as dangerous weapons.
I, the mother, am used to seeing three men with guns at the entrance to my children’s school. The locals use the phrase “Pura Vida”—pure life—as a greeting, a smile, a philosophy. Living simply. I can’t say we dreamed of living here, or that I wish others would.
I didn’t discover the secret of emigration in these weeks. I’m still a stranger in a land where I don’t speak the language. I haven’t decided to stay. But I’ve made one clear decision: to remain human. To live.
Some people seek to make more money, lose weight, eat healthier, fix their marriage, or learn a new hobby. Me? I will no longer be part of killing another people.
