On an overcast Tuesday morning, two men dressed identically in jeans and black leather jackets stepped out of a van in front of a three-story apartment building in the Old North District of Tel Aviv. They exited the vehicle, walked to the back, and removed four large suitcases from the trunk. As the driver sped off, the two men made their way towards the staircase of a building marked 22 Chovevei Tzion Street. Before they could ascend the first few steps, the two men heard someone shout “Shalom” from the side of the building.
They turned to see a jovial-looking man in his sixties walking towards them. His name was Roni, and he was the building manager. He had just finished cleaning up the garbage in the street that had found its way in front of the building. The sanitation workers were on strike again, and trash was piling up throughout the city.
“Shalom,” he yelled, not wanting to miss this opportunity to greet his building’s newest tenants.
“Shalom,” the two men said in unison, trying to hide their annoyance at being stopped before they could reach their destination.
“Mah shlomchem, ani Roni,” the cheerful old man said with a smile.
“Shalom, I am Daniel, and this is Victor,” the man to Roni’s right responded.
“Oh, you don’t speak Hebrew, I sorry,” Roni managed in his broken English. “Where you from? Are you part of Ukraine aliyah?” Roni asked with great curiosity. He, like many Israelis, were relieved that the Ukrainian Jews were safe and now in Israel. He also wondered why they had waited so long to come. Any Israeli could have told them that Ukraine was no place for Jews.
“Yes, we were for a few weeks in the absorption center near Jerusalem, but then we were sent here,” Daniel explained.
“Welcome to Tel Aviv. Anything you will need, you come and see Roni, okay, boys?”
“Thank you very much, sir. We are happy to be here,” Daniel said. They each shook Roni’s hand and then lugged their suitcases to the third floor. Once inside the apartment, the two Ukrainians began immediately unpacking their bags. Daniel’s two suitcases were full of computers, wires, monitors, and other equipment used for monitoring and tracking targets. Victor’s first bag contained weapons and one hundred thousand shekels of cash. The bills were arranged neatly in bound stacks of ten thousand shekels each. His second bag contained a few days’ worth of clothing and toiletries. He placed them in cabinets in the only bedroom. Once unpacked, Victor returned to the living room. There he saw that Daniel had nearly finished setting up two computers on the desk adjacent to a sleek white leather couch. Once he was done, Daniel grabbed the remote control from the coffee table in front of the couch and said, “Let’s see if these damn Jews show any good football games on their TV stations.”
Victor went to the kitchen and grabbed two beers. He handed one to Daniel, sat down, and began watching an excellent Spanish football game being broadcast live from Barcelona. “I guess not everything is shit in this country,” Victor said as they both smiled.