Ukrainian children are finding refuge in an Israeli town and its school for Russian speakers

NOF HAGALIL, Israel (JTA) - 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 percent 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 percent of families speak Russian at home.

"She's really found her place...