Iran is slowly fading from the headlines, and the regime’s collapse doesn’t look imminent—painful news for those who made it to Israel and now face the reality that reuniting with the families they left behind keeps getting pushed further away. One of them is Shaily Gol, 18, who immigrated from Iran about four and a half years ago. In an interview with C14, she describes the complicated reality: “I think until Iran reaches Israel’s level and you can actually go back there, it’ll take many, many more years. By the time that happens, I’ll have already built my family here.”
3+“I Cried Until Morning”: The Immigration Forced on Her in Two Weeks
Shaily and her family’s story began with urgent, unexpected medical circumstances. Her mother fell ill with a rare disease, and after years of treatment in Iran, doctors told the family they could no longer provide adequate medical care. “The doctors said if we have somewhere to take her, the time has come,” Shaily says. “We decided to immigrate, and it all happened within just two weeks. I wasn’t even part of the decision. I knew my parents wanted to come so Mom could get treatment, but I didn’t know they were planning to take me and my brother too.”
The revelation about the imminent departure came in a random moment at her grandmother’s house. Shaily saw her father photographing the family’s passports, and when she asked him what was going on, he confirmed they were heading to Israel. “That night I cried until morning,” she says. “Not because I hated Israel, but because of not knowing. Jews in Iran have no way of knowing what life is like here. I felt like they wanted to take me and put me in a dark room. Because everything was secret, we couldn’t even say goodbye to extended family because it would have raised suspicion.”
3+“From “Iranian” to “Terrorist”: The Stereotypes She Faced in Israel“
The move to Israel at age 13 and a half surfaced deep cultural gaps. Shaily describes a world where the Israeli mentality is completely opposite to what she grew up with. “In Iran, everything is about respect and speaking nicely, and here I feel it’s the opposite. Here it’s important to have confidence, to stand up for yourself, and to be able to take your share. It messed with my head. At first, I was at Yavneh school in Holon and didn’t manage at all—I didn’t even know the alphabet when I arrived. Only when I moved to another school, and the language started improving, did I finally manage to find friends and connect.”
Alongside language difficulties, Shaily had to deal with social stigmas that she and her younger brother encountered daily. “I wish people knew the Persian community better,” she says. “People see on the news that there’s war there and bad people, and they judge us based on that. They call us ‘Arabs’ and ‘terrorists’ at school, and it happens to my brother every day. You can’t take each person one by one and explain to them who we are and where we came from. It’s a shame, because due to lack of familiarity, they treat us in a way that hurts a lot of people and creates an unpleasant feeling.”
3+“I Dream About My Family Every Night”
Despite the difficulties, Shaily managed to build a new life for herself. She finished high school with a full matriculation certificate and today focuses on training and thinking about future studies. What she misses most from the life she left behind is “my family. Missing them is there every night, I dream about them. After 14 years of being together every holiday and every Shabbat, suddenly being alone in another country is very hard. Since the war with Iran started, they’re afraid to talk to us, and contact has almost completely cut off.”
3+Shaily’s biggest dream is to close the circle with the people she loved and from whom she was forced to part abruptly. “My dream is to go back there one day, to see my family and at least get to say goodbye to them. To give them one last hug that we didn’t get to,” she concludes. Despite the pain, she emphasizes that she’s doing well here and feels stable in the new place she’s found for herself. “When I got off the plane, even though I didn’t know where I was, I felt calm in my heart. I felt I was in the right place.”