8 | MARCH 17 • 2022 

student’s corner
Let Freedom Prevail 
“N

ever shall I 
forget those 
things, even 
were I condemned to live 
as long as God Himself. 
Never,” wrote 
Holocaust 
survivor Elie 
Wiesel in his 
poem Never 
Shall I Forget. 
 “We shall 
never forget” is 
often repeated 
on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust 
Remembrance Day, to mourn 
the death of more than 6 
million Jewish people. Six 
million mothers, fathers, 
brothers, sisters and friends. 
Now, more than ever before, 

it is the time to unify and 
push back against world 
leaders who attempt to revive 
world powers of the past.
Ukrainian President 
Volodymyr Zelensky is one 
of as many as 400,000 Jewish 
people still living in the 
European country of Ukraine. 
Zelensky’s grandfather was 
the only brother of four 
who survived the Holocaust. 
Zelensky has displayed 
tremendous bravery; the 
Ukrainian embassy in Britain 
says Zelensky refused United 
States’ offers to escort him 
away from Kyiv, Ukraine’s 
capital city. Zelensky made 
clear to the U.S., “I need 
ammunition, not a ride.”

Babyn Yar, the site of the 
massacre of 33,000 Jews in 
World War II, is home to 
a Holocaust memorial site. 
This area was a recent vic-
tim of Russia’s attacks on 
the 31-year-old independent 
country of Ukraine. After 
breaking off from the Union 
of Soviet Socialist Republics 
in 1991, Ukraine is once 
again under scrutiny.
In modern times, Zionist 
movements are often 
obstructed by misinterpreta-
tion in the media and across 
the world. Frankel Jewish 
Academy (FJA) teaches that a 
strong connection to Israel is 
essential to the maintenance 
of a strong Jewish people. 

By maintaining a concrete 
connection to Israel, we pre-
serve an influential Jewish 
community. When the Jewish 
people are banded togeth-
er, we are able to condemn 
antisemitism and world lead-
ers attempting to disrupt our 
self-sufficiency. Now is the 
time to combat antisemitism. 
Now is the time to support 
Israel. It is our responsibility 
to respond, and condemn, 
any and all forms of antisem-
itism across the world. If 
enough people hear and read 
bigoted statements, we will 
lose our ability to assert our 
free will.
While events like the 
Russian invasion into 

Harry 
Shaevsky

PURELY COMMENTARY

from Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs
One People, Dispersed Around the Globe
T

he war raging in Ukraine 
today has plunged Jews 
in that country into the 
most acute crisis that has faced 
any large Jewish 
community in 
decades. 
We, the global 
Jewish commu-
nity, are therefore 
facing the biggest 
test in a genera-
tion to demon-
strate as a people the solidarity 
and care for our brothers and 
sisters facing such danger that 
previous generations showed in 
similar situations. 
Ukraine is home to at least 
200,000 Jews and those with 
Jewish ancestry, comprising 
one of the biggest Jewish com-
munities in the world outside 
of Israel and the U.S. That 

community, along with all other 
Ukrainian citizens, is now fac-
ing the most dire circumstances 
imaginable, from indiscriminate 
aerial and artillery bombard-
ment to food shortages, loss of 
property and possessions, and 
exposure to the bitterly cold 
Eastern European winter. 
If ever there was a time for 
the global Jewish community, in 
Israel and the Diaspora, to take 
responsibility for its brethren, 
then that time is now. 
I believe that the initial 
response shown by the govern-
ment of Israel and world Jewry 
represents the opening of a new 
chapter of Jewish solidarity, 
something which is particularly 
needed and welcome in Israel. 
In the past and even today, 
the default attitude of many 
Israelis, including opinion mak-

ers and senior government offi-
cials, to the concerns of Jews in 
the Diaspora has often been to 
tell them simply to make aliyah. 
Even in the early 2000s, when 

Jewish leaders were reviving 
Jewish life in the former Soviet 
Union, former prime minister 
Ariel Sharon reprimanded them 
for building Jewish life anew in 

Dr. Nachman 
Shai

Jewish Ukrainian refugees sit at an emergency shelter sponsored by 
the IFCJ (International Fellowship of Christians and Jews) and the JDC 
in Chisinau, Moldova, March 5, 2022.

NATI SHOHAT/FLASH90

