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