12 | MAY 19 • 2022 

S

ince the beginning of Russia’s 
war on Ukraine, Oded “Ody” 
Norkin, 67, of Okemos, has felt 
the pull of his past. In 1925, his father, 
Aaron, graduated Odessa Technical 
School. In 1941, when the Nazis and 
their allies took siege of Odessa, his 
father, like many Jews, was deported to 
work camps in Siberia. His grandparents 
Sara and Moshe Norkin were murdered 
in the streets of Odessa.
“My grandparents were not evacuated 
because they were considered too old, 
and we lost them,” Norkin said. “So now, 
this current war hit home for me, and I 
had to do something.” 
With a newly formed network of 
people that stretches from Michigan to 
Romania to Ukraine, Norkin, together 
with $20,000 in donations collected from 
a Greater Lansing Jewish Federation 
emergency campaign, has secured two 
ambulances plus medical equipment, 
first aid supplies and vital medication for 
war-ravaged Ukrainians. 
 Norkin transferred the first ambulance, 
packed with supplies, to the Jewish 
community in Odessa in April. As of 

May 11, the second ambulance began its 
long journey to the Jewish community in 
Dnipro. 
Norkin, 67, was born in Israel and 
served in the Israeli Army during the 
1973 Yom Kippur War. For the last 16 
years, people know him best as vice 
president of Michigan Flyer, a multi-
city transportation service that shuttles 
travelers to and from the Detroit Metro 
Airport. 
In early March, Norkin called Hendel 
Weingarten, the rabbi at Chabad House 
in East Lansing, who suggested he 
contact Rabbi Avraham Wolff of Chabad 
in Odessa. They began exchanging text 
messages March 13.
“I know a thing or two about 
transportation, and that’s where I wanted 
to help, with evacuees fleeing Ukraine 
over the border to Moldova, Romania 
or Poland,” Norkin said. “When I signed 
up to volunteer, the network of Chabad 
rabbis said transportation they had; 
where they really needed help was to get 
more ambulances and medicine.” 
Though Norkin’s expertise lies in 
bus shuttle transportation, he had 

no knowhow in how to acquire an 
ambulance. Yet, he promised Rabbi 
Wolff he would come through. 

BOUND FOR ROMANIA
By March 14, he was on a plane bound 
for Romania, traveling with $10,000 in 
cash of his own savings, with few other 
plans beyond that. He made his way to 
Bucharest in a rented nine-passenger 
van, where he connected with Chabad 
Rabbi Naftalai Deutsch, who introduced 
him to a man who could get the job 
done: Marco Katz. 
A native of Romania who has spent 
time living in the United States and 
Israel, where he served in the Israeli 
Army, Katz is vice president of the 
Zionist Association of Romania and 
founding director of Monitoring and 
Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania. 
“Katz wears many hats,” Norkin 
explained on a spotty phone call with 
the JN while the two were making a 
recent three-hour drive between the tiny 
Romanian border town of Siret, host to 
many fleeing refugees, back to Bucharest. 
“He knows everybody and anybody you 

OUR COMMUNITY

Okemos man helps deliver ambulances and medical 
supplies to Jews in the war-torn region.
Ambulances for Ukraine

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Ody Norkin on 
his journey to 
Ukraine

