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