PURELY COMMENTARY
12 | FEBRUARY 15 • 2024 J
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From One Country at War to Another
I
n a country beset with
war, its men subject
to being drafted and
deployed into active service,
with many other sleep-
deprived
citizens who
have remained
behind coping
with warning
sirens that
may sound
at any hour,
and with jobs
disappearing and incomes
reduced because of the war.
Paulina Rabin
Mikhailovna and Olga
Sherbak made donations the
other day for people nearly
2,000 miles away living
under the same conditions.
Mikhailovna, 76, a retired
pediatric cardiologist, and
Sherbak, at 69 still working
as a Hebrew teacher, live
in Chernivtsi, a city of
250,000 (pre-war) in the
southwestern region of
Ukraine.
Their contributions were
intended for the Jews of
Israel.
Like many Ukrainian Jews
today, of limited financial
means, dependent on
pensions or small salaries,
they contributed recently
to the Jerusalem-based
Schechter Institutes’ Israel
Emergency Campaign, which
is assisting the physical and
spiritual needs of Israelis
adversely affected by the
deadly Hamas attack from
Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.
Both widowed, both hear
sirens on a daily basis, both
have relatives and close
friends in Israel.
The two senior citizens
are among “hundreds”
of members of Ukraine’s
shrunken Jewish community
who have taken part in the
Emergency Campaign, said
Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya, a
native of Russia and current
citizen of Israel who travels
to Ukraine frequently to
meet with and tend to the
needs of the country’s Jewish
community.
“Israel is very important
for these people,” she said
in a recent Zoom interview.
“Ukrainian Jews wanted to
do something for Israel. They
wish they could do more.”
“We want Israel to win”
its war against Hamas,”
Mikhailovna said in an
interview. “It is my historical
homeland.”
“Our hearts stopped on the
7th [of October],” Sherbak
said. She and her fellow Jews
in Ukraine asked themselves,
“How can we help?”
“After Hamas thanked
Russia for its help in the
fight against Israel,” she said,
“everything became crystal
clear to us” about the threat
facing Israel.
“Times have changed”
for the Jews of Ukraine
since Russia invaded
Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022,
says a spokesman for the
Schechter Institutes, the
Conservative movement’s
central educational arm in
Israel. Ukrainian Jews were
then on the receiving end of
aid from overseas. “Now the
Ukrainian Jewish community
is providing support to
Israeli Jews. Who knew this
would change so quickly?”
The Schechter Institute
“supports us in difficult
times,” Sherbak said. “Now,
money is the only thing I can
do.”
How many hryvnias
(Ukrainian currency) did she
donate? “I don’t remember. I
didn’t count.”
What did she sacrifice
by contributing to the
Emergency Campaign?
“I didn’t give up anything.”
Some 40,000 Jews lived
in Ukraine in early 2022,
but no exact figures on
the current size of the
community (or on the
number of Ukrainian Jews
who have lost their lives in
the war) are available; after
the start of the war began by
the invasion of the Russian
army, many Ukrainian Jews
left, settling in Israel and
several Western countries
— in the uncertainty of a
land still under siege, with
Russian missiles still landing
on Ukrainian cities, no one
knows exactly how many
have returned.
In addition to their
activities in Ukraine, the
Schechter Institutes are
among several Jewish
organizations that have
initiated a wide variety
of programming for the
estimated 14,000 Ukrainian
Jews who have gone to Israel
since early 2022.
Events in Ukraine are
largely overshadowed by
the 4-month-old war in
Gaza, especially among
the media and many Jews
overseas, Rabbi Gritsevskaya
said. “People have already
forgotten” the situation
among the Jews of Ukraine.
“The situation is getting
worse and worse every
day.” There is still “massive
bombing in major cities.
We are in an emergency
situation.
“It’s a scary situation,” the
rabbi said; young men are
scared to walk on the street,
lest they be conscripted into
the Ukrainian army.
Similarly, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees
said recently that the war
in Ukraine “is not news
anymore in the world.”
JEWISH LIFE IN UKRAINE
Despite the daily pressure, a
growing number of Ukrainian
Jews are taking part (some
online) in Jewish activities
offered by Conservative
congregations, the Chabad-
Lubavitch chasidic movement
and the network of Hesed
community welfare centers
sponsored by the American
Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee; enrollment of
young campers set to attend
the Conservative movement’s
Camp Ramah in western
Steve
Lipman
Hundreds of Jews in Ukraine have sent donations to Israel since the Oct. 7 attack.
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