MARCH 7 • 2024 | 11
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essay
For Ukraine’s Jews, the Work is Not Yet Done 

2022, the center became a 
staging ground for truckloads 
of emergency aid — part of 
the 800 tons of humanitarian 
assistance we’ve delivered so 
far.
A few blocks from missile 
strikes, it now hosts children’s 
camps and soulful Shabbat 
services and operates a “kids’ 
hub,” offering academic 
enrichment to children who 
haven’t had in-person school 
for years — robbed of normal 
childhood by the pandemic 
and now the ongoing crisis.
And amidst blizzards and 
blackouts, Beit Dan has also 
become a “warm hub,” a safe 
place for beleaguered Jewish 
Kharkivites to charge their 
devices and obtain a hot 
drink and warm meal.

“If you share in our pain, 
and provide support where 
it’s needed, I’m forever 
grateful,” said Nika Simonova, 
Beit Dan’s program director. 
“The ability to remain human 
is the main thing. Done right, 
I believe that can save the 
world.”
That’s why we at JDC, 
aided by a coalition of 
partners including the 
Jewish Federations, Claims 
Conference, and International 
Fellowship of Christians and 
Jews, deployed a historic 
response to this conflict and 
remain committed to the 
Jewish future here.
We’re focused on ongoing 
humanitarian support for 
more than 41,000 Ukrainian 
Jews, expanding trauma relief, 

closing children’s educational 
gaps, and getting unemployed 
Jewish community members, 
among millions of Ukrainians 
plunged into poverty, back to 
work.
There is no doubt that 
the Jewish world is now 
responding to crises on 
multiple fronts, including 
this one, but we have been 
here so many times before. 
We must draw strength from 
our history and from the 
sure knowledge that this 
is what we’re built for. Our 
compassion and commitment, 
when leveraged with that 
timeless sense of mutual 
Jewish responsibility, means 
we can tackle the challenges 
we face — and come out on 
the other side even stronger.

As I walked through Lviv 
on my last day in Ukraine, 
I asked my cousin Anna 
Saprun, a 25-year-old 
business analyst, how this 
period has changed her.
“I hate what’s brought 
me here, but I love who 
I’ve become,” she said with 
a fierce and feisty smile. 
“Nothing scares me anymore. 
I feel powerful.”
Two years after the 
conflict began, Ukraine’s 
Jews are inspired anew each 
day, resolute in the sure 
knowledge that they know 
exactly who they’re working 
for — each other. 

Alex Weisler is a former journalist 

and the JDC’s senior video and 

digital content producer.

Teen Sonia Bunina, right, works with elderly Jews in Poltava, Ukraine, 
teaching them how to use special smartphones designed for seniors 
distributed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee as 
part of its relief effort. 

Tamara Vasilenko (far left) — an elderly Jew in Sumy, Ukraine — 
celebrates Shabbat in her home with volunteers from the American 
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the director of the local 
Hesed, Elizaveta Sherstuk. 

 

