No longer in the headlines, Ukraine’s battered Jewish communities struggle to survive
Mishpacha – Jewish Family Weekly
By Yaakov Lipszyc | MARCH 5, 2024
While the Russian army is threatening to escalate attacks on Ukraine, we embarked on a road trip through the embattled country in order to meet the rabbis and families who’ve stayed to keep their kehillos alive. Two years ago, there was massive assistance to get the Jews out and support refugees who’d fled across Ukraine’s seven borders, but today, the thousands still there have become an eclipsed community
Days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Rabbi Mordechai Levenhartz found himself holed up with 100 individuals in the small bomb shelter of the school he oversees in Kyiv’s Eastern district. Just ten kilometers away, Russian troops were wreaking havoc in Bucha and Irpin, with the capital looming under threat of capitulation. Rabbi Levenhartz, spiritual leader of Kyiv’s largest Jewish community, reserved his moments of anguish for the privacy of his office, as the cacophony of sirens, bombs, and gunfire from Russian and Ukrainian forces filled the air.
Venturing outside was strictly prohibited, with Ukrainian forces — fearing Russian spies — authorized to shoot anyone on sight. Men, women, and children spent Thursday, Friday, Shabbos, and Sunday inside that shelter. On Monday, after days of uncertainty, the government allowed a brief window for movement. Rabbi Levenhartz could secure an escape for his family, but he insisted they only leave if safety could be assured for the 100 members of his congregation willing to flee the country as well. With cars scarce and fuel in short supply, they eventually organized a convoy of vehicles carrying more people than legally allowed, a journey that stretched two days to reach the Romanian border. Four days later, they landed in Tel Aviv.
While their arrival in Israel might have heralded a fresh start for the Levenhartz family, two months later they were back in Kyiv.
“A rabbi cannot abandon his congregation,” he tells me this week, two years after the war began.
A land of Torah scholars and the backdrop for some of the darkest chapters in Jewish history, home to renowned chassidic courts and notorious criminals, Ukraine is so intertwined with the Jewish narrative that it merits a book of its own. While all manifestations of Judaism were forbidden during the decades of Soviet rule, starting in 1990, a brave few ventured into uncharted waters, daring to revive entire communities that had been utterly disconnected. Yet just as real progress was being made, especially among the newer generation, the war shook those foundations to the core. Not only has the economic crisis devastated Ukrainian wallets, but everyone knows someone who has been injured, fled, or tragically perished.
While many community leaders chose to leave, others faced the gnawing question head-on: Do we abandon our Jewish brethren when they need us most?
In the very days when the Russian army is threatening to escalate attacks, with rumors of possible invasions into Poland and Moldova, we embarked on a road trip through Ukraine to meet the rabbis and families who’ve stayed to keep their communities alive. Two years ago, there was mass funding to get the Jews out and support refugees who’d fled across Ukraine’s seven borders. But with international focus on the Middle East and Gaza, and news consumers who have lost patience with the Russia-Ukraine war, the tens of thousands of Jews still in Ukraine have become a forgotten community.
Moldova
Emergency Entry
IN the arrivals hall of Kishinev airport, a dozen Moldovan drivers hold up signs in Hebrew, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Israeli visitors. Since the war began, all Ukrainian airports are closed, and Moldova is the most popular port of entry.
Moldova’s airport is small by all standards, and has been overwhelmed in the past two years by the massive influx it has experienced. Nobody asked them if they wanted to become a gateway to Ukraine, but I imagine it hasn’t hurt them either; this forced tourism brings in some much-needed currency that otherwise would never have found its way into their coffers.
The immigration check is surprisingly swift, considering there are only three booths checking passports. To avoid causing offense, when asked the reason for my arrival in Moldova, I reply, “tourism.” But no one is fooled — those drivers with the Hebrew signs are all headed to Ukraine. While Ukraine has lost over $19.6 billion in estimated tourism revenue, if there’s a group undeterred even by bullets, it’s the visitors to the kivrei tzaddikim. Nearly half the passengers on our flight are bound for Uman. The Breslovers even organized an impromptu Maariv prayer in the tiny arrivals hall.
Accompanying me throughout this journey is Shlomo Rizel, a Chabad chassid fluent in Russian who works closely with several Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.
After retrieving our luggage, we run into Rabbi Zusha Abelsky, son of the legendary Rabbi Zalman Abelsky a”h, former chief rabbi of Kishinev who was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1990 to spearhead the titanic task of reviving Judaism in this part of Europe. Reb Zusha splits his time between Eastern Europe and the United States, and is in charge of Moldova’s main synagogue, and even convinced the Moldovan authorities to let him have a tefillin stand at the airport, where he gets about 40 “clients” a day.
Nighttime in Ukraine is serious business because a curfew is in effect from midnight, and we need to cross the border before that time. But as we have some time before that, Reb Zusha suggests visiting the synagogue in Kishinev. Waiting for us outside the airport is Pavel, who will be our driver for most of the journey, and he gives us the okay to make a small digression.
According to Reb Zusha, in Kishinev, as in Ukraine, more and more “new Jews” are emerging, approaching the Jewish communities claiming that, while they don’t know if they are Jewish or not, they do know “their parents or grandparents were.”
Although Moldova serves as a neutral gateway to Ukraine, it would be naive to say that the conflict doesn’t affect it. The independence of former Soviet states may have given political identity to the regions, but what happens in one place directly impacts the other, and war is no exception. As we drive through Kishinev, rumors abound of a possible Russian advance into the pro-Soviet region of Transnistria. On the other hand, the Moldovan government has expressed full support for Ukraine, allowing transit for over 600,000 Ukrainians and providing refuge for another 100,000 of them. Additionally, they’ve been pleading for entry into the European Union, which means reprisals from Moscow and energy shortages, and that’s in addition to a drought that has affected agricultural production. With inflation nearing 40 percent in the country with the highest poverty rate in all of Europe, Moldovans cross the border and go to Ukraine for shopping.
