Late last night, I was on the phone with a colleague who was in the car with his family as he drove from Krementchuk, Ukraine to cross the border and escape the fighting. He has spent over 20 years building up a beautiful community and doing a truly amazing job, and suddenly he was being forced to flee for his life along with his family. He had waited as long as he could to try and be there for his community, as he set up his synagogue with food, mattresses and supplies to help as many refugees as he could, and now here he was on a journey to the unknown.
It was one of many conversations that I had yesterday that capped an emotional and painful week as we watched a terrible war unfold thousands of miles away. In its wake, millions have been made homeless, over a million people have fled Ukraine, and the deaths and injured are a number that no one even knows.
It has been deeply personal to so many in our community who have been desperately trying to help relatives and friends escape the war zone. The whole week, we have fielded texts, calls and messages and have been trying to help network whenever we can with contacts in Chabad in Ukraine or outside Ukraine, to help people escape, get to shelter or get provisions.
Sometimes we were successful in helping and other times not. It is a rapidly changing situation that is getting more challenging by the day.
On Wednesday night we held a prayer vigil and an evening of solidarity for all of those suffering in Ukraine and we discussed some practical ideas that we can do to help.
Shortly after that someone in our community called us and made a very significant commitment for us to help our colleagues on the ground in the Ukraine.
Thanks to this individual and to others who have stepped up and together with many other contacts that we have, we have spent many hours this week, being in touch with multiple communities in Ukraine through the Chabad and Rebbitzens who serve those communities and sending support to make a difference to them and their communities both inside and now outside Ukraine. It is the least we can do from our community from thousands of miles away along with the prayers in which we beseech for this to end.
I am beyond grateful and completely blown away by the army of Chabad Rabbis and Rebbitzens on the ground in and around Ukraine, along with so many others, who in the darkest of moments are doing all they can to help rescue their communities and countless others. They are not sleeping or resting and instead they are responding nonstop to messages and texts from hundreds of people and trying to help whenever they can.
Yesterday, I was communicating with a colleague from Zhitomir who described what it was like to help evacuate dozens of orphans out of their city. He himself has stayed behind an extra few days to help set up a shelter for many people and setup secure locations of food and supplies. He described the cries of the children of the orphanage as the bombs were falling and what they had to do as they tried to comfort them. He told me a few of the orphans were originally from Donetzk and know only too well what the sounds of these bombs mean.
We spoke with the Rabbi from Mariopul who is desperately trying to help people escape from his city which is the scene of very heavy fighting and has almost no electricity.
We were in touch with a Rabbi and his family and part of his community who fled Chernovitz and finally arrived safely in Moldova with only the clothes on their backs. A few hours later he proved to be a great resource in helping friends of someone in our own community who had crossed the border, find shelter for the night.
I am grateful to Rabbi Moskowitz and his son in Kharkov who besides helping everyone that he can in the city, has also been very responsive when he is able to, and tried to help relatives of people in our very own community escape the battles.
I was in touch multiple times with an amazing woman in Arpen outside Kiev who has helped arrange busses for hundreds of people together with Rabbi Bliech. Now she herself cannot get out as it has become far too dangerous. She asked for us to pray for her and her son, Chana Bat Galina and David bat Chana. As she messaged me and sent me voice notes, we could hear the massive explosions in the background.
We plan on continuing to send tangible help in whatever way possible directly to people on the ground in Ukraine and to places that are helping absorb refugees in so many parts of Europe and beyond.
If you wish to donate to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine you may do so at www.chabadsudbury.com/ukraine or at their direct website. All donations done through that link will go 100% directly to the communities and refugees impacted.
If you wish to help out specific communities or people that we know, please message us and we will send you their links.
There are obviously many other ways people can help and over the next few weeks the needs will change. We are also in the process of setting up collection of specific items and medicine in collaboration with others and will post more info shortly.
I would like to end with an uplifting note, an Israeli born Rabbi from Ukraine, Rabbi Kurtzweil, managed to finally escape with his family after more than three days of being nonstop on the run, and finally arrived in Romania. He recounted how they were planning on going to Israel along with so many others and he was receiving calls from friends and others telling him, they will help him get a new job in Israel and help his family reestablish themselves.
He was feeling down, as his life dream of serving the community he had worked so hard to build had come crashing down. As he is figuring out his plans, his brother-in-law, Rabbi Kammisar, calls him from Amsterdam, and says are you ready for a different kind of bomb? He says sure, go for it. So he tells him “we have hundreds of refugees from Ukraine who have arrived in our community, but we need someone to come and help them and be a leader and help them begin all over. Can you come and do this job?”
Rabbi Kurtzweil said let me talk it over with my family and within a few moments together with his and children, they made a choice, than they are going back to the work of building community and they are moving to Amsterdam. In his words, once a Shliach, (an emissary doing this kind of work), always a Shliach.
This week I saw many videos of people saying goodbye to their synagogues and houses of worship as the bombs were going off around them, not knowing when and if they will be able to come back. This Shabbos, let us appreciate what we have and the community we are a part of and let us come together and pray in our synagogues for all of the innocent people in Ukraine who are in the line of fire.
The unconquerable spirit!
This is Chabad Rabbi Shloime Wilhelm of Zhitomir. After arranging tens of buses to help many hundreds of people escape from the Zhitomir region, he finally joined the last bus and thank G-d crossed the border into Romania, carrying a holy Sefer Torah all the way.
Rabbi Wilhelm's brother is a family friend of ours from London, and I met him several times on his visits to London.
May we have better news to share and may we merit a time when nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and will no longer make war with one another.
Shabbat Candle Lighting time in Sudbury is 5:21pm. When you kindle the candles and add light to the world, it is an auspicious time to pray for all those on the run.
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos and hope you can join us for services tomorrow!
Yisroel