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Good morning! Comfortable morning!” Rabbi Avraham Wolff exclaimed, with an enormous smile, as he walked into the Chabad synagogue in Odesa on a latest morning.
Russian missiles had simply struck an oil refinery within the Ukrainian metropolis, turning the sky charcoal grey. Tons of had been lining up exterior his synagogue hoping to obtain a kilo of matzah every for his or her Passover dinner tables.
The unleavened flatbread, crucial on the ritual meal generally known as a Seder, matzah is now laborious to seek out in war-torn Ukraine amid the conflict and a crippling meals scarcity.
However the rabbi wished no problem to get him down—be it the shortage of matzah or that he was lacking his spouse and kids who had fled the Black Sea port for Berlin days in the past.
“I must smile for my group,” Wolff mentioned. “We want humor. We want hope.”
Tens of 1000’s of Ukrainian Jews have fled whereas about 80 p.c stay in Ukraine, in response to estimates from Chabad, one of many largest Hasidic Jewish organizations on the earth.
Inside and outdoors Ukraine, a nation steeped in Jewish historical past and heritage, folks had been making ready to have a good time Passover, which started sunset on April 15 and ended on April 23. It’s been a problem, to say the least.
The vacation marked the liberation of Jewish folks from slavery in historical Egypt, and their exodus beneath the management of Moses. The story is taking up particular that means for 1000’s of Jewish Ukrainian refugees who’re dwelling a dramatic story in actual time.
Chabad, which has deep roots and a large community in Ukraine, and different teams, such because the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Federations of North America, have mobilized to assist Ukrainian Jews have a good time Passover wherever they’ve sought refuge.
In Ukraine, Chabad deliberate for 52 public Seders welcoming about 9,000 folks.
In Odesa, Wolff was making ready to host two massive Seders—one in early night on the Chabad synagogue for households with younger kids and a later Seder at a resort the place individuals might keep the night time, obeying a 9 p.m. curfew.
He‘s been waving in vans loaded with Passover provides—matzah from Israel, milk from France, meat from Britain.
“We could not all be collectively, but it surely‘s going to be an unforgettable Passover,” Wolff mentioned. “This 12 months, we have a good time as one massive Jewish household world wide.”
JDC, which has evacuated greater than 11,600 Jews from Ukraine, has shipped greater than 2 tons of matzah, over 400 bottles of grape juice and over 700 kilos of kosher Passover meals for refugees in Poland, Moldova, Hungary and Romania, mentioned Chen Tzuk, the group’s director of operations in Europe, Asia and Africa.
In Ukraine, their social service facilities and corps of volunteers distributed practically 16 tons of matzah to aged Jews and households in want, she mentioned.
“Passover is one thing acquainted and fundamental for Jewish folks,” Tzuk mentioned. “For refugees who’ve left all the pieces behind, it‘s necessary to give you the option have a good time this vacation with honor and dignity.”
JDC organized in-person Seders in international locations bordering Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, she mentioned, and facilitated on-line Seders the place it’s too harmful to collect in individual.
The Jewish Federations of North America has arrange a volunteer hub in assist of refugees fleeing Ukraine; it‘s a partnership with the Jewish Company for Israel, the JDC and IsraAID. Russian-speaking volunteers, similar to Alina Spaulding, helped manage a Seder for 100 refugees at a resort in Budapest.
Spaulding, a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina, fled Kharkiv, Ukraine, as a 5-year-old within the Nineteen Seventies together with her mother and father. She mentioned the conflict has rekindled robust connections to Ukraine.
“My mother confirmed me a photograph of me with my grandpa on a avenue that was just lately bombed,” Spaulding mentioned. “We talked in regards to the college in Kharkiv the place my mother and pa went, which was additionally hit. Abruptly, all of it felt so private.”
Spaulding believes spending Passover with refugees will likely be “an expertise to recollect.“
“A part of the magic of Passover is discovering your personal story,” she mentioned. “We’re in the course of a modern-day exodus. I can’t even think about the tales I’ll hear.”
Celebrating a vacation might give folks a rush of hope and happiness even in grim conditions, mentioned Rabbi Jacob Biderman, who leads Chabad actions all through Austria, together with a middle in Vienna that’s sheltering about 800 Ukrainian Jews.
Days after refugees reached his heart, Biderman led a joyous celebration of Purim, a competition commemorating the deliverance of Jews from a deliberate bloodbath in historical Persia.
“The look on their faces modified from sorrow to pleasure… Their eyes lit up,” Biderman mentioned. “It gave them a way of normalcy, dignity and the assumption that their non secular life is one thing nobody can take away from them.”
That fueled Biderman‘s dedication to supply a memorable Passover Seder for the refugees.
Dr. Yaacov Gaissinovitch, his spouse, Elizabeth, and their three kids—ages 11, 8 and 4—had been a part of that celebration. They fled the Ukrainian metropolis of Dnipro by automotive on March 4.
Gaissinovitch, a urologist and mohel, who performs the Jewish ceremony of circumcision, mentioned it pained him, as an observant Jew, to drive on Shabbat—a forbidden act on the day of relaxation and prayer besides when lives are at stake.
Picture credit: AP/Markus Schreiber
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