No longer in the headlines, Ukraine’s battered Jewish communities struggle to survive

Photos: FJCU

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.