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- August 27, 2024
- 4:46 pm
- Ukraine
Jews in Dnipro bake matzah and ignore power outages, continuing to live despite the debilitating effects of Russia's war with Ukraine.
Arutz Sheva (Jews of the World | 7) On August 27, 2024, I posted a long report about how the Jews of Dnepr (Ukraine) live 200 km from the front line…
“On a hot Sunday evening in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, about a dozen men are preparing for evening prayers at the Golden Rose synagogue in the Menorah Center. In another room of this vast Jewish complex, a group of teenagers enthusiastically sing Eyal Golan's “Am Yisrael Chai,” filling the room with joy and energy.
At a table laden with kosher Israeli food, Rabbi Mayer Stambler is celebrating his daughter’s bat mitzvah. It’s a quiet, celebratory moment, just 200 kilometers from the front lines where fighting rages, and amid constant air raid sirens and daily power outages due to repeated Russian attacks on the city’s energy infrastructure.
Arutz Sheva points out that this situation has become the norm for the Jews of Dnipro, the historical center of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, since Ukraine's war with Russia began two and a half years ago.
The author of Arutz Sheva notes that, unlike some regions of Ukraine that remained relatively safe from Russian bombing, Dnipro was vulnerable throughout the war. However, the Menorah Center’s activities continued, allowing local Jews to continue a full Jewish life even during the most difficult and hopeless periods of the war. The center also became a bulwark against exclusion for thousands of Jews displaced from towns and villages in the east and south.
Rabbi Mayer Stambler, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, said: “We have many difficulties, and the financial situation is becoming increasingly difficult, but, thank God, we still have everything we need.”
Despite mass emigration and the loss of many sources of income that allowed the community to be completely self-sufficient before the conflict, the Jewish community of Dnipro continues to operate its educational institutions, clinics, museum, conference hall, restaurant, shops, synagogue, mikvah and school for ritual scribes.
In addition to spiritual support and large-scale humanitarian campaigns, the community also helps many of its members by offering them work. One of the largest projects is Tiferet Matzot, the only Ukrainian factory that produces handmade matzo. The factory employs more than 70 people, and the matzo is exported to several countries.
The author of Arutz Sheva describes how the Tiferet Matzot factory, located in an industrial area outside the city that was attacked by Russian drones days before Passover last year, continues to operate despite the war. According to the factory’s director, Daniel Ovcharenko, the factory has increased its workforce and produces about 100 tons of matzo annually, which is supplied to Jewish communities in Ukraine and around the world. Exports are now made only by road, as the Russian invasion has made navigation across the Black Sea very difficult.
Since March, Russia has launched eight major salvos of missiles and Iranian kamikaze drones targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Some of Ukraine’s largest power plants have been severely damaged or completely destroyed, including the Dnipro Thermal Power Plant, visible from the top of the seven towers of the Menorah Center. Ukraine has lost a significant portion of its generating capacity as a result of these attacks, and authorities are imposing half-day power outages across the country to compensate.
However, the Jewish community buildings in Dnipro continue to be lit without interruption, thanks to an extensive network of fuel-powered generators donated by the Boston Jewish Community and other partners. Alina Teplitskaya, director of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, noted: “Every community building, from the kindergarten to the clinics, the Menorah Center and the nursing home, is energy independent.”
The Arutz Sheva author reports that the Chabad-run Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine ensures constant internet access for its educational institutions by purchasing Starlink satellite technology. This is especially important in times of war, when infrastructure can be damaged. However, as Teplitskaya notes, some problems require simpler, but more difficult to achieve solutions.
One such task is to ensure that newborn boys are circumcised. Before the war, the mohel responsible for all of Ukraine lived in Dnipro and has performed more than 10,000 circumcisions since the 1990s. But when the fighting began, he moved to Vienna and now periodically returns to Ukraine to continue his work.
A similar situation arose with the ritual slaughter necessary for the production of kosher meat. Before the conflict, there were up to three shochetim in Dnepr, but one of them also left for Vienna, and the other for Argentina.
Due to the threat of Russian missiles and drones, all commercial flights in Ukraine have been cancelled, and now all travel within or outside the country is by rail or road only, making each trip long and expensive.
Another challenge for the community has been the tightening of military conscription rules, as Ukraine lacks soldiers to defend the country. As the author of Arutz Sheva reports, Jews across Ukraine are enlisting to defend their country, and Jewish communities are supporting them. However, as the war continues, Ukraine is running out of people willing and able to serve, leading to military patrols checking all adult men to ensure they are registered for service. Many men between the ages of 25 and 60, including members of Jewish communities, are beginning to avoid leaving their homes unnecessarily, fearing that they may be called up to the front with insufficient training or despite legal exemptions.
The author of Arutz Sheva describes how Jews in Dnipro, like other Ukrainians, are facing difficulties due to the current situation. One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, noted that Jews of military age who are not ready to join the army are less likely to attend synagogue and other social events, preferring to stay home.
The situation evokes painful associations with the past, when religious observance was also difficult in the Jewish history of Ukraine. During the Soviet era, Jews were forbidden to practice their religion, and the situation was especially difficult in Dnipro. The city was closed due to strategically important industrial facilities, such as an intercontinental ballistic missile plant. Foreigners could not visit the city, which made it virtually impossible for Jews from Dnipro to meet fellow believers from abroad and learn about their religion.
Zelig Brez, the executive director of the Jewish community in Dnipro, remembers growing up unaware of his Jewish identity. He said, “The only Jewish thing we did was eat matzah on Passover because my grandparents brought it, but they couldn’t explain what the matzah symbolized, they didn’t know who Moses was, about the Exodus from Egypt, about slavery.” Brez only became aware of his Jewish identity through “brutal anti-Semitism” at school, where he was the only Jew in his class and often a target for classmates and teachers.
Brez also recalls being stabbed by a classmate and being humiliated by teachers. He felt inferior and understood his Jewish identity only through hatred. He felt proud of his heritage, however, when he saw scientists and artists with Jewish names similar to his own in Soviet magazines. But he only felt a connection to Judaism in 1991, when, as a first-year student in independent Ukraine, he was invited to a Shabbat dinner by a young Chabad emissary who had just arrived in the city where the then Chabad rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, had lived as a child.
Brez recalls the first time he saw kiddush and burst into tears: “I felt like this was my grandparents’ legacy that the Soviet Union had taken away from me.”
The author of Arutz Sheva describes how Shmuel Kaminetsky, the chief rabbi of Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk region, remained in Ukraine throughout the war, even during the terrible days when most foreigners and diplomats left the country. Zelig Brez, the executive director of the Jewish community of Dnipro, noted that in a region with a rich history of political upheaval, Jews are sometimes perceived as an indicator of danger.
Brez recalls an incident more than a decade ago in which a group of bearded Jews wearing tzitzit boarded a train at the Dnipro train station, causing “a great panic” in the city. He explained that they were traveling to a Jewish family retreat on the Black Sea, but people thought the Jews were leaving the city.
After the Russian invasion began, Brez was often asked, “Is the rabbi still in town?” Brez emphasized that “Rabbi Kaminetsky has not left the city for a single day,” which gave people confidence and reduced anxiety.
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