100 last-minute infants and young children smuggled from Odessa – the largest and most important port city in southern Ukraine – arrived safely in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, their first destination on a 2,500-kilometer long road.
On Monday this week, Russians began firing on Odessa as warships were spotted near the Black Sea coast, in parallel with shelling in the suburbs by forces advancing westward toward the Crimean peninsula, and by combat helicopters landing special forces at important junctions near it.
At the last minute it was decided to cement a hundred orphans from the country who were in danger, the youngest of whom was only a month old, for fear that they would be harmed by the shelling and fierce street battles that were to take place in it within days.
The one who picked up the large group of orphans in Moldova, when they arrived late at night, was Rabbi Mendi Axelrod, a Chabad emissary in the country who serves as rabbi of the Great and Old Synagogue of Chisinau. They will spend the first night in it. In advance, a royal feast was prepared for them in the glorious ‘Most’ hall, and after they had dined and quenched their spirits, the children and their dozens of instructors turned to the night’s sleep.
Early in the morning they left for Romania, to continue their journey, until they reached Berlin, the capital of Germany, where they would be received by the city’s rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtel. Rabbi Zoshi Abelski, director general of the Jewish community in Moldova, says: “We have had the special privilege of receiving these toddlers, along with 1,500 other refugees who have been flowing into the Jewish community in Kishinev in recent days, and to make their migration path even more pleasant. There is no doubt that these days are the culmination of our 32 years of activity in Moldova since my father came here and established dirt from the mission of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We pray to God that we will be able to continue to provide the thousands of refugees on the way with all their needs, both physically and spiritually. “