Tensions between Ukraine and Russia ignite harsh memories in the hearts of some members of the Jewish community who still remember the pogroms during World War II | The rabbis of the communities talk about the preparations and the fear of outbursts of disorder and looting
For the Jews of Ukraine, the threat of war evokes memories of the horrors of the past, Rabbi Avraham Wolf of Odessa in Ukraine preparing for war. He bought enough sugar, macaroons and cans to last his community for a year. In addition, he hired about 20 Israeli security guards in case riots broke out.
If the Russians do invade, the rabbi said he has mapped the city’s bomb shelters and has enough buses on standby to evacuate 3,000 people from the port city of Odessa. The New York Times reports.
Rabbi Wolf, the leader of one of the two main Jewish communities in Odessa, said: “With God’s help, there will be no war, but we do not have the right not to be prepared.”
Across the country, many Ukrainians are unprepared for the threat posed by 190,000 Russian troops at their borders, including out of exhaustion from eight years of hard-fought war with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. But some Jewish communities were frightened, especially in Odessa, where violence from Jewish pogroms in the early 20th century to mass executions by the Nazis in World War II left indelible scars.
Shlomi Razilio, CEO of the Ukraine Rescue Organization
“The Odessa community has been through a lot of trauma,” Rabbi Raphael Kruskal, who runs a number of Jewish orphanages and schools in Odessa, told the New York Times, saying he also hired Israeli security guards to secure evacuated buses.
But not just community leaders, the director of the Holocaust Museum in Odessa said he is taking first aid courses and learning how to shoot a gun. Svetlana Lisitsina, 80, from the Jewish community, said: “I try not to watch TV because when they show all these bodies in Donetsk and everywhere, and now they are showing how they are shelling Ukraine, I am trying to put out my inner fear.” Lycisina said she was most afraid that a war could tear her family apart as it did in World War II. So her grandfather and aunt were killed in Babi Yar outside Kiev. She further expressed concern that her grandson, Daniel, who will turn 18 this coming March, will receive a recruitment order.
Although antisemitic violence is relatively rare in Odessa, some Jews fear it may erupt because of the chaos of the war. “It worries me most of all,” said Semyon Abramovich, a senior researcher at the Odessa Holocaust Museum.
Rescue Ukraine CEO and resident of Odessa, Shlomi Rosilio, tells Behadrei Haredim that the organization has its hands on the pulse. “Avraham Wolf, in addition we have an MDA ambulance that came from Israel to help with the community’s security system, we all pray that everything will be fine, we have our hands on the pulse all the time.”