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Kyiv Jews celebrate their 2nd wartime Purim with renewed resolve and optimism
KYIV (JTA) — In a historic building in the most industrial part of Podil, the hipster district of Kyiv that once was the heart of the Jewish trading community, a senior and passionate Esther seduces a much younger Ahasuerus. She flirts with the handsome king to the raucous giggling of the audience, which breaks into applause when the Purim shpiel comes to an end.
A year and a few days into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Jews in Kyiv and the rest of the country have celebrated Purim in precarious economic and emotional circumstances, under the continued threat of Russian attacks. Still, many of them are in much better spirits than in 2022, when the Jewish holiday of joy found Ukrainian Jews in a frantic state of worry and uncertainty about their immediate future.
“A year ago you could see the fear in people’s eyes; now they are very proud because Ukraine has resisted, and Jews are fully involved in the cause,” Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during the movement’s Purim celebration in Podil. She is an Israeli rabbi who is the executive director of the Masorti movement-affiliated Schechter Institutes and periodically travels to Ukraine to serve the country’s Masorti communities. Masorti Judaism is similar to the Conservative movement in the United States.
“Last year it was very, very hard, because people were in shock, afraid, and they didn’t know what to do,” said Ariel Markowitz, Kyiv’s most senior rabbi from the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox movement, which held its own Purim celebration Monday night. “But now we know that we have a strong army, that we have a chance, and many people have actually returned to Kyiv.”
Rabbi Ariel Markowitz of Chabad Kyiv reads from the Megillah during his community’s Purim celebration, March 6, 2023. (Courtesy Markowitz)
The year-old war has shaken up Ukraine’s Jewish community, with members leaving the country or moving within it to avoid Russian shelling and its effects.
“Everyone has pretty much made a decision on whether to stay or to leave and we are reorganizing our community,” said Gritsevskaya.
Although at least 14,000 Ukrainians have moved to Israel since Russia’s all-out invasion started, and many more thousands have found refuge in Germany and other European countries, Gritsevskaya wants to focus on those who stayed. Estimates of the Jewish population in Ukraine ranged before the war from just under 50,000 to up to 400,000, depending on who counted.
One of the people who left the country was the former Masorti rabbi in Ukraine, Reuven Stamov, who moved with his family to Israel. Currently, the Masorti movement — whose Ukrainian following Grivtseskaya estimates in the thousands — does not have a rabbi permanently in the country. But the community keeps active in Kyiv and other cities, such as Kharkiv in the east, Odessa in the south and Chernivtsi in the southwest, thanks to activists, volunteers and rabbinical students, plus the visits by Gritsevskaya, who first returned for Purim last year.
“Community life has never been so important,” she said.
Gritsevskaya pointed to the difference that having access to material help, connections and emotional and spiritual support makes for those who arrive in new cities from places in the south or the east occupied by Russia or close to the front.
She acknowledged that some Jewish organizations have ceased their operations in Ukraine and stressed the need of strengthening the work of those who are committed to remain, so Jewish life in Ukraine could be as “diverse” as before and people “have options” to choose the way they practice their Judaism.
Among the Ukrainian Jews that decided to stay is the director of the MILI Foundation, the entity that organizes the Masorti community in Ukraine. Maksym Melnikov moved to Kyiv from his native Donetsk in 2014 after Russian-backed separatist militias declared the independence of part of the region and war broke out in Eastern Ukraine.
Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya poses with community members of the Masorti community in Kyiv, March 6, 2023. (Marcel Gascón Barberá)
“I came when they started to occupy our land in Ukraine,” Melnikov told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the Masorti Purim celebration in Kyiv, just before taking the stage to help Gritsevskaya read the Purim Megillah. “Almost a decade later, war came after me to Kyiv, and I don’t want to move this time, I’m staying.”
Since 2014, many of Melnikov’s friends and acquaintances from Donetsk have moved to Kyiv. While Russia’s full-scale invasion has pushed many Jews from Kyiv to move westwards or leave the country, the western city’s communities have received a new infusion of people from the eastern cities more affected by the war.
“Communities are changing constantly countrywide, and we are trying to reach out to those who arrive, both to help them start a new life and to build our community stronger,” said Grivtsevskaya.
She said the Masorti community in Chernivtsi has experienced a notable revival. Situated near the border with Romania, Chernivtsi is one of the few Ukrainian provincial capitals that has not been bombed by Russia, and thousands have moved there. “They have received another family and are very strong right now,” she said about the once-dwindling community in this historical Jewish center, where she hosted a Purim celebration after making her way into Ukraine in March 2022.
The massive uprooting of entire Jewish communities has been experienced keenly by Chabad, which has the largest Jewish presence in the country, with hundreds of emissaries serving Jewish communities in dozens of cities.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in those who come looking for help,” Markowitz told JTA hours before the start of Purim at Chabad’s community center in Kyiv. Many of them, he said, had come from Mariupol, a city bombed into submission by Russia at the beginning of the war.
Scenes of the Purim shpiel at the Masorti community in Kyiv, March 6, 2023. (Marcel Gascón Barberá)
Chabad is one of several organizations providing aid to Ukrainian Jews, including support in obtaining food, medical care and generators that keep power flowing amid widespread outages.
The rise of the demand for these services is not only driven by refugees, but by families and individuals who have lost their source of income due to the economic disruptions caused by the invasion.
“There is inflation, there are less jobs, a lot of companies closed and people lost their jobs or are unable to help their family members,” Markowitz said.
Besides the demographic and economic shake-ups, the war has brought changes in the way Jews relate to their Ukrainian identity. Perhaps the most striking has been a rapid shift away from speaking Russian, the first language of many Ukrainian Jews until recently.
“Even I started learning and speaking Ukrainian and you can definitely see how a new sense of national identity is being born,” Maria Karadin, a Russia-born Israeli who moved to Ukraine with her husband in 2005, said at the Masorti Purim event.
Maiia Malkova is 15 years old and one of the most active young members of the Masorti community in Kyiv.
“Last year I didn’t even think about Purim so much because I was so frightened,” she said while wearing a necklace with a tryzub, the trident that symbolizes Ukrainian statehood and independence. “But we kind of got accustomed to this situation. And it is great to be able to celebrate Purim again.”
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Israel, US condemn Belgium over planned prosecutions tied to Jewish circumcisions
(JTA) — A diplomatic spat erupted on Wednesday after Belgian prosecutors moved to charge two Jewish men tied to ritual circumcisions, prompting Israeli and U.S. officials to accuse Belgium of targeting Jews for practicing their faith.
Gideon Saar, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, lit into the country in a post on X Wednesday morning, calling the indictments a “scarlet letter on Belgian society.”
“With this act Belgium joins a short and shameful list, together with Ireland, of countries that use criminal law to prosecute Jews for practicing Judaism,” Saar wrote, later calling circumcision a “cornerstone of Jewish faith” and urging the Belgian government to “act immediately and to find a solution.”
Saar’s condemnation was quickly joined by the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, who had previously called on Belgium to drop the “ridiculous and antisemitic” investigation of mohels in February.
“This is a shameful stain on Belgium,” White wrote in a post on X. “The prosecution of these religious figures (mohels), one of whom is American, is WRONG and won’t be tolerated. Belgium will be thought of now as anti Semitic by world. Until this is resolved – there is no way around it.”
White, a President Donald Trump appointee who faced criticism for amplifying social media posts by a far-right Belgian political activist convicted of racism and Holocaust denial, added that the “Trump Administration condemns this judicial action” and called on the Belgian government to “work with the Jewish leaders and communities to find a certification solution immediately.”
The condemnation by White and Saar comes after the Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that it intends to prosecute two Jewish men on charges related to performing circumcisions, a practice that is required by law to be performed by licensed medical professionals in Belgium.
Last year, Belgian authorities raided multiple sites, including two in Antwerp’s Jewish Quarter, at the beginning of an investigation into illegal circumcisions. Investigators also requested lists of children who had recently been circumcised, according to VRT NWS, the Flemish public broadcaster.
But the sharp criticism by the two leaders was later dismissed by Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot, who wrote in a reply to White’s post that it was “inappropriate to publicly criticize a country and tarnish its image simply because you disagree with judicial proceedings.”
“I recall that the proceedings in question were initiated by representatives of the Jewish community themselves,” Prévot continued. “To portray those as a country’s desire to undermine the religious freedom of Jews is defamatory. This freedom has never been called into question and never will be in our country. Our Constitution protects it. And it is not for an ambassador to dictate the government’s agenda.”
In response to Saar’s post, Prévot wrote, “Enough with these caricatures.”
“Since you yourself recently urged against conducting diplomacy via Twitter, I suggest that we discuss all these issues during a meeting in Israel at a time that suits you best, in order to put an end to any misinterpretations,” Prévot continued.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel, US condemn Belgium over planned prosecutions tied to Jewish circumcisions appeared first on The Forward.
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Rutgers disinvites commencement speaker over tweet claiming Israelis ‘train dogs to sexually assault prisoners’
(JTA) — Administrators at Rutgers University have canceled a commencement speaker scheduled for next week, citing an “inflammatory claim” the speaker tweeted about Israel.
Rami Elghandour, a Rutgers alumnus and a producer of an Oscar-nominated docudrama about a Palestinian girl who died in Gaza, was set to deliver the speech at the university’s School of Engineering on May 15. But the university, New Jersey’s public flagship, rescinded the invitation on Wednesday.
The Associated Press was the first to report that Elghandour’s invitation had been rescinded and that the university said social media posts about Israel were the cause.
To the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a university representative specifically cited an April 20 tweet by Elghandour that accuses Israel of genocide and says the Israelis are “running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners.”
The tweet was a response to a post from California Rep. Ro Khanna advocating for cutting U.S. aid to Israel, which was itself a response to a post by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that has become a bogeyman in U.S. politics. The unsubstantiated claim that Israel trains dogs to assault prisoners has circulated widely in recent weeks among some pro-Palestinian activists.
“The Rutgers School of Engineering was recently informed that some graduating students would not attend their graduation ceremony due to concerns about the invited speaker’s social media posts, including one that shared an inflammatory claim,” Dory Devlin, a representative for Rutgers University, told JTA in an email. “After discussing these concerns with the speaker, the School of Engineering has rescinded the convocation speaker invitation to Rami Elghandour.”
Elghandour, who owns a biotech company and was an executive producer for the award-winning documentary “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” declined through a spokesperson to respond to a JTA request for comment. The spokesperson pointed to his statement on social media, where he disparaged the school’s decision.
“After a ‘few’ students complained about my selection as speaker because of my social media advocacy for Palestine, Rutgers has canceled my speech,” Elghandour wrote. “They decided that the feelings of a handful of students who said that my social media posts ‘opposed their beliefs’, were more important than the experience of the entire graduating class, the reputation of the school, the dignity and belonging of Arab and Muslim students, and the First Amendment.”
In addition to executive-producing “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Elghandour was also a producer on the film “American Doctor,” about three physicians — including a Palestinian and a Jew — who traveled to Gaza to aid civilians there.
Rutgers University Hillel, the campus Jewish group that also engages students around Israel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rutgers settled a federal civil rights investigation into its handling of antisemitism in January 2025. It agreed to update its anti-discrimination policies as investigators were poised to find that the school did not protect Jewish students from antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
The incident adds to a string of dustups over Israel at commencements this year and in the past. The University of Michigan’s president apologized after faculty senate chair Derek Peterson praised pro-Palestinian student protesters during his speech on Saturday; Elghandour shared several posts in defense of Peterson’s speech.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Rutgers disinvites commencement speaker over tweet claiming Israelis ‘train dogs to sexually assault prisoners’ appeared first on The Forward.
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London Police Set Up Specialist Jewish Protection Team
A police officer stands at the scene, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British police are setting up a new team of 100 officers including counter terrorism specialists to help protect Jewish communities across London after a series of antisemitic attacks including the stabbing of two men.
The plan announced on Wednesday for a dedicated protection team comes as officers announced more arrests for antisemitism, including detaining a 35-year-old man on Saturday after rocks were thrown at an ambulance belonging to the Jewish community.
London‘s top police boss Mark Rowley said Jewish communities were facing “sustained threats” from hostile state actors as well as extreme right-wing groups, elements of the extreme left, and Islamist terrorists.
Detectives are examining whether the arson incidents have possible Iranian links, after British security officials warned that Iran was using criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.
Since late March, there have been a number of high-profile arson attacks with four Jewish ambulances burned and synagogues targeted. Last week, two Jewish men were also stabbed. Both victims survived the attack.
Over the past four weeks, police said they had arrested around 50 people for antisemitic hate crimes and charged eight individuals. On top of that, 28 arrests have been made as part of investigations alongside counter terrorism policing for arson and other serious incidents.
“This new team will be primarily focused on protecting the Jewish community, which faces some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats,” said a statement from London‘s Metropolitan Police force.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a meeting on Monday with business, health and cultural leaders aimed at trying to tackle antisemitism.