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Among Ukraine’s Jews, a year of war has transformed the ordinary into the sacred
TRUSKAVETS, Ukraine (JTA) — Nearly 600 Jews stand shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes trained on the young man leading the service to close out Shabbat. The crowd sings a soulful havdalah tune that lifts up its final words: “hamavdil ben kodesh l’chol” — ”the One who divides between sacred and ordinary.”
It looks like a Shabbat gathering anywhere else in the world, but I’m in the western Ukrainian city of Truskavets, where — from every part of their conflict-scarred country — these Jewish community volunteers have come together for a four-day retreat, energized by the chance to learn from each other and take a deep breath.
I’m back in Ukraine for the first time since the crisis began to learn from these men and women making miracles happen. I came to document and share stories from this gathering. Remarkably, it’s the largest-ever in the former Soviet Union arranged by my organization, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, which has worked to aid needy Jews and build Jewish life in the region for decades.
With its wine and sweet-smelling spices, havdalah eases the transition from the holy purity of Shabbat to the workaday mundanity of the week. Surrounded by hundreds of Ukrainian Jews, I felt uplifted, as I always do when I travel to this region and see its defiant, vibrant Jewish life.
The usual rules don’t apply. Here, the ordinary becomes sacred.
On this, my 14th trip to the former Soviet Union in 10 years, I’ve come to know it as a place where that switch is truly flipped. Rebuking a painful history, from the Holocaust to Soviet oppression, everyday actions become lifesaving and essential. That’s never been more true than this past year, as Jewish communities here worked overtime to meet the enormous humanitarian needs of this crisis.
Simple flashlights become beacons enabling home care workers to reach the bedridden elderly Jews they serve. Bus trips between cities are transformed into escape hatches for those fleeing rocket attacks. A box of nonperishables is manna from heaven for those faced with empty grocery shelves, and each call from a volunteer is a life raft for the loneliest seniors and most vulnerable at-risk families.
Over the last year, more than 3,000 volunteers engaged in projects affecting 36,000 people. This work is part of our expansive response to this crisis — supported by the Jewish Federations of North America, the Claims Conference, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, individuals, families, corporations and foundations. It includes providing uninterrupted assistance to 43,000 Jews in Ukraine and the delivery of 800 tons of humanitarian aid. Among those we help are the elderly and families, internally displaced people, and the new poor who have lost their livelihoods in the devastation.
A song leader leads participants in havdalah at JDC’s volunteer Shabbaton in Truskavets, Ukraine, February 2023. (Arik Shraga)
Not blind to the challenges they face, Jews and Jewish communities here are resilient and resolute in the knowledge that there’s something more important at play. It’s a clarity of purpose that means, against all odds, they’ve grown even stronger.
“My fears were boiling me alive,” said Tatiana Chumachenko, a 34-year-old Odessa mother of two. She started volunteering this summer and now runs weekly cooking classes and art therapy sessions for elderly Jews. “So I made the decision to widen my world — to take on more responsibility, to take care of more people. And volunteering literally saved me.”
Thousands of Ukraine’s Jews just like Tatiana have chosen determination, not despair. They’ve driven through besieged cities delivering medicine and firewood, power generators and portable heaters. They know their Jewish values demand action and compassion, and so they’ve stepped up.
Daria Yefimenko, the head of our network of 25 volunteer centers across Ukraine, is that resolute determination personified. The air raid siren went off the other day as I was interviewing her — a shocking noise, made more frightening by its maddening vagueness: What’s happening? Where? Am I in danger, or is this just background noise?
I learned later that just a few hours before I arrived in Ukraine, a missile had struck Drohobych, only 10 kilometers from the Shabbaton.
Yefimenko seemed unshaken. She and her team — her “family of superhero volunteers” — live here, of course. They must cope with brutal shelling and unpredictable electricity cuts. They have daily fears for their loved ones, and rising anxiety about what the future holds. They help their neighbors even as they share their pain and struggles.
And they keep on going.
Alex Weisler joins the massive group havdalah at JDC’s volunteer Shabbaton in Truskavets, Ukraine, Feb. 18, 2023. (Arik Shraga)
There are so many stories in this part of the world — World War II stories, Soviet stories, stories of rebuilding and reimagining Jewish life after the Soviet Union fell. I’m curious about the one we’ll tell when this is all over.
Will we remember how Jews supported each other in the darkest days? We should.
Before the massive Shabbaton havdalah, I led a smaller version at the hotel down the road where we have housed hundreds of internally displaced people since the earliest days of the Ukraine crisis.
Six elderly Jews from the Zaporizhzhia region joined me for their first havdalah ever. Among the group was 76-year-old Alla Hodak, who fled from a place with significant devastation.
Alex Weisler leads a group of internally displaced Ukrainian Jewish community members in their first-ever havdalah ceremony, Feb. 18, 2023. (Arik Shraga)
Here, observing Jewish rituals in a third-floor alcove, she had begun to form a makeshift community—not quite home, but not alone either. “You made sure we were never abandoned to fate,” she told me.
In that moment of stark intimacy, our small group blessed the wine, smelled the cinnamon, and felt the warmth of the braided candle. It bound us together and reminded us that drawing a distinction between then and now can be holy, too.
As we take stock of a year of grief and grit, we must guarantee that the next one is a kinder one. We must recognize our own hands as sacred tools and each member of our global Jewish family as holier still.
There’s nothing ordinary about that. Each person and each day has become an opportunity to do good for those who need us most and build their future together. That’s the only way forward.
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Cooper Union settles antisemitism case with 10 Jewish students who were barricaded in library after Oct. 7
(JTA) — The Cooper Union has settled a Title VI case of antisemitic discrimination dating back to a highly publicized incident in which Jewish students were trapped in a school library by protesters after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
The Manhattan engineering college has agreed to pay an unspecified sum to 10 affected Jewish students, create a Title VI coordinator position who will monitor cases “including discrimination or harassment based on antisemitism or anti-Zionism,” and ban masks at protests.
“This landmark settlement is the result of the extraordinary courage of the students who came forward to demand accountability from Cooper Union,” Ziporah Reich, an attorney with the pro-Israel legal group The Lawfare Project, said in a statement announcing the settlement. The Lawfare Project sued the school on behalf of the Jewish students.
Reich’s statement continued, “Jewish students deserve to learn without being targeted, harassed, or excluded because of who they are or what they believe. This case sends a clear message that universities have a legal duty to protect them and will be held accountable when they fail to do so.”
In a statement, Cooper Union’s president Steven W. McLaughlin said the settlement “reflects our ongoing commitment to maintaining a campus where every student in our community feels respected, safe, and included.”
McLaughlin, who became president last year following the resignation of the school’s previous president, continued, “We are dedicated to continuing our efforts to confront discrimination of any kind, including antisemitism, and to fostering a productive culture of curiosity and compassion. Settling this litigation is an important step as we move forward.”
Cooper Union Hillel/Midrash, a student-run Jewish organization that several of the plaintiffs belong to, did not immediately return a request for comment.
In the immediate weeks after Oct. 7, The Cooper Union was one of the first colleges thrust into the national spotlight for alleged antisemitic behavior on campus. Viral video showed Jewish students having barricaded themselves in the campus library for 20 minutes while pro-Palestinian protesters pounded on the doors and shouted slogans.
Under President Joe Biden, the Department of Education opened a Title VI civil rights investigation into the school. The Jewish students separately sued the school over their treatment, a suit The Cooper Union attempted to have thrown out. Last year a judge ruled the lawsuit could continue.
The settlement comes as the Trump administration has more aggressively prosecuted other elite colleges for fostering antisemitic environments, freezing federal grants and forcing large payouts. It also comes days after New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, reversed an executive order for the city to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism.
As part of The Cooper Union’s settlement, the private school’s new Title VI coordinator “will implement all applicable guidance” established under Biden to consider IHRA in discrimination cases, the school’s statement said.
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Following pressure from Jewish leaders, Australian PM Anthony Albanese announces inquiry into Bondi attack
(JTA) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Thursday the launch of a Royal Commission inquiry, the country’s highest level of inquiry, into the antisemitic terrorist attack on Bondi Beach last month.
The wide-ranging inquiry will also investigate the “nature and prevalence of antisemitism” in the country, provide recommendations to law enforcement to combat antisemitism and counter the “spread of ideologically and religiously motivated extremism in Australia,” according to a press release from the Prime Minister’s office.
“I’ve repeatedly said that our government’s priority is to promote unity and social cohesion, and this is what Australia needs to heal, to learn, to come together in a spirit of national unity,” Albanese told reporters on Thursday. “It’s clear to me that a royal commission is essential to achieving this.”
The announcement of the inquiry comes weeks after two attackers motivated by “Islamic State ideology” killed 15 people and injured dozens more at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Until now, Albanese had largely dismissed mounting pressure from the victims’ families as well as Jewish groups to launch a Royal Commission.
“I’ve listened, and in a democracy that’s a good thing. To listen to what people are saying and what people are saying is, yes, we’re concerned,” Albanese told reporters. Last month, Albanese also announced a review of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
In the government’s press release, it also pointed to its previous actions in the wake of the attack, which have included tightening gun ownership laws and introducing legislation to curb hate speech.
The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Daniel Aghion, said that the Australian government had “made the right decision” in establishing the royal commission in a statement.
He added that the group expected the commission to “allow an honest examination of government policies and the conduct and policies of key institutions and figures in major sectors of our society in contributing or failing to adequately respond to the unprecedented levels of antisemitism in Australia over the past two years or more.”
He added, “This is the only way that Australia’s time-honoured standards of decency and fairness can be upheld.”
The inquiry will be led by former High Court judge Virginia Bell, whose appointment raised concerns among some Jewish leaders in Australia who pointed to her role in a ruling that was cited by the New South Wales Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a ban on a pro-Palestinian march in August, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The Prime Minister has been told directly by leaders of the Jewish community that they have serious concerns about this appointment,” said former treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a post on X. He did not elaborate on his opposition to Bell in the post.
Following the attack, Albanese also invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit Australia. While the invitation was welcomed by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, some Labor party members and progressive Jewish groups called for Albanese to rescind his invitation.
The announcement of the inquiry comes as Gefen Bitton, an Israeli living in Australia who was critically injured while trying to confront the Bondi attackers alongside Ahmed al-Ahmed, was slated to be flown to Israel on Wednesday for continued medical treatment.
It also comes as al-Ahmed, a Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers, was feted in New York City by the Chabad movement, whose emissaries were holding the Hanukkah event and were among the dead. Al-Ahmed arrived in New York City on Tuesday where he visited the Ohel, the gravesite of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s late leader Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, before being honored at a gala recognizing defenders of the Jews.
“Ahmed did what he did that day because he believed that God placed him at the scene for a reason, and that’s what gave him the strength to save lives,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, whose son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was killed in the attack, told Chabad.org. “This is something people from all walks of life can and must learn from.”
The post Following pressure from Jewish leaders, Australian PM Anthony Albanese announces inquiry into Bondi attack appeared first on The Forward.
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Trans screenwriter Our Lady J condemns anti-Zionism in LGBTQ spaces: ‘Zionism is not a dirty word’
(JTA) — Prominent transgender writer, actress and producer Our Lady J took aim at anti-Zionism within the LGBTQ community in a post on Instagram Tuesday.
“Until the LGBTQ community distances itself from all forms of antisemitism, including antizionism, our allies will continue to fall away, and we will remain defenseless in the face of attack,” wrote Our Lady J in the Instagram post.
The post, which at some point had its comments turned off, has ignited controversy in queer spaces, where anti-Israel sentiment has prevailed in recent years. “Check out Our Lady J’s Zionist page and unfollow them on Instagram,” wrote one user on X, while another referred to her as a “turncoat prick.”
Thousands of users also flooded the comment sections of posts from the LGBTQ magazine Them on Instagram and Facebook about her statement. “You can’t use trans rights etc to cover up a genocide,” wrote one user on Instagram.
In recent years, queer activism has grown increasingly aligned with anti-Zionist activism, a trend that has placed many Zionist Jews in the LGBTQ community at a crossroads. Over the summer, Pride celebrations were widely marred by debates over Israel. In Brooklyn, a Pride interfaith service was canceled allegedly over some groups’ opposition to the hosting synagogue’s “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.”
In December, the pro-Israel LGBTQ group A Wider Bridge shut down its operations amid financial strain. While not cited as a reason for its closure, the group also faced criticism from other LGBTQ groups for “pinkwashing,” a claim that efforts to highlight Israel’s record on LGBTQ rights are used to distract from or justify its policies towards Palestinians.
Our Lady J grew up in an evangelical Christian family and, around 2015, became the first trans writer to be hired in a television writers’ room for the hit TV show “Transparent,” which follows the story of a Jewish family in Los Angeles whose parent comes out as trans. The show’s fourth season, while filmed in Los Angeles, shows the family traveling to Israel.
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In her post, Our Lady J claimed that “Zionists have always been at the core of LGBTQ progress,” citing prominent pro-Israel Jewish activists including Magnus Hirschfeld, Elizabeth Taylor, Larry Kramer and Eli Windsor.
“Zionism is not a dirty word. It is the belief in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Any definition of Zionism that aligns it with oppression or imperialism is a strategic attempt to undermine Jewish self-determination,” continued Our Lady J.
She concluded, “Not only does antizionism erode Jewish solidarity, it erases LGBTQ history, preventing us from understanding the foundation our own self-determination was built on.”
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