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Embodying a story of trauma and liberation, Ukrainian Jews celebrate Passover amid a new normal
KYIV, Ukraine (JTA) — Yuliia Krainiakova fled her home in Kharkiv, Ukraine, after Russian troops invaded last year and made her way to Berlin, where she and her daughters settled for 10 months with the help of Jewish organizations.
After returning to Kharkiv several months ago, she hoped to experience some of the Jewish gatherings that had been a beacon during a time of turmoil — but her city, Ukraine’s second-largest, has continued to be shelled regularly, making safety a more pressing priority than Jewish communal life.
“Due to the war, it is difficult to find in Kharkiv,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday. “So we decided to come to Kyiv for Passover seder, so we could have a Jewish experience here.”
Krainiakova, her husband and her two daughters were among dozens of Jews from Kharkiv who made the roughly six-hour train journey to Ukraine’s capital on Tuesday for a seder organized by Midreshet Schechter, which in partnership with Masorti Olami operates all the Conservative communities in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, they sat down at a large U-shaped table, festooned with all the trappings of the traditional seder, for a festive meal whose main concession to the war was that few attendees were in their home city.
Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya directs Midreshet Schechter and has traveled to Ukraine multiple times over the last year from her home in Israel to support holiday celebrations there, while also teaching classes throughout the year online to students at Shaalvim Jewish Day School in Kharkiv. She said the Passover story, or maggid, was especially resonant for Ukrainian Jews who have endured more than a year of war.
“The maggid is going to be centered on going to trauma, because Pesach is actually a story of going through trauma, through the trauma of losing our Temple, our Beit Hamikdash,” Gritsevskaya said. “Now we are dealing with a different trauma, so the question is, how can we learn from the story that happened many, many years ago and connect it to today so we learn the lessons of hope and rehabilitation.”
Last year, Passover took place less than two months into the war, meaning that families were dispersed, supplies were hard to come by and any planning could easily be thrown into disarray as conditions changed. Still, between Chabad and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, the country was home to multiple public seders, some held in hotels or earlier in the day to accommodate emergency curfews.
Yuliia Krainiakova, left, and Alla Gusak sit together at a Passover seder in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 5, 2023. (Marcel Gascon Barbera)
This year, life in Ukraine has settled into a new normal in which Ukrainians can reasonably plan for the future, despite continuous blackouts and ongoing shelling in some cities. Passover observances will take a more typical form, with Chabad, the main organizer of Jewish life in many Ukrainian cities, holding 90 community seders and distributing Passover supplies to 30,000 people.
Adding to the new normal is the fact that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who left in the frightening early days have returned home.
That includes some of the families at Kharkiv’s Shaalvim school, which remains online because of the ongoing threat of shelling. Their trip to the Conservative synagogue in Kyiv offers a rare opportunity to be together.
“The idea to meet and spend time with each other is very exciting for them after all this time staying at home,” their teacher Svetlana Maslova said shortly after the group arrived on Tuesday.
Besides forcing the kids to receive their education remotely and secluded at home, the 120 children enrolled in the Shaalvim school have been experiencing recurrent blackouts for months, caused by shelling or by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. “At some point we had two full days without power,” Maslova said.
Shaalvim has provided a source of stability during a year of upheaval, parents said. Alla Gusak, who traveled to Kyiv with her 11-year-old daughter, lived before the war in Chuhuiv, a town about 25 miles southeast of Kharkiv that was a prime target for Russian troops because it houses a Ukrainian air force base. Russia briefly occupied the city early in the war.
“We were bombed and survived and managed to get out by miracle,” said Gusak. She added that their family home was heavily damaged and said another property in the family, in Izium, was rendered unusable along with the local medical clinic and schools while the Russian army occupied that city. “We cannot even go there because there are mines everywhere.”
Gusak and her husband worked in agriculture, but now there are mines strewn across the fields they once sowed. So even with its classes online, the Shaalvim Jewish school is of great help for her daughter to go through the horrors of this war, she said.
“What Jewish school gives us is actually family,” said Natalya Kupin, whose 11-year-old daughter attends the school. “It unites our kids, it gives us tradition and that’s what other people and nations also need, a basic tradition, because that’s what gives us the ability to be together.”
In the room where preparations were underway for the seder Tuesday, a costume Pharoah headdress hung in a corner, ready for a festive meal with lots of flourishes. Gritsevskaya said she had discussed the seder in advance with her students, and they would have an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of liberation in their own lives. She also said that while the preparation for the journey and the seder had been extensive, she didn’t know everything that would happen.
“The kids also prepared a show, a spectacle, about Yetziat Mitzrayim [leaving Egypt], which I have not seen,” Gritsevskaya said. “That’s a surprise for me.”
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The ‘Hymietown’ affair degraded Black-Jewish relations. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the real culprit
Conventional wisdom suggests Rev. Jesse Jackson’s infamous, unfortunate, off-the-record, 1984 “Hymietown” comment radically reshaped and further degraded Black-Jewish relations. It’s true. But not for the reasons that one might imagine.
Jackson, then a presidential candidate, initially denied the report, first published in The Washington Post, that he had used the aforementioned slur in a Washington, D.C. airport bar. Two weeks later he reversed course. In an address at synagogue Adath Yeshurun in New Hampshire, he asked to be forgiven.
How much damage to Black-Jewish relations did Jackson’s remark actually do? Some, for sure. But given how wobbly the two communities’ once-vaunted “grand alliance” had become by 1984, the degree of the slur’s impact has, I think, been overstated. Both groups had already built a vast reservoir of mutual mistrust. Among the causes: Jackson’s meetings with Yasser Arafat of the PLO rendered him suspect to Jews, and Jewish opposition to affirmative action struck Blacks as a betrayal. Ditto for the Andrew Young affair of 1979, a takedown of one of the community’s most distinguished public servants.
What actually changed Black-Jewish relations for the worse was not the “Hymietown” indiscretion, but Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan’s entry into the fray.
On Feb. 25, 1984, 12 days after the slur was first reported and one day before his synagogue apology, Jackson attended a meeting of the Nation of Islam in Chicago. There, Farrakhan told Jews: “If you harm this brother, I warn you in the name of Allah, this will be the last one you harm.”
Farrakhan was just getting started. On March 11, he referred to Hitler “as a very great man.” In June, he described Judaism as a “gutter religion.” By summertime, Jewish organizations were demanding that Jackson, still at that point running for president, fully denounce Farrakhan. Jackson initially resisted that call, instead downgrading the controversial cleric’s status from campaign “surrogate” to “supporter.” Eventually, with his campaign on fire, a besieged Jackson made a complete disavowal.
The long-term repercussions of this episode for the fragile Black-Jewish alliance were immense. The scandal launched Farrakhan — who until that point could have been described, per The New Republic, as “the boss of a fringe Muslim sect” — into national and even international visibility, so much so that Libyan ruler Muamar Gaddafi soon donated to his cause. Perched atop this new platform, Farrakhan set about injecting his group’s unremittingly antisemitic worldview into the cultural mainstream.
Conspiracy theories with lingering influence
The consequences of this ascent are still unfolding today.
For instance, the falsehood that Jews were major players in the African slave trade had little traction before the events of 1984. After them, it became a hot subject in popular and even academic circles. The far-right commentator Candace Owen’s antisemitic espousal of it to her audience of millions is only the most recent manifestation of that trend.
Under Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam argued that “so-called Jews” were imposters who had usurped and appropriated an African religious identity. That trope has recently reappeared in statements by public figures like Nick Cannon, Kyrie Irving, Deshawn Jackson, and Ice Cube — some of whom have since apologized.
It’s not just the Jewish community that has suffered in response. Farrakhan’s emergence also triggered what journalist Marjorie Valburn has called a “litmus test” for Black politicians: A requirement that Black political candidates must publicly denounce Farrakhan, often at the summons of a Jewish leader. The test has been administered countless times, including to former President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign; numerous Democratic lawmakers in 2018; and Congressman Jamaal Bowman in 2024.
As Cynthia Ozick once observed, a Jew is a person who makes distinctions. Major Jewish organizations who subjected Blacks to the litmus test seemed incapable of doing precisely that. Jackson was clearly not Farrakhan. Truth be told, most Black people who shared Farrakhan’s concerns about economic empowerment were not and are not Farrakhan; they have little interest in his antisemitic obsessions.
In any case, I know of no case where applications of this test helped to improve Black-Jewish relations. Quite the contrary: It bred further resentment and distrust.
A mistaken mythology
As I learned while co-authoring a book about Black-Jewish relations with Terrence L. Johnson, the Black-Jewish alliance was never quite as “feel-good” as its champions have alleged. Even when the groups collaborated toward impressive Civil Rights accomplishments,their encounter was rife with every imaginable tension.
Johnson and I date the alliance from the NAACP’s founding in 1909 to the Six-Day War in 1967. One of our key observations was that inter-group tensions between Blacks and Jews were exacerbated and even driven by intra-group tensions. In other words, pitched battles between Jewish liberals and conservatives, and between Church-based liberals and Black radicals did much to shape — and endanger — the alliance, even when it was racking up victories for civil rights.
The same held true after 1984. Because of the intra-group complexities with which Jackson was dealing — trying to temper the effusions of radicals like Farrakhan while absorbing them into his coalition — his relations with Jews got worse. And tension within the Jewish community about how to respond equally spurred reasonable mistrust on the other side. Many forgave, but others, like then- executive director of the ADL, Nathan Perlmutter, did not: Perlmutter once said that Jackson “could light candles every Friday night and grow side curls, and it still wouldn’t matter. He’s a whore.”
The irony and tragedy is that Jackson was, in fact, one of the leaders in either community who put in the most effort to repair the shattered alliance. He understood its importance, and the risks of its dissolution. He sought to solve collective problems by forging common ground among disparate actors in a mutli-racial, multi-ethnic Rainbow Coalition.
His plan did not come to fruition. But as we mourn his passing, we should ponder his legacy, and revisit his compelling vision.
The post The ‘Hymietown’ affair degraded Black-Jewish relations. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the real culprit appeared first on The Forward.
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Robin Kelly, running for Senate in Illinois, says Israel committed ‘genocide’
(JTA) — An Illinois congresswoman who is running for U.S. Senate said during a debate Thursday night that she believed Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, in the latest sign of a sea change in Democratic sentiment about Israel.
“It may not have started off being like that, but I believe that is what it turned into,” said Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running to replace the retiring Sen. Dick Durbin.
Following the debate, Kelly took to X to hammer the point that neither Lieutenant Gov. Juliana Stratton nor Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi were willing to match her accusation.
“Every candidate on stage tonight had the opportunity to condemn genocide in Gaza,” she wrote. “I’m the only one who did.”
The debate came a month after Scott Wiener, the Jewish politician running to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi in California, drew fire after initially declining to answer a debate question about whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza, then said he had decided it had.
It also came just a year after Kelly received a donation from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby — then adopted more critical stances on Israel since declaring her Senate candidacy last May.
The three candidates’ responses to the question about Gaza underscored just how present Israel remains in electoral politics months after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire sent the two-year-old Israel-Hamas war into a new era. During the war, Democratic voters’ approval of Israel plummeted to the single digits, according to some polls, and an array of politicians who had never before been vocal critics of Israel adopted harshly critical stances.
Kelly has traveled to Israel multiple times on congressional delegations and sought to curry support within the Chicago Jewish community in the past. Now, as she carves out a position among the three frontrunners in the Senate race as the one most critical of Israel, her success in the primary could be a measure of how heavily Democratic voters are weighing the issue.
None of the candidates offered a straightforwardly pro-Israel view on the debate floor. Asked whether she would support Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s resolution to recognize “the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Stratton said that “the devastation and suffering that we have seen is terrible” and that “we must do everything we can” to provide humanitarian aid to Gazans.
Krishnamoorthi said he is concerned that people are “extremely divided” in determining “what exactly happened.”
“My concern is this: division getting in the way of progress right now in this fragile ceasefire,” he said. “If that gets in the way of progress, then we’re going to go back to war. And we can’t let that happen.”
Kelly added that she had not actually read Tlaib’s resolution. “But as I just said, I think it was genocide,” she said.
Kelly first took office in 2013. Since announcing her Senate run last year, she has adopted harsher stances on Israel.
In August, she said she would have voted in favor of a pair of Bernie Sanders-led resolutions in the Senate that would block certain arms sales to Israel. And in the House, Kelly cosponsored the Block the Bombs Act that would withhold the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel.
“Israelis and Palestinians must work to secure a path forward where both peoples can live in peace, safety and security,” Kelly said in a statement at the time regarding Sanders’ resolutions. “I have supported Israel, but in this moment, I cannot in good conscience defend starving young children and prolonging the suffering of innocent families. Now is the time for moral leadership in the U.S. Senate.”
At a candidates’ forum in October, several candidates referred to Israel’s campaign in Gaza as a “genocide,” the Daily Northwestern reported.
Kelly was not among them. But she pledged during the forum that she would not accept funds from AIPAC. That was a new position for Kelly, who accepted contributions from AIPAC’s PAC in March and April 2025, according to FEC filings. She was endorsed by the liberal pro-Israel group J Street in her 2024 reelection campaign.
At the forum, Stratton was the only candidate who recognized the upcoming two-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Stratton and Krishnamoorthi did not swear off AIPAC contributions.
The Democratic primary, set for March 17, is seen as a three-person race among Kelly, Stratton and Krishnamoorthi. Kelly has garnered endorsements from a number of politicians including Sens. Cory Booker and Chris Murphy. Stratton’s endorsements include Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, while Krishnamoorthi has been endorsed by Bill Daley, who was Obama’s White House chief of staff, and a number of state and U.S. representatives.
Unlike a handful of House elections in the state, this race has not seen any reported spending by pro-Israel groups including AIPAC or its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. Jewish Insider reported last year that votes from Chicagoland’s sizable Jewish community are “up for grabs” because no candidate has particularly deep ties to the community.
Kelly has previously traveled to Israel as a member of Congress. In 2016, Kelly met with leaders from Chicago’s Jewish United Fund and Jewish Community Relations Council to discuss her trip, which was her second to Israel. “She backs a two-state solution and supports Israel’s ongoing security needs,” the JUF wrote after the meeting.
The post Robin Kelly, running for Senate in Illinois, says Israel committed ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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China Signals Increased Support for Iran as US Prepares Potential Strike
An Iranian newspaper with a cover photo of an Iranian missile, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the United States ramps up its military presence in the Persian Gulf amid rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, a symbolic move by China has fueled speculation that Beijing could arm Tehran with cutting-edge stealth aircraft, potentially challenging the US and Israel’s regional dominance.
Last week, a Chinese military attaché in Tehran — a senior official handling defense and military relations — presented Brigadier General Bahman Behmard, commander of the Iranian Air Force, with a scale model of China’s J-20 stealth fighter.
Even though no official contract has been announced, experts interpreted the Chinese gesture as a sharp warning to the US and close ally Israel amid mounting fears of renewed conflict in the Middle East.
If China were to supply fifth-generation jets to Iran, it would not only strengthen Tehran’s deterrence but also break Beijing’s previous stance of neutrality and limited diplomatic support, signaling a direct challenge to US sanctions.
However, it remains unclear whether China actually intends to sell the J-20 to Iran or if presenting its mockup was meant mainly to signal Washington that Beijing is prepared to support Tehran politically, technologically, and otherwise militarily.
While China has publicly urged de-escalation and restraint from both sides in the US-Iran dispute, its latest symbolic move sends a stark signal that Beijing may be prepared to directly challenge US influence in the region.
China’s advanced AI-driven satellites could also give Tehran a strategic advantage by providing the regime with precise intelligence on US military assets in the region, the Eurasian Times reported.
After repeated attempts at nuclear talks between the US and Iran have failed to yield meaningful results, Washington has deployed large numbers of troops and assets to the region in a bid to pressure Tehran back to the negotiating table more willing to make concessions.
With at least a dozen F-22s from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and F-16s from bases in Italy, Germany, and South Carolina deployed to the Gulf, along with a significant fleet of fighter, surveillance, and intelligence aircraft, the US is marking the fastest military buildup in the region seen over the past month.
According to media reports, F-35 jets from the United Kingdom are also headed to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan — a recent hub of US air operations — while a dozen US Navy warships are already active in the area.
Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and the attendant ships that form its carrier strike group.
Advanced air defenses and radar systems have also been deployed to the region to help counter a potential Iranian response to any US military action.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days following nuclear talks with the US this week.
US President Donald Trump said he was considering a limited military strike on Iran but gave no further details.
Asked if he was considering such a strike to pressure Iran into a deal on its nuclear program, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, “I guess I can say I am considering” it.
The US president was asked later about Iran at a White House press conference and added, “They better negotiate a fair deal.”
Two US officials told Reuters that American military planning on Iran has reached an advanced stage, with options including targeting individuals as part of an attack and even pursuing leadership change in Tehran.
Amid mounting regional tensions, Washington could launch military strikes as soon as Saturday, CBS News reported.
On Thursday, Trump warned that the Islamist regime must reach a “meaningful deal” in its negotiations with the White House within the next 10-15 days, or “bad things will happen.”
US and Israeli officials have argued that a deal should go beyond Iran’s nuclear program and include limits on its ballistic missiles and a cessation of support for terrorist groups across the Middle East. Iranian officials have said that both issues are firm red lines and that they only seek to strike a deal over the country’s nuclear program, although Tehran has publicly rejected a US demand of forgoing all enrichment of uranium.
In the past, particularly during last June’s 12-day war when the US and Israel struck the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities, China — despite being a close ally and strategic partner of Iran — remained notably on the sidelines, offering only diplomatic support and statements of condemnation rather than any tactical or material assistance.
A key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, China has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
China is also the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing.
Last week, the two allies — along with Russia — took part in the Maritime Security Belt 2026 joint naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, delivering yet another symbolic show of force as regional tensions climb.
According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following last year’s 12-day war.
The Iranian regime has reportedly acquired China’s HQ-9B long-range surface-to-air missile systems and YLC-8B radar units, along with thousands of tons of sodium perchlorate, a chemical used to produce fuel for solid-propellant mid-range ballistic missiles.
Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.