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In Ukraine, Hanukkah candles are a lifeline in the midst of power outages
(JTA) — In the days before Hanukkah, which starts Sunday night, a few men and women from two Conservative institutions in Israel will travel to the small Jewish community in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, with a supply of needed items.
Amid the power outages stemming from Russian attacks, the volunteers will have blankets and sweatshirts for the cold, as well as menorahs and kippahs for religious observance purposes.
The 300 boxes of Hanukkah candles will do double duty.
These days, the power in Chernivtsi, a city of around 250,000 (before the war) in western Ukraine, is more off than on. So the candles will do more than allude to the story of the Maccabees — they will help light Jewish homes across the city.
“This year it’s really important” to have and use Hanukkah candles, said Lev Kleiman, leader of the city’s Conservative Jewish community, in a recent Zoom interview.
Although the need is urgent, “We will hold onto the candles until Hanukkah,” Kleiman added, his words in Russian interpreted by Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya, the Russian-born and Jerusalem-based “circuit rabbi” of the Conservative movement’s Schechter Institutes and executive director of its Midreshet Schechter Ukraine. The organizations are coordinating the transport of holiday supplies to Chernivtsi.
Among a few “couriers” bringing needed items to Jewish communities in Ukraine, Gritsevskaya has made several trips there over the last 10 months. At the start of the war, she urged Jews in other cities to make their way to Chernivtsi, which was far from the intense fighting on the eastern border.
Chernivtsi, which served as a place of refuge for thousands of displaced people from elsewhere in parts of the Soviet Union threatened by the Nazi army during World War II, is again attracting refugees from throughout the country. Earlier in the current war, Kleiman turned his synagogue into a refugee center for some of the millions of Ukrainians fleeing their homeland. The city also became a gathering site for worldwide faith leaders who have denounced the violence and expressed solidarity with the embattled Ukrainians.
In addition to no heat and light in Chernivtsi, lack of electricity means lack of TV and radio use, along with spotty internet service. (Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Located on the Prut River, Chernivtsi (known at one time as “Jerusalem upon the Prut” for the strength of its Jewish community) is 25 miles north of the Romanian border and home to one of the country’s most active Conservative communities. The city’s Jewish population before the war began was estimated at 2,000, including many Holocaust survivors.
And today, following the invasion? The number could be larger or smaller, no one is counting — but some western cities have experienced population growth due to all of the migration.
“No one knows,” Kleiman said. “Many left, but many came.”
As in other Ukrainian cities, many Jews in Chernivtsi — especially women, senior citizens and children, everyone except draft-age males — have migrated. But uncounted other ones have come to a place of relative safety, either renting apartments or staying in ones under the auspices of the Jewish community. Most of the Jews in Chernivtsi now are those exempt from military service, Kleiman said. Others stayed in order to be with their husbands and fathers who joined the Ukrainian army after the war began, or to care for their aged parents.
Despite signs of war — rifle-carrying soldiers and policemen on the streets, empty shelves in stores because of shortages, people hurrying to safety when they hear sirens — Jewish life there has continued, according to Kleiman. The most active organizations in the city are the local outpost of the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement, the JDC-supported Hesed Shoshana Welfare Center and Kleiman’s Kehillat Aviv Synagogue (his official title is coordinator), which sponsors daily Jewish activities.
The synagogue — located near the Chabad center, with which it cooperates on relief activities — is housed in a small, two-story building that contains an office, a kitchen and a large multi-function hall. Kleiman says Hanukkah in 2022 will be more important than in past years because in addition to its ability to bring people together,the holiday also asserts Jewish survival.
“There are a lot of parallels,” Kleiman said of the holiday and his community’s current situation.
Electricity in Chernivtsi flows only a few hours each day, and at night, no street lights are on, thanks to incessant Russian bombing of Ukraine’s infrastructure, and to government-imposed restrictions designed to conserve the little available resources.
A holiday of lights sans lights? “We’ve never done it before,” Kleiman said, adding that the Jews in his city understand the holiday’s symbolism.
Some will come to the synagogue for a communal candle-lighting, according to Kleiman. Others will light their candles at home, in their windows. Like all other buildings in Chernivtsi, Kleiman’s office and apartment are subject to periodic electricity blackouts, often announced in advance.
“With G-d’s help we will soon have a generator” – and 24/7 lights and heat in the synagogue, he said. Until then, he and the other residents of Chernivtsi will shiver. The temperature in the city was 29 degrees Fahrenheit during the Zoom interview, and a light snow was falling.
Lev Kleiman is shown with his community’s Torah ark. (Courtesy of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies)
Though no Russian missiles have fallen inside Chernivtsi itself, some have reached the outskirts, causing damage to the area’s infrastructure and utilities. Other parts of the country have not escaped the Russian onslaught; two months ago more than 4,000 Ukrainian towns, villages and cities had experienced outages, and 40% of the country’s grid was crippled. The bombing of power stations is a major part of Vladimir Putin’s plan to weaponize Ukraine’s weather to bully the country into submission as winter sets in. (In addition to candles and other supplies, some Jewish groups are sending generators and heaters.)
Home in past years to such prominent Jews as actress Mila Kunis, the late Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld, former Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein and the late poet-translator Paul Celan (born Paul Antschel), Chernivtsi has an honored place in the country’s history. On the eve of World War II, some 45,000 Jews lived in the city, about a third of the country’s total Jewish population. The collaborationist Romanian authorities, who ruled the area, established a ghetto in Chernivtsi where 32,000 Jews, including many from the surrounding region, were interned; from there, they were shipped to concentration camps in the nearby Transnistria area, where 60% died.
A third of the city’s Jews survived the war. The population grew to about 17,000 when widespread migration from the USSR began in the late 1980s. Like many cities in the former Soviet Union, Chernivtsi has experienced a modest Jewish revival since Communism fell and open expression of Judaism was allowed again. The revival was spurred largely by the arrival of Chabad emissary couples and programs sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
But though Chabad, an Orthodox movement, is the prime Jewish mover in Ukraine, there is also a growing non-Orthodox presence in the country. The Israeli branch of the Conservative movement sent its first full-time representatives to Ukraine a decade ago. The movement’s Jerusalem-based Masorti Olami organization sponsors a network of synagogues, schools, camps, youth groups and kosher certification services across Ukraine. A few decades ago, Kleiman attended the Midreshet Yerushalayim day school in Chernivtsi and Camp Ramah Ukraine.
In addition, the Reform movement’s World Union for Progressive Judaism has established 10 congregations in the country; the movement estimates that 14,000 Ukrainian Jews identify as members.
Even though the need is urgent, Kleiman said his community will wait to use the candles until the start of Hanukkah. (Courtesy of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies)
These are boring days in southwest Ukraine. TV and radio are only available when electricity is available, and internet and cellphone service is always spotty. Kleiman calls the war a test of the people’s mettle, a spur to their growing national unity. As a form of solidarity, many have switched the language of their conversations from Russian — the lingua franca during the Soviet days — to Ukrainian.
Nobody in Chernivtsi’s Jewish community is starving, Kleiman said. Kosher food is available at the synagogue, and volunteers bring supplies to people unable to travel. Overall, the morale of the Jewish community is good, he says. Native-born members of the community “support each other,” while some people from other parts of the country, separated from their families, with fewer personal connections, are depressed, he said.
In the boxes of materials that Rabbi Gritsevskaya is to bring to Chernivtsi from Israel are also some Israeli-style dreidels, whose Hebrew letters stand for the words “Nes gadol haya po”: “A great miracle happened here.” On dreidels used in the Diaspora, the last word usually is sham, “there.”
The linguistic symbolism in a land under siege is clear, said Kleiman, who plans to explain the message to the members of the community taking home a dreidel.
“I understand — they will understand too,” he says. “I hope the miracle will also happen in Ukraine.”
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As Political Lines Blur, Republican Jewish Coalition’s Matt Brooks Warns of a Deeper Shift Facing American Jews
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, holds a kippah in support of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as he speaks on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
At some point, the question stops being which political party you belong to — and becomes what, exactly, you believe that party stands for.
That was the underlying tension in a recent conversation with Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks, who offered a stark assessment of the changing political landscape for American Jews: the erosion of bipartisan support for Israel, the reemergence of antisemitism across ideological lines, and a growing sense that long-held assumptions about political alignment no longer cleanly apply.
For decades, support for Israel functioned as one of the few durable points of agreement in American public life. It transcended party, survived shifts in leadership, and provided a kind of baseline continuity in an otherwise volatile political system. That consensus, Brooks suggested, has now meaningfully weakened.
“There is only one pro-Israel party today,” he said on The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “And that’s the Republican Party.”
It is, in his telling, less a triumph than a warning — a sign that what was once shared ground has become contested terrain.
The shift did not happen overnight. Brooks, who has spent nearly four decades at the intersection of Jewish communal life and Republican politics, described a long internal effort to strengthen pro-Israel sentiment within the GOP — one that has, by his account, succeeded.
What concerns him now is not where the Republican Party has landed, but where parts of the Democratic Party have moved.
Yet the more unsettling dynamic, he argued, is not confined to partisan drift. It is structural.
Invoking the “horseshoe theory,” Brooks pointed to a phenomenon that has become increasingly difficult to ignore: the convergence of the political extremes. While the far left and far right often present themselves as opposites, he argued, their rhetoric — particularly when it comes to Jews — can begin to mirror itself in striking ways.
“The language may be different,” Brooks said, “but the themes are familiar.”
On one end, Jews are cast as agents of capitalism, landlords, or power brokers within systems of inequality. On the other, they are portrayed as shadowy manipulators of media, finance, or political institutions. The ideological framing shifts. The underlying instinct does not.
That convergence, he warned, creates a more diffuse and unpredictable threat environment — one in which antisemitism is no longer easily located or dismissed as belonging to a single fringe.
The implications of these changes, Brooks suggested, extend into the political behavior of American Jews more broadly.
For much of the modern era, Jewish voting patterns have been closely tied to identity, history, and inherited political affiliation. But Brooks indicated that those patterns may be undergoing a quiet but significant recalibration — one driven less by ideology than by a more immediate question: security.
“It’s not about who you like,” he said. “It’s about who you trust to keep you safe.”
That framing, he noted, has proven especially resonant in recent election cycles, where data-driven outreach efforts have shown that concerns about personal safety, antisemitism, and the security of Israel can outweigh longstanding partisan loyalties — particularly among undecided voters.
It is, in many ways, a shift from expressive politics to consequential politics — from signaling identity to assessing risk.
And yet, for all the instability he described, Brooks did not frame the moment as one of inevitable decline.
On the contrary, he returned repeatedly to the idea of resilience — not as a slogan, but as a historical pattern.
“We’ve faced adversity before,” he said. “We’re a resilient people.”
That resilience, in his view, is what underwrites his long-term optimism about American Jewry.
Still, optimism, as Brooks articulated it, is not the same as comfort. It is contingent. It requires recognition — of shifting alliances, of emerging threats, and of the limits of assumptions that may no longer hold.
The deeper question raised by his analysis is not simply which party is more aligned with Jewish interests at a given moment. It is whether the framework through which those interests have historically been understood — bipartisan consensus, stable coalitions, predictable boundaries — is itself in the process of being rewritten.
If so, then the challenge facing American Jews is not only political, but conceptual. It is to understand where they stand in a landscape that is less fixed than it once was — and to decide, with greater clarity and less nostalgia, what matters most when the ground begins to shift.
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Federal Complaint Alleges Antisemitic Housing Discrimination at Williams College
Williams College in Massachusetts. Photo: Wikipedia commons.
A federal complaint filed with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development accuses Williams College in Massachusetts of practicing housing discrimination against an Orthodox Jewish student whom it allegedly denied kosher foods and other religious accommodations that would have promoted his integration into the mainstream campus culture.
Filed on Thursday by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the complaint presents a harrowing portrayal of an observant Jewish student forced to eat vegan cuisine which falls far below the culinary standards of meals prepared for other students, to stand in the cold for hours when observance of the Sabbath prevents his using an electronic keycard to enter residence halls, and to “confine” himself to his room on Saturdays to avoid being locked out.
So indifferent is the college to the student’s situation, the Brandeis Center alleges, that it once discouraged him from moving to campus at the same time as it promised other incoming students a “learning community you live in.” The Brandeis Center adds that the school’s alleged violation of its own values is underscored by the fact that it mandates on-campus residency for most students due to its belief that living at the college is an integral part of the undergraduate experience.
“It saddens me as a proud Williams College alumnus to see my alma mater treat a Jewish student as a lesser member of the community because of his religion, turning him away as he was freezing and hungry,” Brandeis Center chairman and chief executive Kenneth Marcus said in a statement announcing the legal action. “Religious discrimination is discrimination. Jews, as well as other students and people of faith, should be able to practice their religion freely, without prejudice or discrimination. That is what religious freedom in America is all about, and we must continue to stand up when this freedom is denied.”
On Wednesday, the college told The Algemeiner that it has “no tolerance for antisemitism or discrimination” and would “welcome” a “dialogue with the student and Brandeis Center to ensure a welcoming and inclusive educational environment.”
“We are devoted to ensuring that all students have success to appropriate living spaces, dining options, and our full range of learning opportunities,” the college’s media relations director said. “The college’s leaders and chaplains are strongly committed to working with students and their families to address student concerns.”
The complaint trails years of reports that American higher education institutions fail to protect the civil rights of Jewish students even as their leaders proclaim a commitment to promoting equity and inclusion. While many institutions have pledged to combat antisemitism in recent months with new initiatives and policies, surveys of Jewish students continue to suggest that those reforms have not yet produced a meaningful reduction in antisemitic bigotry.
A striking 42 percent of Jewish students report having experienced antisemitism at college, according to a survey released by the American Jewish Committee and Hillel International in February. Of that group, 55 percent said they felt that being Jewish at a campus event threatened their safety. The survey also found that 32 percent of Jewish students believe that campus groups promote antisemitism or a learning environment that is hostile to Jews, while 25 percent said that antisemitism was the basis of being “excluded from a group or an event on campus.”
On Thursday, the Brandeis Center said the specifics of the William College case prompted a “first of its kind” approach to representing a campus antisemitism victim. The group has filed scores of federal complaints alleging antisemitic discrimination in higher education, but the agency petitioned in those cases was the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Additionally, the suits demanded redress for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now, the Brandeis Center contends that Williams College ran afoul of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and is contesting the matter in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“The filing reflects the expansion and strengthening of the Brandeis Center’s legal advocacy efforts to push back against discrimination targeting Jewish Americans wherever their civil rights are threatened,” the group said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Democratic Nominee for University of Michigan Regent Refuses to Condemn Hezbollah
Attorney Amir Makled accepts the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement for the University of Michigan Board of Regents in Detroit, Michigan on April 19, 2026. Photo: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A political controversy is intensifying in the race for a spot on the University of Michigan’s top governing body, as Democratic nominee Amir Makled faces mounting criticism for failing to explicitly condemn Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group responsible for attacks against not only Israel but also Western targets — including US soldiers.
Makled, an attorney who last Sunday secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for a seat on the university’s Board of Regents, has come under scrutiny following the resurfacing of social media activity in which he appeared to engage with or amplify content viewed as sympathetic to Hezbollah and hostile toward Israel.
When asked last week by MLive, a local news outlet, to clarify his views on Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist organization, Makled deflected and refused to criticize the Islamist group. However, Makled stated that he would continue condemning the Israel Defense Force (IDF).
“I will continue to talk critically of the policies of the Israeli Defense Forces and of the state of Israel,” Makled said. “But I’m not playing a condemnation game of Hezbollah, because I believe that’s a trap designed to put Arab Americans on the defense simply for existing.”
Makled also dismissed the notion that his Jewish opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent Jordan Acker, lost his reelection bid due to antisemitism.
“Hatred against Jewish people is wrong, period,” Makled said. “Acker didn’t lose because of antisemitism. People are tired of Islamophobia. They’re tired of being told that standing up for Arab lives is somehow disqualified.”
In the two years following the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Acker has been targeted by anti-Israel activists with a relentless barrage of protests. In December 2024, for example, pro-Hamas activists targeted Acker’s home with violent demonstrations, breaking his windows and spray-painting his car with the message “Divest Free Palestine.” The vandals also spray-painted on Acker’s car an inverted red triangle, a symbol used to indicate support for the Hamas terrorist group.
The contest has drawn national attention because of the unusually broad authority held by University of Michigan regents, who are elected statewide and oversee the university’s finances, investments, executive leadership, and major institutional policy decisions. The eight-member board plays a central role in decisions ranging from presidential oversight to responses to campus protest movements and demands for divestment.
Makled, a Dearborn-based civil rights attorney who has been outspoken in support of divestment from Israel, won the party’s nomination for one of two regent seats up for election this year, defeating Acker, who had become a frequent target of pro-Palestinian activists over his opposition to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel on campus.
Makled initially came under immense scrutiny after an investigation by The Detroit News revealed that he was found to have deleted social media posts praising leaders of Hezbollah. One of the posts referred to slain Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah as a “martyr.” He also reposted antisemitic messages from far-right commentator Candace Owens which referred to Israelis as “demons” who “lie, cheat, murder, and blackmail.”
While Makled has issued statements broadly disavowing antisemitism, his refusal to emphatically denounce Hezbollah has raised eyebrows among moderate Democrats and Jewish voters in Michigan. Jewish organizations and community leaders have expressed alarm over what they describe as a troubling pattern of ambiguity.
The controversy has already had political consequences. A major labor union withdrew its endorsement of Makled, citing concerns over his past rhetoric and associations. Within the Democratic Party, the episode has exposed widening divisions over how to address extremism linked to anti-Israel activism.
The dispute comes amid heightened sensitivities surrounding the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as well as increased scrutiny of campus climates across the United States. Further, the controversy remains especially sensitive in Michigan, as a Hezbollah-sympathizing terrorist targeted a major synagogue, Temple Israel, in suburban Detroit last month.
Further, higher education institutions like the University of Michigan have faced criticism over their handling of anti-Israel protests, some of which have drawn accusations of crossing into antisemitic territory. Against this backdrop, Makled’s candidacy has become a flashpoint in a broader debate over whether anti-Israel activism is being sufficiently challenged when it veers into support for extremist groups.
Critics note that as a regent, Makled would help oversee university policy, including responses to campus discrimination and student safety concerns. His reluctance to explicitly condemn Hezbollah could raises serious questions among voters about his judgment and fitness for the role.
Makled’s willingness to frame violent anti-Israel protests as a legitimate expression of grievances and expression further casts doubt over whether he would be willing to dispatch law enforcement to control raucous demonstrations on campus.
The controversy underscores a growing tension within Democratic politics, where progressive activism related to the Palestinian cause has, in some cases, blurred lines that critics say should remain clear—particularly regarding terrorist organizations and incitement against Israel. This issue has become more salient in recent months, as Democrats have increasingly cozied up to individuals that espouse extremist beliefs, such as anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker.
Supporters of Acker have argued the outcome reflects a broader deterioration in support for Israel and tolerance of antisemitism within Democratic politics, particularly among younger and more progressive voters. Some also noted that Paul Brown, Acker’s non-Jewish running mate who had similarly opposed divestment efforts, was renominated while Acker was not, making the result especially symbolic for many Jewish Democrats.