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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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The Spanish Sabotage: How NATO’s Weakest Link Endangers the War Effort
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a press conference after attending a special summit of European Union leaders to discuss transatlantic relations, in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
As the Western alliance entered the second month of its existential struggle against the Iranian regime, the southern anchor of NATO officially buckled.
In a calculated move that serves as a strategic windfall for Tehran, the Spanish government — led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — closed its national airspace and sovereign military bases to United States forces engaged in “Operation Epic Fury.”
By branding the mission to dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure as “illegal and reckless,” Madrid has transitioned from a passive free-rider to an active obstructionist, prioritizing a radical domestic agenda over the survival of the trans-Atlantic security architecture.
This is not merely a tactical disagreement; it is a textbook manifestation of “lawful Islamism” and the erosion of Western resolve. While American and Israeli pilots risk their lives to prevent a nuclear-armed mullahcracy from finalizing its breakout, Spain has opted for a “Neutrality of the Grave” that threatens to lengthen the conflict and embolden the Axis of Resistance.
The immediate impact of Spain’s decision is felt at the fuel pump and the flight line.
By denying the US the use of Naval Station Rota and Morón Air Base — historical gatekeepers of the Mediterranean — Sánchez has severed the primary logistical “air bridge” for Operation Epic Fury. US refueling tankers, including KC-135s and KC-46s, have been forced to relocate to more distant hubs in Germany and the United Kingdom, creating a congested bottleneck in Northern Europe.
Rerouting around the Iberian Peninsula adds between 300 and 800 nautical miles to every mission, a “strategic tax” that adds up to two hours of flight time for time-sensitive strikes.
On a typical widebody military aircraft, this delay consumes an additional 13,000 pounds of fuel per sortie. In a theater where seconds determine whether a mobile Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) missile launcher is neutralized or fired at an Israeli city, Spain’s “neutrality” is measured in the blood of its allies.
Spain’s sabotage is driven by the internal mechanics of the Sánchez government — a fragile minority coalition captured by radical left and Islamist-aligned forces. The influence of parties like Sumar and EH Bildu — a group with historical ties to Basque terrorism — has effectively outsourced Madrid’s foreign policy to a “Red-Green Alliance” that views the US and Israel as greater enemies than the IRGC.
This ideological subversion was punctuated by the unfiltered rebuke of Spain’s Transport Minister, Óscar Puente, who directed a statement at the Israeli leadership that has since reverberated across the globe: “We are not going with you even around the corner, you genocidal bastard.”
This is the language of rupture, signaling that Spain no longer considers itself a partner in the defense of Western values.
The hollow morality of the government’s stance was dismantled on March 29 by General Fernando Alejandre, the former Chief of the Spanish Defense Staff (JEMAD).
In an interview with ABC Spain, Alejandre warned that the “No to War” slogans used by the cabinet are merely “simplistic advertisements” that ignore the topographical reality of modern threats. Alejandre noted that Spain has “sublimated the word peace,” mistakenly believing that an “unjust peace” is preferable to a necessary defense, a path that inevitably leads to total indefension.
Alejandre’s most haunting warning concerned Spain’s own sovereignty. He identified Morocco as a “certain and clear threat” that is closely watching Spain’s lack of a solid defense culture. By alienating the United States in its hour of conflict, Spain is gambling with the security of the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla. As US strategic interest shifts toward Rabat — a pro-Western partner and Abraham Accords signatory that has seen a 17.6% increase in its 2026 defense budget — Spain risks being left alone on its own southern flank.
The economic repercussions are already beginning to bite. President Donald Trump has characterized Spain as a “terrible” ally, and instructed US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to prepare a total trade embargo against Madrid. Furthermore, by complicating the mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Spain is directly contributing to the global energy shock that has sent Brent crude toward $110 per barrel.
The Spanish sabotage is a case study in the danger of allowing domestic extremism to dictate international security. When a NATO member chooses to facilitate the survival of the Iranian regime by weaponizing its geography against its allies, the alliance must react. The “habit of consultation” that has defined NATO since 1949 is broken. For the mission to deny Iran nuclear weapons to succeed, the West must recognize its weakest links and forge new partnerships with those who demonstrate a genuine commitment to victory.
The cost of Madrid’s betrayal is a grave that the Iranian regime is currently digging for the entire West; Sánchez is merely making sure the US has a harder time stopping them.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
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From Spain to Passover: The Problem of Inherited Guilt
Soccer Football – Champions League – Paris St Germain v Atletico Madrid – Parc des Princes, Paris, France – November 6, 2024 A banner on support of Palestine is displayed in the stands before the match. Photo: Reuters/Stephanie Lecocq
In 2019, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador formally asked Spain to apologize for abuses committed during his country’s conquest of Mexico. At the center of that request is Spain’s role in the destruction of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, in 1521—an event that marked the beginning of Spanish colonial rule on the site of what is now Mexico City.
Current President Claudia Sheinbaum has continued to press the issue, and Spain’s King Felipe VI recently said that the conquest “didn’t work out as originally intended and there was a lot of abuse.”
Sheinbaum acknowledged that the remark fell short of a full apology, but nevertheless called it a gesture of reconciliation that would help improve relations between their two countries. For her, this gesture served to validate and dignify Mexico’s indigenous population, and help ensure that history is viewed not only from the perspective of the colonizers but of the colonized as well.
Even though these events occurred centuries ago, the argument for apology rests on the idea that nations, like corporations, have a kind of legal and historical continuity. States endure beyond the lifetimes of their citizens. Laws persist, institutions evolve rather than disappear, and national identity is transmitted across generations. Spain’s monarchy, like the Spanish state itself, presents itself as an institution of deep historical continuity. With that comes responsibility as well.
But this logic raises a fundamental problem. The individuals responsible for the conquest are long dead, and those offering apologies today played no role in those events. If individuals cannot inherit guilt from their parents, on what basis can entire nations inherit moral responsibility for actions taken centuries ago?
This sits uneasily with a core principle of modern human rights: that individuals are born free and equal, responsible for their own actions, and should not be judged based on the deeds of others. Once we depart from that principle, we begin to assign moral status not by what people have done, but by who their ancestors were.
More broadly, an emphasis on inherited guilt encourages us to look backward for solutions to present problems. When we encounter injustice today, should our first question be who to blame in the distant past — or what we can do now to make things better? A politics rooted in historical grievance risks creating an endless cycle of accusation and counter-accusation, with no endpoint.
This dynamic is visible in debates over Israel and the Palestinians. Some Palestinian activists center their narrative of the “Nakba,” arguing that peace requires addressing what they view as historical injustices from 1948. On the other side, many emphasize Jewish historical and indigenous claims stretching back millennia, arguing that recognition of that history is essential to any resolution, as well as Jewish presence in the land before 1948. These competing historical frameworks can be difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile.
It would be more fruitful to focus on what political arrangements would best advance the rights of all people living today, regardless of ethnicity. But we can only do that if we are willing to recognize each person as a new individual, equally worthy of freedoms and protections, regardless of what we believe their ancestors may have done.
If we extend the logic of historical responsibility consistently, it becomes impossible to sustain. For example, at the Passover seder we recount the story of the ten plagues. If modern Spain bears responsibility for destruction five centuries ago, should Israel, by the same logic, be forced to apologize to Egypt for the excess suffering described in that story?
And if Israel must apologize for the plagues, then Egypt should also apologize for its original enslavement of the Israelites. How would such a process begin — and where would it end? Is this really what we want to argue about? Current times present us with enough problems without importing conflicts from the past as well. The question for Spain and Mexico, as well as Israelis and Palestinians, is not how to assign guilt for the distant past, but how to uphold the rights and dignity of people living today.
Shlomo Levin holds a Master’s in International Law and Human Rights from the United Nations University for Peace and uses fiction to examine the tension between human rights theory and practice. Find him at www.shalzed.com.
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A Message of Hope Ahead of Pesach: Israeli Negev Bedouin’s Response to Iranian Rockets
A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighbourhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel, March 22, 2026. REUTERS/Roei Kastro
The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants Palestinians to believe that Israeli Arabs hate their country — Israel — and the Jews living in it.
The reality, however, is not like that at all.
When commenting on Israeli Arabs, whom they call the Palestinians from “Interior Palestine,” or from the “lands occupied in ’48” (the year Israel was established) they vigorously promote the lie that Israel targets Israeli Arabs.
Commentary by columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, in the official PA daily and former advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs, is a case in point:
Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul
The members of the Palestinian people in the Interior [i.e., Palestinian term for Israel] … reject all the actions of falsification and coexistence between the true Arab Palestinian narrative and the fake and false Zionist narrative, because confirming the Zionist narrative … means confirming the legitimacy and eligibility of the Zionist presence on the Arab Palestinian land.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2021]
But following recent Iranian missile attacks against the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona, nearby Israeli Bedouin Arab communities posted in “local Facebook groups to offer their homes, food, and messages of solidarity” [The Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2026] to Israelis/Jews harmed by the rockets.
This is the exact opposite response of what you would expect from a “hostile” population:
Israeli Arab Bedouin school principal Sager Abu Srehan: “I think the real reality is what matters. We live together with the Jewish society as brothers, on the same land and under the same sky.
We study together, work together, and this country belongs to all of us. We are people who belong here and who love our country … The partnership between us as a society, with many examples of cooperation, is what creates the beautiful colors in the mosaic of Israeli society.” [emphasis added]
[Israeli school principal Sager Abu Srehan, The Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2026]
The dystopian image that the PA promotes of Israeli society tumbles like a deck of cards when confronted with the Israeli reality as a democratic country where all citizens — Jews and Arabs — are treated equally according to law. It is a level of freedom that, ironically, the PA does not come close to bestowing upon its own population.
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.