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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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Report: US, Israel Preparing for Resumptions of Strikes Against Iran
US President Donald Trump speaks during an event to sign a memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Evan Vucci
i24 News – The United States and Israel are engaged in intense preparations — the largest since the cease-fire took effect — for the possible resumption of attacks against Iran as early as next week, the New York Times reported Saturday citing two Middle East officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Mako News reported Israeli official sources as saying that US President Donald Trump is expected to convene his closest team of advisors in the next 24 hours to make a final decision on the Iran matter. Israel estimates that a decision on military action may be made very soon, the report added.
According to NYT, should Trump decide to resume military strikes, options include more aggressive raids targeting Iranian military and infrastructure targets, US officials said.
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Trump Says Xi Agrees Iran Must Open Strait, But No Sign China Will Weigh In
US President Donald Trump participates in events at the Great Hall of the People and does a greeting with the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping May 14, 2026, in Beijing China during a trip focused on trade, regional security, and strengthening bilateral ties between the world’s two largest economies. Photo: Kenny Holston/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
US President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though China gave no indication it would weigh in.
Flying back from Beijing on Friday after two days of talks with Xi, Trump said he was considering whether to lift US sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil.
“I’m not asking for any favors because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return,” Trump said when asked by a reporter on Air Force One whether Xi had made a firm commitment to put pressure on the Iranians to reopen the strait.
Xi did not comment on his discussions with Trump about Iran, although China’s foreign ministry criticized the war, calling it a conflict “which should never have happened, has no reason to continue.”
‘WE WANT THE STRAITS OPEN’
Iran has effectively shut the strait, which carried one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply before the US and Israel launched attacks on February 28. The disruption to shipping has caused the biggest oil supply crisis in history, pushing up oil prices.
Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on Saturday that Tehran had prepared a mechanism to manage traffic through the strait along a designated route that would be unveiled soon.
Azizi said only commercial vessels and parties cooperating with Iran would benefit, and that fees would be collected for specialized services provided under the mechanism.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes. Thousands more have been killed in Lebanon in fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, though Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to a 45-day extension of a ceasefire that has tamped down the conflict there.
The US paused its attacks last month but began a port blockade. As of Saturday, 78 commercial ships had been redirected and four disabled to ensure compliance with the blockade, the US military said.
Tehran, which carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states after the war began, has said it will not unblock the strait until the US ends its blockade. Trump has threatened to resume attacks if Iran does not agree to a deal.
“We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, we want the straits open,” Trump said in Beijing, alongside Xi.
Iran, which has long denied it intends to build a nuclear weapon, has refused to end nuclear research or relinquish its hidden stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran had received messages from the US indicating Washington was willing to continue talks.
Pakistan has been mediating between Washington and Tehran. Iranian news agency Nournews said Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni had held “detailed” discussions with his visiting Pakistani counterpart on Iran-Pakistan relations and the prospects for resuming peace talks, but gave no details.
TRUMP LOSING PATIENCE
Trump, who told Fox News’ “Hannity” program in an interview aired on Thursday that he was losing patience with Iran, said Tehran “should make a deal.”
Oil prices rose around 3 percent to around $109 a barrel on Friday [O/R] on concerns about a lack of progress in resolving the conflict.
Talks on ending the war, which has become a liability for Trump ahead of US congressional elections in November, have been on hold since last week when Iran and the US each rejected the other’s most recent proposals.
Araqchi said on Friday that Iran would welcome Chinese input, adding that Tehran was trying to give diplomacy a chance but did not trust the US, which has curtailed previous rounds of talks by launching air strikes.
When the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran at the end of February, they said one of their aims was to weaken the authorities so Iranians could topple the government.
There has been little sign of organized dissent in Iran during the war, and rights groups say the government has cracked down heavily on its opponents.
Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday that 39 people had been executed for collaborating with Israeli or US spy agencies, or taking part in “terror” or armed unrest, since the war started, the judiciary’s news agency Mizan reported.
It said 36 “medium-level” dissidents had received long prison sentences.
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Tens of Thousands March in London in Separate Immigration, Pro‑Palestinian Protests
Protesters take part in a “Unite the Kingdom” rally organised by British anti-immigration activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, in London, Britain, May 16, 2026. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday in two separate protests – one against high levels of immigration and another in support of Palestinians.
Police deployed 4,000 officers, including reinforcements from outside the capital, and pledged “the most assertive possible use of our powers” in what they called their biggest public order operation in years.
By 1200 GMT, shortly after both marches started, police said they had made 11 arrests for a range of offenses. They had earlier forecast turnout of at least 80,000.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday accused organizers of the Unite the Kingdom march of “peddling hate and division, plain and simple.”
The march was organized by anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson. The government barred 11 people it described as “foreign far-right agitators” from entering Britain to address the protest.
A previous protest led by Robinson in September drew around 150,000 people, police said, and featured a video address by US tech billionaire Elon Musk. More than 20 people were arrested, and police are still seeking more than 50 suspects.
MARCHERS WAVE BRITISH AND ENGLISH FLAGS
On Saturday, Robinson supporters gathered in central London, waving mainly British and English flags.
“I think that too much migration – not migration, but too much migration – is causing a lot of problems, upsetting a delicate balance here,” said Allison Parr, who also criticized net-zero environmental policies.
Annual net migration approached 900,000 in 2022 and 2023, but fell back to around 200,000 last year after tighter work visa rules.
Concern over immigration – including the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats – has weighed on Starmer’s popularity and boosted the right-wing Reform UK party, whose leader Nigel Farage has distanced himself from Robinson.
Some protesters chanted abuse about Starmer.
Robinson, who has convictions for assault, stalking and other offenses, urged supporters this week to act peacefully in what he billed as “the greatest patriotic display the world has ever seen.”
Earlier this year, he traveled to the US, where he met a State Department official and addressed supporters about what he called “the dangers of Islam” and “the Islamification of Great Britain.”
Census data showed 6.5 percent of people in England and Wales identified as Muslim in 2021, up from 4.9 percent in 2011.
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS MARK NAKBA DAY
Nearby, pro-Palestinian demonstrators held a march to mark Nakba Day, commemorating Palestinians’ loss of land in the 1948 war that followed the creation of Israel. “Nakba” means catastrophe in Arabic.
The march also drew those opposing the Unite the Kingdom rally, alongside predominantly Palestinian flags.
London has recently seen a spate of arson attacks on Jewish sites, and two Jewish men were stabbed last month in an incident being treated as terrorism.
Police said repeated large pro-Palestinian marches – 33 since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 – had left many Jewish people feeling too intimidated to enter central London.
While protesters held a range of views, police said they routinely made arrests for racially and religiously aggravated public order offenses, inciting racial hatred or supporting proscribed organizations.
The government said police would arrest protesters who chanted “globalize the intifada,” a reference to Palestinian uprisings against Israel that many British Jews view as inciting antisemitism.
Some protesters on Saturday chanted “Death to the IDF”, referring to the Israeli army – language that police said had previously been a reason for arrests when aimed at Jewish people.