Uncategorized
Kyiv Jews celebrate their 2nd wartime Purim with renewed resolve and optimism
KYIV (JTA) — In a historic building in the most industrial part of Podil, the hipster district of Kyiv that once was the heart of the Jewish trading community, a senior and passionate Esther seduces a much younger Ahasuerus. She flirts with the handsome king to the raucous giggling of the audience, which breaks into applause when the Purim shpiel comes to an end.
A year and a few days into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Jews in Kyiv and the rest of the country have celebrated Purim in precarious economic and emotional circumstances, under the continued threat of Russian attacks. Still, many of them are in much better spirits than in 2022, when the Jewish holiday of joy found Ukrainian Jews in a frantic state of worry and uncertainty about their immediate future.
“A year ago you could see the fear in people’s eyes; now they are very proud because Ukraine has resisted, and Jews are fully involved in the cause,” Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during the movement’s Purim celebration in Podil. She is an Israeli rabbi who is the executive director of the Masorti movement-affiliated Schechter Institutes and periodically travels to Ukraine to serve the country’s Masorti communities. Masorti Judaism is similar to the Conservative movement in the United States.
“Last year it was very, very hard, because people were in shock, afraid, and they didn’t know what to do,” said Ariel Markowitz, Kyiv’s most senior rabbi from the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox movement, which held its own Purim celebration Monday night. “But now we know that we have a strong army, that we have a chance, and many people have actually returned to Kyiv.”
Rabbi Ariel Markowitz of Chabad Kyiv reads from the Megillah during his community’s Purim celebration, March 6, 2023. (Courtesy Markowitz)
The year-old war has shaken up Ukraine’s Jewish community, with members leaving the country or moving within it to avoid Russian shelling and its effects.
“Everyone has pretty much made a decision on whether to stay or to leave and we are reorganizing our community,” said Gritsevskaya.
Although at least 14,000 Ukrainians have moved to Israel since Russia’s all-out invasion started, and many more thousands have found refuge in Germany and other European countries, Gritsevskaya wants to focus on those who stayed. Estimates of the Jewish population in Ukraine ranged before the war from just under 50,000 to up to 400,000, depending on who counted.
One of the people who left the country was the former Masorti rabbi in Ukraine, Reuven Stamov, who moved with his family to Israel. Currently, the Masorti movement — whose Ukrainian following Grivtseskaya estimates in the thousands — does not have a rabbi permanently in the country. But the community keeps active in Kyiv and other cities, such as Kharkiv in the east, Odessa in the south and Chernivtsi in the southwest, thanks to activists, volunteers and rabbinical students, plus the visits by Gritsevskaya, who first returned for Purim last year.
“Community life has never been so important,” she said.
Gritsevskaya pointed to the difference that having access to material help, connections and emotional and spiritual support makes for those who arrive in new cities from places in the south or the east occupied by Russia or close to the front.
She acknowledged that some Jewish organizations have ceased their operations in Ukraine and stressed the need of strengthening the work of those who are committed to remain, so Jewish life in Ukraine could be as “diverse” as before and people “have options” to choose the way they practice their Judaism.
Among the Ukrainian Jews that decided to stay is the director of the MILI Foundation, the entity that organizes the Masorti community in Ukraine. Maksym Melnikov moved to Kyiv from his native Donetsk in 2014 after Russian-backed separatist militias declared the independence of part of the region and war broke out in Eastern Ukraine.
Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya poses with community members of the Masorti community in Kyiv, March 6, 2023. (Marcel Gascón Barberá)
“I came when they started to occupy our land in Ukraine,” Melnikov told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the Masorti Purim celebration in Kyiv, just before taking the stage to help Gritsevskaya read the Purim Megillah. “Almost a decade later, war came after me to Kyiv, and I don’t want to move this time, I’m staying.”
Since 2014, many of Melnikov’s friends and acquaintances from Donetsk have moved to Kyiv. While Russia’s full-scale invasion has pushed many Jews from Kyiv to move westwards or leave the country, the western city’s communities have received a new infusion of people from the eastern cities more affected by the war.
“Communities are changing constantly countrywide, and we are trying to reach out to those who arrive, both to help them start a new life and to build our community stronger,” said Grivtsevskaya.
She said the Masorti community in Chernivtsi has experienced a notable revival. Situated near the border with Romania, Chernivtsi is one of the few Ukrainian provincial capitals that has not been bombed by Russia, and thousands have moved there. “They have received another family and are very strong right now,” she said about the once-dwindling community in this historical Jewish center, where she hosted a Purim celebration after making her way into Ukraine in March 2022.
The massive uprooting of entire Jewish communities has been experienced keenly by Chabad, which has the largest Jewish presence in the country, with hundreds of emissaries serving Jewish communities in dozens of cities.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in those who come looking for help,” Markowitz told JTA hours before the start of Purim at Chabad’s community center in Kyiv. Many of them, he said, had come from Mariupol, a city bombed into submission by Russia at the beginning of the war.
Scenes of the Purim shpiel at the Masorti community in Kyiv, March 6, 2023. (Marcel Gascón Barberá)
Chabad is one of several organizations providing aid to Ukrainian Jews, including support in obtaining food, medical care and generators that keep power flowing amid widespread outages.
The rise of the demand for these services is not only driven by refugees, but by families and individuals who have lost their source of income due to the economic disruptions caused by the invasion.
“There is inflation, there are less jobs, a lot of companies closed and people lost their jobs or are unable to help their family members,” Markowitz said.
Besides the demographic and economic shake-ups, the war has brought changes in the way Jews relate to their Ukrainian identity. Perhaps the most striking has been a rapid shift away from speaking Russian, the first language of many Ukrainian Jews until recently.
“Even I started learning and speaking Ukrainian and you can definitely see how a new sense of national identity is being born,” Maria Karadin, a Russia-born Israeli who moved to Ukraine with her husband in 2005, said at the Masorti Purim event.
Maiia Malkova is 15 years old and one of the most active young members of the Masorti community in Kyiv.
“Last year I didn’t even think about Purim so much because I was so frightened,” she said while wearing a necklace with a tryzub, the trident that symbolizes Ukrainian statehood and independence. “But we kind of got accustomed to this situation. And it is great to be able to celebrate Purim again.”
—
The post Kyiv Jews celebrate their 2nd wartime Purim with renewed resolve and optimism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Providence voters pass ballot initiative that could lead to divestment of city funds from Israel
(JTA) — Voters in Providence, Rhode Island, have approved a ballot measure that could result in the city divesting public funds from Israel, according to local media, in a major victory for the Israel boycott movement.
In a major victory for the Israel boycott movement, voters in Providence, Rhode Island, have approved a ballot measure that could result in the city divesting public funds from Israel, according to local media.
With 81 of 82 polling locations partially reported, the Rhode Island Board of Elections tallied 75% voting to approve the measure versus 25% rejecting. Both the Rhode Island Current and the Boston Globe report the measure was approved.
“We are overjoyed that the city of Providence has voted — by more than a 3 to 1 margin — to divest our collective dollars from support for genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Lex Rofeberg, who runs the alternative Jewish engagement network Judaism Unbound and was an organizer with the Providence divestment initiative, told JTA. “This historic moment can serve as an example for other cities around the country hoping to align their investments with their values.”
The ordinance calls for the capital city to refrain from investing in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.” Though the ballot language does not mention Israel by name, it was heavily supported by local pro-Palestinian groups and opposed by some Jewish and pro-Israel groups.
A representative for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island previously told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the group would explore legal options to challenge the ballot measure in the event that it passed.
The vote makes Providence the largest municipality yet to vote in favor of some form of Israel divestment, following the lead of Somerville, Massachusetts, whose voters approved a nonbinding divestment measure last year. Providence is home to an estimated 15,000 Jews, or around 7% of its population. Progressive Jewish groups, including the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, were among the ballot measure’s advocates.
The city’s mayor, Brett Smiley, a pro-Israel Democrat who converted to Judaism while in office, lost his primary to a democratic socialist, an early indicator of which way the divestment vote would go.
Activist initiatives to challenge U.S. financial aid to Israel have picked up steam in the years since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and ensuing Gaza war. On the morning of Election Day, President Donald Trump, who described aid to Israel as a political liability, announced the U.S. would end nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of the year.
The post Providence voters pass ballot initiative that could lead to divestment of city funds from Israel appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Republican Lawler concedes to Democrat Conley in fierce battle for Jewish vote in NYC suburbs
(JTA) — Republican congressman Mike Lawler has conceded to Democratic challenger Cait Conley, a former national security official, after competing fiercely for Jewish voters in the lower Hudson Valley of New York.
Lawler has been a staunchly pro-Israel member since joining Congress in 2023, and was endorsed by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.
Conley was endorsed by the pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel, and has said she supports Israel while opposing the Benjamin Netanyahu government.
Lawler, who is Catholic, has deep ties to the district’s large Orthodox Jewish population, and touted their support recently when asked about the neck-and-neck polling.
Both Lawler and Conley have tried tying their opponent to polarizing figures in their respective parties. Lawler has asserted that Conley, a moderate, will not separate herself from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and particularly New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has a lower favorability rating outside the city. Conley denounced Mamdani’s statement on the three-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack after Lawler challenged her to do so during a debate.
Conley, meanwhile, has tied Lawler to President Donald Trump, accusing him of being a rubber stamp for Trump’s legislative priorities.
The post Republican Lawler concedes to Democrat Conley in fierce battle for Jewish vote in NYC suburbs appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
In early LA mayoral results, Karen Bass holds slim lead over Nithya Raman, who sparred with DSA on Israel
Early returns in the Los Angeles mayoral election showed incumbent Karen Bass with a slim lead over Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose comments on Israel became a flashpoint in the race.
The first batch of results — totaling about 500,000 votes — showed Bass leading Raman, 50.8% to 49.2%.
The final outcome may not be known until Wednesday or later, a common occurrence in tight California races due to the preponderance of mail-in ballots. Nearly 90% of California voters did so by mail in the June primary.
But if the primary results are any indication, Bass’ lead may evaporate as more votes are counted.
In the June 2 open primary — a system in which the top two vote-getters from any party advance to a runoff — Raman trailed a Republican, Spencer Pratt, by eight points for second place behind Bass. She won the ensuing batches of mail-in ballots, but did not pass Pratt until June 7. She ultimately surpassed him by more than four percentage points.
Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has clashed with the organization — and frustrated many of her Jewish constituents — while trying to strike a balance on Israel. She has called the war in Gaza a genocide, but declined to adopt the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions platform — a stance that led the DSA to consider expelling her.
Bass, a mainstream Democrat who served six terms in Congress before running for mayor in 2022, entered the race as a historically unpopular incumbent, largely thanks to her response to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Raman endorsed Bass prior to declaring her own candidacy on the last day to enter the race, a move Bass has characterized as a personal betrayal.
The polls swung back and forth in the weeks leading up to the election. Bass, who won most labor endorsements, was leading until September, when one poll sponsored by the Los Angeles Times showed Raman ahead by 11 points with a third of voters still undecided. A follow-up poll by the Times last week showed the two in a dead heat.
Unlike many other DSA candidates up for election across the country on Tuesday, Raman, an urban policy wonk who immigrated to the U.S. from India when she was 6, never made Israel a focal point of her campaign. Instead, she focused more on housing, homelessness and budget policy.
But her membership in the DSA, an interview she granted Hasan Piker during the primary and the genocide comments dogged her anyway, especially among Jewish Angelenos.
Raman, after publicly condemning the DSA’s anti-Israel statements after Oct. 7, sponsored a resolution for a ceasefire and return of hostages in March 2024, disappointing mainstream Jewish groups who called the motion one-sided. Then, during the primary, Raman told Piker she believed the Gaza war was a genocide and that Israel was an apartheid state. She also said she would not seek the endorsement of pro-Israel Democratic party groups as she had in 2024.
Her record on Israel seemed likely to come up when Raman participated in the candidate forum for Jewish voters Sept. 29. But Raman struggled to get through answers about the DSA, Piker and especially genocide and BDS — which she called a “legitimate form of peaceful protest” — leading to loud audience groans. During Bass’ turn on stage, the mayor said she did not support BDS and did not believe the war in Gaza was a genocide.
Mail-in voters historically skew to the left, and the primary vote may offer a preview of the margin Raman might need.
In that election, about 58% of the total votes were tallied election night, when Bass led Raman 36.5% to 21%. Raman got the biggest share of the ensuing ballot batches, beating Bass by about five percentage points.
The post In early LA mayoral results, Karen Bass holds slim lead over Nithya Raman, who sparred with DSA on Israel appeared first on The Forward.
