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One rabbi’s lifesaving solution to help Odessa’s vulnerable Jews: jerry-rigged car batteries
This winter, the city of Odessa, Ukraine, feels like the heart of darkness.
The city is constant bombardment by the Russian military, freezing nighttime temperatures commonly fall below zero, and electricity is only available for six hours per day: three in the morning and three at night.
Amid these desperate circumstances, Avraham Wolff, the chief rabbi of Odessa and southern Ukraine, is trying to bring some light — and heat.
He’s doing so with jerry-rigged car batteries to provide warmth and electricity to about 400 Holocaust survivors in the city — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.
“The ones at greatest risk of starving to death or freezing to death are the Holocaust survivors who were not able to flee this place,” Wolff said in a phone interview from Odessa. “Holocaust survivors are staring death in the face for the second time, and we can’t avert our eyes.”
Wolff is trying to raise $500,000 in funds to purchase heating units powered by car batteries. Placed inside a home, the two car batteries connect to special transistors, which generate sufficient electricity to heat an apartment. Each unit costs $1,400, and Wolff’s organization, Mishpacha Chabad Odessa, is trying to organize 357 units: one for each apartment where a Holocaust survivor lives. Accounting for spouses, the units will provide enough electricity for about 500 people.
This literally can stave off death, Wolff says — not only by providing lifesaving heat, but also the electricity essential to the elderly and frail.
“If they go to the bathroom in the dark and they fall and break their hip, that’s the beginning of the end,” he said. When there is no power, Wolff said, “it’s darkness. But not just darkness. Also cold and hunger.”
About 20,000 Jews remain in wartime Odessa. That’s less than half the Jewish population of 50,000 that was there just a year ago, before Russian invaded Ukraine. Since then, most have fled to safer places either in western Ukraine, elsewhere in Europe or Israel. Odessa’s Jewish schools once taught 1,000 children. Now, only 200 students remain.
Jerry-rigged heating units use a pair of car batteries connecting to transistors to generate the power needed to heat an apartment. (Courtesy of Mishpacha Odessa)
The Holocaust survivors in their 80s and 90s who remain in the city are either too old or infirm to endure a dangerous journey or unwilling to leave the place where their spouse is buried.
“Someone over 90 cannot start life over as a refugee,” Wolff said.
Air raid sirens go off four or five times a day. Most of the incoming Russian rockets are shot down by defense systems, but there are hits on infrastructure, including power plants. Even the six hours per day of light and heat are not reliable, according to Wolff.
“Two days ago, they hit two power plants, so the city had no electricity for 24 hours,” he said on Monday. “We’re constantly under this pressure. We’ve been living in a war zone for a long time.”
Aside from caring for the Holocaust survivors, Mishpacha Chabad Odessa organizes monthly food deliveries of basic supplies to the homebound Jewish elderly, including such essentials as rice, cooking oil, potatoes, meat and hygiene items, and run Jewish schools and preschools still operating in Odessa.
“We want to help these people not just spiritually, but physically,” the rabbi said. “Elderly Holocaust survivors are currently the highest-risk group, but we help everyone.”
Odessa once was home to the world’s second-largest Jewish community. In the 19th century, the city became a major center of Jewish life and culture, with a large and diverse Jewish population. Many Jewish immigrants came to Odessa during this period, fleeing persecution and poverty in other parts of Europe and the Russian Empire.
Before the Holocaust, one-third of Odessa’s population was Jewish. Then the Nazis came, and Jews were subjected to forced relocation, property confiscation and mass extermination. Approximately 25,000 Jews were killed in the city and its surroundings.
A year ago, before the current war, 1.1 million people lived in Odessa. Hundreds of thousands have fled.
Wolff, 52, has lived in Odessa since 1992, when he came to the country from Israel as an emissary of Chabad, the Jewish outreach movement. When war broke out last February, he left Ukraine temporarily to settle a group of orphans in Germany. Then he returned.
After the Russian invasion, many Ukrainian Jewish communities crumbled. People fled, and Jewish institutions and landmarks like synagogues, community centers and cemeteries were destroyed by Russian bombs.
“There is so much destruction,” Wolff said. “We’re going to do all we can to rebuild, with God’s help.”
With the Russian military targeting infrastructure like power plants, residents of Odessa, Ukraine, use candles for the scant electricity and heat they provide. (Courtesy of Mishpacha Odessa)
Despite the immense dangers and challenges, Wolff says he is optimistic about the future.
“I’m sure that after Ukraine wins, and life and peace returns, there will be a rapid return of those who left, and I think others will come because there will be an economic and building boom,” Wolff said. “I believe there’s a bright future.”
Part of Wolff’s job as a Jewish leader and Chabadnik is not only to provide physical aid, but positive morale and spiritual inspiration.
“When I was a child, I heard a story from an old Jew who had been imprisoned in Siberia,” Wolff recalled. “One day, he got up and he felt he couldn’t say Modeh Ani” — the Jewish morning prayer of gratitude — “because the Russian authorities had taken everything from him: his house, wife, yeshiva, grandkids, tefillin, kippah, tzitzit. He was all alone in a Siberian prison with nothing. But then he realized that the one thing Stalin couldn’t take from him was the ability to say Modeh Ani.”
Even in these grim times, Wolff said, there is a spirit that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is prosecuting this war, cannot take away from Ukraine’s Jews.
“There’s a war, there are challenges, nothing is easy. It’s dark, it’s cold,” Wolff said. “But the ability to smile Putin didn’t take from us and can’t take away. This is what I try to show the community. In the end we’ll win, so let’s smile now, too.”
Those interested in supporting this effort can make a contribution here to fund the battery-powered heating units being deployed to help Odessa’s Holocaust survivors survive this winter.
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The post One rabbi’s lifesaving solution to help Odessa’s vulnerable Jews: jerry-rigged car batteries appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New CD of Yiddish children’s songs by Vilna-born composer David Botwinik
A new CD was released this year of delightful Yiddish children’s songs, composed by the Vilna-born musician David Botwinik who died in 2022 at the age of 101.
The album, Zumer iz shoyn vider do, which translates to “Summer is finally here again”, was compiled by Botwinik’s son, Sender Botwinik. It features 36 tracks of melodies composed by David Botwinik set to the works of various Yiddish poets, including David Botwinik himself.
The text and music for most of the songs were originally published in Botwinik’s seminal songbook, From Holocaust to Life, published in 2010 by the League for Yiddish. On this new CD, these songs are brought to life through the voices of both children and adults, with Sender Botwinik on the piano; Ken Richmond on violin; Shira Shazeer on accordion, and Richmond and Shazeer’s son Velvel on trombone.
These recordings are valuable not only for people familiar with the Yiddish language and culture, but also for others looking for resources and inspiration. Singers, music teachers, choir conductors and Yiddish language students will find a treasure trove of songs about the Jewish holidays, family, nature and celebration.
Born in Vilna in 1920, composer David Botwinik’s life was filled with music and creativity from his earliest years. As a young child, he would walk with his father to hear the cantors at the Vilna shtotshul — the main synagogue in what is now Vilnius, Lithuania.
At age 11, he became a khazndl, a colloquial Yiddish term for a child cantor, performing in several synagogues in Vilna. At 12, he composed his first melodies. Later he undertook advanced musical study in Rome.
In 1956, he settled in Montreal, soon to become a leading figure in the city’s thriving Yiddish cultural scene. He worked as a music teacher, choir director, writer and publisher. As he wrote in From Holocaust to Life, he sought, most of all, to “encourage maintaining Yiddish as a living language.”
There are many standout pieces on the CD, but I want to point out several whose lyrics, in addition to the melody, were written by David Botwinik himself. “Zumer” (Summer), the first song on the recording, gives the CD its title. In a Zoom interview with Sender and his wife, Naomi, they said that “Zumer” won first prize in a Jewish song competition in Canada in 1975, and that he remembered singing in his father’s choir for the competition.
“Zumer” is a jaunty earworm that opens with a recording of David Botwinik reading the lyrics, followed by the song itself, performed by a magnificent chorus of children from four Yiddish-speaking families who met years ago at the annual Yiddish Vokh retreat in Copake, New York.
Another standout song is “Shabes-lid” (Sabbath Song) which David Botwinik’s grandchild Dina Malka Botwinik sings with a pure, other-worldly sound:
Sholem-aleykhem, shabes-lebn,
Brengen ru hot dikh Got gegebn,
Ale mide tsu baglikn,
Likht un freyd zey shikn.
“Sholem-aleykhem, shabes shenster,”
Shvebt a gezang durkh ale fentster,
Shabes shenster, shabes libster,
Tayerer, heyliker du.
Welcome, dear Shabbos,
Given by God to bring us rest,
To gladden those who are tired
To send them light and joy,
Welcome loveliest Shabbos,
The song drifts from every window.
Loveliest Shabbat, dearest Shabbos
Precious holy one.
Sender Botwinik’s website also includes a track of the same song recorded in the 1960s by the late Cantor Louis Danto. Both recordings are deeply moving.
As we enter the Hanukkah season, I’d like to point out my current favorite of Botwinik’s work, “Haynt iz khanike bay undz” (“Today is Our Holiday, Hanukkah”). Botwinik composed the words and music to this song shortly before his 99th birthday in December 2019.
On the CD, we hear him performing the song for his fellow residents at the assisted living facility Manoir King David, in Cote Saint-Luc, Montreal, with harmonies and accompaniment later added by his son. The lyrics are accessible and the melody is catchy, with clever compositional twists and turns.
This new CD is a beautiful homage to an extraordinary musician and a welcome addition to the world of Yiddish song.
To purchase the album, Zumer iz shoyn vider do, email info@botwinikmusic.com.
The post New CD of Yiddish children’s songs by Vilna-born composer David Botwinik appeared first on The Forward.
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Chicago Man Pleads Guilty to Battering Jewish DePaul University Students
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas protesters setting up an encampment at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on May 5, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Reuters Connect
A Chicago-area man has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge he incurred last year for beating up Jewish pro-Israel students participating in a demonstration at DePaul University.
On Nov. 6, 2024, Adam Erkan, 20, approached Max Long and Michael Kaminsky in a ski mask while shouting antisemitic epithets and statements. He then attacked both students, fracturing Kaminsky’s wrist and inflicting a brain injury on Long, whom he pummeled into an unconscious state.
Law enforcement identified Erkan, who absconded to another location in a car, after his father came forward to confirm that it was his visage which surveillance cameras captured near the scene of the crime. According to multiple reports, the assailant avoided severer criminal penalties by agreeing to plead guilty to lesser offenses than the felony hate crime counts with which he was originally charged.
His accomplice, described as a man in his age group, remains at large.
“One attacker has now admitted guilt for brutally assaulting two Jewish students at DePaul University. That is a step toward justice, but it is nowhere near enough,” The Lawfare Project, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group which represented the Jewish students throughout the criminal proceedings, said in a statement responding to the plea deal. “The second attacker remains at large, and Max and Michael continue to experience ongoing threats. We demand — and fully expect — his swift arrest and prosecution to ensure justice for these students and for the Jewish community harmed by this antisemitic hate crime.”
Antisemitic incidents on US college campuses have exploded nationwide since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Just last month, members of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter spilled blood and caused the hospitalization of at least one Jewish student after forcibly breaching a venue in which the advocacy group Students Supporting Israel had convened for an event featuring veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The former soldiers agreed to meet Students Supporting Israel (SSI) to discuss their experiences at a “private space” on campus which had to be reserved because the university denied the group a room reservation and, therefore, security personnel that would have been afforded to it. However, someone leaked the event location, leading to one of the most violent incidents of campus antisemitism in recent memory.
By the time the attack ended, three people had been rushed to a local medical facility for treatment of injuries caused by a protester’s shattering the glazing of the venue’s door with a drill bit, a witness, student Ethan Elharrar, told The Algemeiner during an interview.
“One of the individuals had a weapon he used, a drill bit. He used it to break and shatter the door,” Elharrar said. “Two individuals were transported to the hospital because of this. One was really badly cut all his arms and legs, and he had to get stitches. Another is afraid to publicly disclose her injuries because she doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”
The previous month, masked pro-Hamas activists nearly raided an event held on the campus of Pomona College, based in Claremont, California, to commemorate the victims of the Oct. 7. massacre.
Footage of the act which circulated on social media showed the group attempting to force its way into the room while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas dogma. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance.
Pomona College, working with its sister institutions in the Claremont consortium of liberal arts colleges in California (5C), later identified and disciplined some of the perpetrators and banned them from its campus.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, law enforcement personnel were searching for a man who trespassed the grounds of the Jewish Resource Center and kicked its door while howling antisemitic statements.
“F—k Israel, f—k the Jewish people,” the man — whom multiple reports describe as white, “college-age,” and possibly named “Jake” or “Jay” — screamed before running away. He did not damage the property, and he may have been accompanied by as many as two other people, one of whom shouted “no!” when he ran up to the building.
Around the same time, at Ohio State University, an unknown person or group tacked neo-Nazi posters across the campus which warned, “We are everywhere.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US Lawmakers Advance Bill to Designate Muslim Brotherhood as Terrorist Organization
US Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) talks with reporters outside a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the US Capitol on Dec. 20, 2024. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, continuing a bipartisan push in Washington to combat the global Islamist network.
Members of the committee voted to approve the bill on a bipartisan basis, with every Republican and several Democrats supporting the measure just over a week after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to determine whether to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
Notably, the legislation would require the US government to proscribe the Islamist network globally, while Trump’s order more narrowly directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report “on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan.”
The legislation considered on Wednesday was spearheaded by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
“I am pleased that my bill to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood globally as a terrorist organization has been approved by the full committee. This is a step in the right direction and further amplifies other efforts, like those of President Trump, to take decisive action against this insidious threat,” Diaz-Balart said in a statement.
“I thank Chairman [Rep. Brian Mast] for his leadership and the committee for advancing this bill to protect US national security interests and Americans by prohibiting US dollars from enabling the Muslim Brotherhood’s dangerous and pernicious activities while ensuring that MB members are blocked from entering the United States,” he continued.
Moskowitz similarly praised the committee for advancing the bill to a broader debate by the full House of Representatives.
“For decades, the Brotherhood has been tied to extremism and instability across the Middle East and around the world,” he said in a statement. “Other nations have already taken steps to investigate the Brotherhood and its affiliates, and the United States must have the authority to do the same.”
The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational movement active in some 70 countries that preaches a vision of society governed by Sharia law, has been banned or designated as a terrorist group by several governments, including those in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has long been affiliated with the Brotherhood, drawing both ideological inspiration and even personnel from its ranks.
The US House version of the bill blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood, HR 4397, was introduced in July. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the companion Senate bill, S 2293, backed by a group of Republican co-sponsors. Together, the measures aim to push the president and secretary of state to identify the Brotherhood and all its branches worldwide as terrorist entities, a move that supporters say would close longstanding gaps in US counterterrorism policy and more closely align Washington’s stance with that of key Middle Eastern allies.
The legislation would expand the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 to explicitly include the Muslim Brotherhood, blocking its network from operating in the United States and imposing broad visa bans on individuals tied directly or indirectly to any of its global branches. The bill would require the State Department to map out every affiliated group worldwide and assess each for formal terrorist designation, effectively placing the entire Brotherhood ecosystem under unprecedented US scrutiny.
The measure outlines a direct connection between the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological infrastructure and the terrorist groups it has inspired, including Hamas, whose terrorist activity remains at the forefront of US, Israeli, and European security concerns. Counterterrorism experts argue that targeting the Muslim Brotherhood’s sprawling network is an overdue step to combat the roots of Islamist extremism.
A recent report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) found that Qatar has funneled roughly $20 billion into American schools and universities over five decades as part of a coordinated, 100-year project to embed Muslim Brotherhood ideologies in the US.
The 200-page report, unveiled in Washington, DC to members of Congress, chronicles a 50-year effort by Brotherhood-linked groups to embed themselves in American academia, civil society, and government agencies, exposing what ISGAP calls the Brotherhood’s “civilization jihad” strategy, while maintaining an agenda fundamentally at odds with liberal democratic values.