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The US wants citizens to help Ukrainian refugees settle here. Jewish New Yorkers are stepping up.
(New York Jewish Week) — A year ago, Diana and Vitalii Nakonechnyi never expected that they and their two young kids would be living in Riverdale, a leafy neighborhood in the Bronx. Then again, they also never expected a war would force them to evacuate their hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
“We heard it was a possibility, but we never would have expected this to happen in our lives,” Diana told the New York Jewish Week via a translator. “And we never thought we’d ever live in as big of a city as New York.”
The Nakonechnyis, a family unit of five — including Vitalii’s mother — are among the nearly 100,000 refugees who have fled Ukraine for the United States since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
They first went to Poland, then stayed in Germany through the summer. There, they heard via Telegram, a global messaging service, that HIAS and other refugee resettlement agencies like it were helping bring people to the United States. HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, was created in 1881 to aid Jewish refugees fleeing Eastern Europe. In recent years, however, HIAS has pivoted to resettling non-Jewish refugees, as well as mobilizing the American Jewish community around advocating for immigrants and asylum-seekers.
As it turns out, the Nakonechnyi family were not resettled directly by HIAS or another refugee resettlement organization — a process that can often take years due to bureaucratic red tape. Instead, they were among a growing cohort of arrivals who were greeted at the airport, set up in new homes and introduced to life in the United States by trained “Welcome Circles,” a private sponsorship group, enlisted by HIAS, that consists of everyday Americans who volunteer to help resettle a refugee family. Within the span of just a few weeks, with the assistance of local community members, the Nakonechnyi family settled in the Bronx at the end of September 2022.
“Nobody really believed that there would be some help on the other side, that everything would be taken care of with housing and airline tickets,” Diana said. “Little by little, we are adjusting.”
The Northwest Bronx Coalition — the Welcome Circle of around 10 individuals that has helped welcome the Nakonechnyis in Riverdale — is largely made up of members from local congregations: Riverdale Temple, Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale, Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and Congregation Tehillah. It’s the latest iteration of how Jews, once refugees themselves, are now using their expertise and experience to resettle others.
“Ukraine is so pivotal in so many of our own histories and our own refugee stories, said Holly Rosen Fink, the president of the Westchester Jewish Coalition for Immigration who, working with HIAS, helps organize and mobilize Welcome Circles. “Nine times out of 10, when you ask [Jewish] people in Westchester where their families are from, it’s usually that part of the world. So it stirred a lot of people’s hearts.”
Welcome Circles like the Northwest Bronx Coalition are made up of five to eight community members who have committed themselves to accommodating and resettling a refugee family for the first six months of their time in the United States. These volunteers handle everything a resettlement agency would: helping secure housing and employment, organizing medical appointments and bills, and smoothing over any other logistics required in the transition to a new country. The groups commit to raising $2,275 for each person they are going to help resettle.
Leading the Northwest Bronx group is Irina Kimmelfeld, who came to the United States when she was 13 as an emigre from the Soviet Union in 1988. “I did feel that I was in more of a unique situation to help because I have the language and some degree of commonality of experience right from that same region,” Kimmelfeld told the New York Jewish Week. “But it really came from feeling so helpless about the war and needing to be able to do something.”
Kimmelfeld, an accountant, has been translating for the Nakonechnyis, helping them find and furnish an apartment, guiding them through public transportation, finding a house of worship (the family is Ukrainian Baptist) and showing them around the city. She’s also helped with social and medical services for Diana, who is eight months pregnant, and her son Filipp, who has special needs.
For Rosen Fink, resettling non-Jewish refugees is undoubtedly a Jewish issue. “After visiting a [refugee] camp during the Syrian refugee crisis, I just became determined to not let that happen again to anybody, not just Jewish people,” she said. “So, for me, it’s a very ingrained issue.”
Rosen Fink operates as a liaison between HIAS and New York Jewish communities, encouraging members to join these Welcome Circles in honor of their Jewish values. “We’ve been going into the community, finding the people that want to step up and giving them the tools and the resources and funding to connect with HIAS and start hosting a family,” Rosen Fink said. “We inspire people to do this work because we see this through a Jewish lens because of our history and values.”
Until recently, Welcome Circles such as the Northwest Bronx Coalition were considered part of an emergency government response towards the Afghan and Ukrainian refugee crises, and not an official resettlement policy in the United States. But as of Jan. 19, the Biden Administration announced the implementation of the “Welcome Corps,” a federally backed private sponsorship program in which refugee resettlement agencies will be able to train American citizens to help resettle refugees on a long-term basis with route to citizenship — a departure from the emergency response programs which only offered short-term, humanitarian parole.
The Welcome Corps, which the New York Times called “most significant reorientation of the U.S. refugee program since its inception more than four decades ago,” will allow an increased number of refugees to resettle in the United States for less of a cost to the government.
As such, programs like HIAS’s Welcome Circles will become an even more common way to resettle more refugees more quickly. In the last 18 months, HIAS has helped establish 80 Welcome Circles in 17 states. In New York City and Westchester, 15 of HIAS’s Welcome Circles have assisted in the resettlement of more than 50 refugees.
“It’s an exciting program that’s is opening up the opportunity for many more volunteers on the ground to get involved with supporting refugee resettlement in areas where they might not have resettlement agencies, or where resettlement agencies do not have the capacity to bring in the people themselves,” said Isabel Burton, the senior director of community engagement initiatives at HIAS.
For now, the Nakonechnyis are still getting used to the city, which is a lot bigger than their hometown (Kharkiv’s population is approximately 1.4 million). They’re not sure yet if New York will be their permanent home — the idea of planning for the future, Diana said, feels like it has been taken away from them.
“You do feel helpless — and this is something you can do,” Kimmelfeld said. “You can’t help everybody but you can make a difference for one family.”
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Israeli Security Cabinet to Discuss Possible Lebanon Ceasefire, Senior Official Says
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Lebanon. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Israel’s security cabinet will convene on Wednesday to discuss a possible Lebanon ceasefire, a senior Israeli official said, more than five weeks into a war with Hezbollah that spiraled out of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet will meet at 8 pm (1700 GMT), the official said.
Senior Hezbollah official Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters that diplomatic efforts by Iran and other regional states could produce a ceasefire soon, saying Tehran had used its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as leverage.
Two other senior Lebanese officials said they had been briefed that efforts were underway for a ceasefire. One of them said the US had been pressuring Israel to work toward a ceasefire in Lebanon, including during rare talks between Israeli and Lebanese government envoys in Washington on Tuesday.
Israel’s offensive in Lebanon began on March 2 after the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah opened fire at Israel in support of Tehran. It has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.2 million from their homes, according to Lebanese authorities. Most of those killed have been Hezbollah terrorists, according to Israeli tallies.
US President Donald Trump earlier said the war with Iran could end soon, telling the world to watch out for an “amazing two days,” while US forces imposing a blockade turned back vessels leaving Iranian ports.
On Tuesday, the United States hosted the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades. Israel had ruled out discussion of a ceasefire with Lebanon during those talks.
Trump has urged Israel to scale back attacks in Lebanon, apparently to avoid undermining the ceasefire with Iran.
Iran has said Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any agreement to end the wider war in the Middle East. Washington has pushed back, saying there is no link between the two sets of talks.
The two Lebanese officials did not have details on when any ceasefire would begin or how long it would last. They said the duration would likely be linked to how long a truce between the United States and Iran holds.
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Trump Says Iran War ‘Close to Over’; Army Chief of Mediator Pakistan Arrives in Tehran
US President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on, as they attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Jan. 9, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump said the war with Iran was close to over, telling the world to brace for an “amazing two days,” as the army chief of mediator Pakistan arrived in Tehran in a bid to prevent a renewed conflict.
The diplomatic push came as US and Iranian officials weighed a return to Pakistan for further talks after negotiations there ended on Sunday without a breakthrough.
Pakistan‘s military confirmed Field Marshal Asim Munir had arrived in Tehran. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Munir, who had mediated the last round of talks, was heading to Iran “to narrow gaps” between the two sides.
“I think you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead,” Trump told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, according to a post by the reporter on X, adding he did not think it would be necessary to extend a two-week ceasefire that expires next week.
“I think it’s close to over, yeah. I mean I view it as very close to over,” Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network conducted Tuesday and broadcast Wednesday. “We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly.”
Officials from Pakistan, Iran, and Gulf states also said both sides could return to Islamabad in coming days.
The talks last weekend broke down without an agreement to end the war, which Trump launched alongside Israel on Feb. 28, triggering Iranian attacks on Iran‘s Gulf neighbors and reigniting a conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trump‘s optimism lifted global stocks towards record highs. Oil prices – having fallen on Tuesday and in early Wednesday trade – were slightly up at around $95 per barrel, after the US said its blockade of Iranian ports had halted seaborne trade in and out of Iran.
TANKERS INTERCEPTED
The US military said it was turning back more vessels, including the US-sanctioned, Chinese-owned tanker Rich Starry which was seen heading back through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.
A US destroyer stopped two oil tankers attempting to leave the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday, a US official said.
An Iranian supertanker subject to US sanctions crossed the strait towards Iran‘s Imam Khomeini port despite the blockade, Iran‘s Fars News agency said on Wednesday. Fars did not identify the tanker or give further details of its voyage.
While Iran and the United States appear so far to have avoided a major confrontation at sea since the United States began its blockade on Monday, Tehran has said it would retaliate against military action.
Iran‘s joint military command warned it would halt trade flows in the Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea – which connects to the Suez Canal – if the US blockade continued.
Trump has also threatened to escalate if the war resumes. He told Fox Business Network: “We could take out every one of their bridges in one hour. We could take out every one of their power plants, electric power plants, in one hour. We don’t want to do that … so we’ll see what happens.”
RETURN TO ISLAMABAD
Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that his negotiators were likely to return to Pakistan, thanks largely to the “great job” army chief Munir was doing to moderate the talks.
Speaking later at an event in Georgia, Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation at last weekend’s talks, said Trump wanted to make a “grand bargain” with Iran but there was a lot of mistrust between the two countries.
Iran‘s nuclear ambitions were a key sticking point at last weekend’s talks. The US had proposed a 20-year suspension of all nuclear activity by Iran – an apparent concession from longstanding demands for a permanent ban – while Tehran had suggested a halt of 3 to 5 years, according to people familiar with the proposals.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said the length of any moratorium on Iranian uranium enrichment was a political decision and suggested Iran might accept a compromise as a confidence-building measure.
Washington has also pressed for any enriched nuclear material to be removed from Iran, while Tehran has demanded that international sanctions against it be lifted.
One source involved in the talks said back-channel talks had made progress in narrowing gaps, bringing the two sides closer to a deal that could be put forward at a new round of talks.
Complicating peace efforts, Israel has continued to attack Lebanon as it targets Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Israel and the US say that campaign is not covered by the ceasefire, while Iran insists it is.
Israel’s security cabinet will convene late on Wednesday to discuss a possible Lebanon ceasefire, a senior Israeli official told Reuters, after Israeli and Lebanese officials held rare talks in Washington a day earlier.
FALLOUT OF THE WAR
The war has prompted Iran to effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz – a vital artery for global crude and gas shipments – to ships other than its own, sharply reducing exports from the Gulf, particularly to Asia and Europe, and leaving energy importers scrambling for alternative supplies.
The oil market also faces further tightening, as the US does not plan to renew a 30-day waiver of sanctions on Iranian oil at sea that expires this week, according to US officials.
An estimated 5,000 people, civilians and combatants, have been killed in the fighting, including about 3,000 in Iran and 2,000 in Lebanon.
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A farewell to Hampshire College, site of my Yiddish awakening
Zay gezunt Hampshire College. That’s where as an undergrad student worker, I first studied Yiddish at the OG Yiddish Book Center of Amherst, Massachusetts, down the road from the genteel Lord Jeffrey Inn, across the street from uber-sensitive poet lady Emily Dickinson’s alte heym.
In nearby Holyoke, in an old mill turned Yiddish book storage loft, away from the genius of Dickinson’s dybbuk, I earned my way shelving the Book Center’s staggering amounts of the collected works of Sholem Aleichem — most likely purchased as a subscriber premium by turn of the century Forverts readers — and only surpassed by the unspeakable numbers of Yiddish volumes of Guy De Maupassant. I hoisted those onto shelves as well while getting educated about Nico and the Velvet Underground which blared from speakers. Back in the 1980’s that was multitasking.
And dayge nisht, no worries — I got my klezmer awakening there too, via a Walkman and audio cassettes while laboring as a photo history slide librarian for my advisor and favorite professor, filmmaker Abraham Ravett, who is set to retire next month (can you retire if your workplace closes?).
Splayed out across acres of stunning apple orchards that once belonged to the Stiles family, Hampshire College had neither a Hillel chapter nor a Chabad nor any organized sports nor fraternities — but there was a coed sauna, plenty of rolfing on the snow outside said sauna, a successful student run food coop, an acclaimed ultimate frisbee team and a beloved outdoor program that led to my first heron sightings just like in the movie On Golden Pond.
It also had Len Glick, Elvis’ former induction physician who co-taught modern Jewish history, along with his younger historian colleague Aaron Berman, whose office door was anointed with a poster that offered a Marxist view of baseball. It was 1984 and I was hot off seeing Streisand’s film version of Yentl. I’d polished off most of Bashevis’ tomes back home, memorized my Bubby’s photo album of Eastern European Jewry as envisioned in Visniac’s A Vanished World, and collided into Marlene Booth’s documentary about the Yiddishists of Raananah who took up space in an audacious dream of a utopian summer community in Orange County, New York. Tayere Leyener, dear reader, that’s all it took.
I knew my final paper was going to be about women and Yiddish. Well, I recall Len saying, if you want to investigate Bashevis’ inspiration for his Yentl and research women writers and women’s lives in Yiddish, you’re going to have to learn Yiddish; there isn’t much about that available in translation. Why don’t you go over to the Yiddish Book Center, he continued, and talk to them. And just like that, I found myself on the top floor of an old elementary school in Amherst, spending evenings learning Yiddish and my days trying to grasp enough of it to complete my assignment.
I’d love to tell you that just like Yentl, I too spent hours bent over tomes, deep in study, but as previously disclosed, Hampshire had much to distract and much to offer. And besides, I had books to shelve, boxes to unpack and roads to travel, joining the center’s trips to pick up YET MORE Yiddish books. My mazel was that Hampshire hosted the Book Center’s first summer seminars. Once longtime staffer Frieda Howards and I finished inspecting attendees’ dorm rooms, making sure the beds had hospital corners, I was warmly invited to attend lectures.
Hampshire hosted artists and activists like Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman. When Hampshire alum and Yiddish Book Center founder Aron Lansky talked about him, he highlighted all the Yiddish influences in Hoffman’s Steal This Book, as well as the Yiddish-inflected tensions of the Chicago 7 trials. All this came to a head when I met Yiddish lesbian poet, child survivor and hero to Jewish feminists Irena Klepfisz. A Bundist descendant, keeper of the flame, she — vu den — called a hastily gathered group into action. If we wanted Yiddish women’s writing to be translated, we were the translating liberators we were waiting for, so to speak. It was on us.
Tayere leyner/dear reader, I could, like so many Yiddish authors, go on in depth without so much as a break for a comma or a paragraph, such was the depth of my mazel at Hampshire. Ok, a bisl more. There was the weekend trip with Lansky and local poet and Book Center staffer Gene Zeiger to the Newport Folk Festival to hear Joan Baez sing. There was the summer Yiddish genius Naomi Seidman was a fellow at the Book Center — thanks to Seidman, that was my summer of Nico, the Velvet Underground, of reading Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and much much more. That was the summer I interned for the filmmaker Marlene Booth who was making a film about that Yiddish newspaper everyone talked about, the one I recalled picking up for my bubby. I spent time in my cooperative household on campus, bent over an audio transcription machine, typing out interview after interview with Forverts readers, spellbound by their love for it and activism on its behalf as it fell on hard times.
And reader, though Hampshire will likely close for good, you and I now know that if not for Hampshire College, where now upon a nice parcel of that former apple orchard sits the Yiddish Book Center in all its well earned koved, I and many like me, would not spend our days bending over our morgue of Forverts photos, back issues and more, reaching back over time to keep remembering our past and making it available for future generations.
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