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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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The post The US wants citizens to help Ukrainian refugees settle here. Jewish New Yorkers are stepping up. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Estimates US Blockade of Strait of Hormuz to Slash Iran Oil Exports by 80%
A vessel at the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Oman’s Musandam province, April 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS
As Iran struggles to rebuild damaged military and energy infrastructure amid the current ceasefire, Israel estimates that a US naval blockade of Iranian ports will slash the regime’s oil exports by roughly 80 percent, nearly severing one of Tehran’s last remaining economic lifelines.
According to Israeli security assessments, the US closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes — triggered an immediate and dramatic collapse in Iran’s revenue that will lead to a loss of more than $1 billion a month, Walla reported.
US President Donald Trump has claimed the regime is losing about $500 million a day as a result of the blockade. Some experts, such as Miad Maleki of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, have put the figure at roughly $450 million lost in daily economic activity for Iran.
Regardless of the specific amount, given that energy exports remain the backbone of the regime’s economy, what is left of oil revenues now amounts to little more than a fragile lifeline keeping Tehran temporarily afloat as financial pressure continues to mount.
Even with the naval blockade in place, Iranian authorities have managed to maintain a limited flow of exports by transporting oil from inland production fields to the Gulf of Oman through the multi-billion-dollar Gura–Jask pipeline, an overland route that moves roughly 300,000 barrels per day to global markets.
Israeli officials assess that the blockade and resultant shortfall for Tehran could set off a chain reaction of disruptions, including the shutdown of entire segments of the oil industry.
They also point to severe damage across Iran’s petrochemical and defense sectors, which together have cost an estimated 100,000 jobs at multiple levels, arguing that the cumulative impact is pushing the Iranian regime into a corner.
After repeated efforts to bring Iran back to the negotiating table, the Trump administration escalated pressure on Tehran earlier this month by imposing a naval blockade on vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports through the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to force a deal that would bring an end to the conflict.
Since the start of the war earlier this year, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors.
Iran has also signaled it intends to maintain control over the strategic shipping lane even after the war ends, potentially imposing transit fees framed as compensation for wartime damage.
After Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely on Tuesday to allow for renewed diplomatic efforts, it now remains to be seen whether Iran will agree to return to negotiations, as questions persist over whether both sides can bridge widening differences to restart talks.
According to The New York Times, US officials previously proposed a 20-year halt to Iranian uranium enrichment, which Iranian negotiators countered with a five-year suspension that Washington rejected. The White House has also reportedly insisted that Iran dismantle major enrichment sites and surrender more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
Even as the regime faces one of its most severe economic crises in decades, Iranian authorities have continued pouring billions into rebuilding military and nuclear infrastructure and supporting regional proxy forces, prioritizing strategic confrontation with Israel over urgent domestic needs such as the country’s worsening water crisis.
The regime has spent billions of dollars supporting its terrorist proxies across the Middle East and operations abroad, with the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit, funneling funds to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, in defiance of international sanctions.
According to the US Treasury Department, Iran provided more than $100 million per month to Hezbollah in 2025, with $1 billion representing only a portion of Tehran’s overall support for the terrorist group, using a “shadow financial system” to transfer funds to Lebanon.
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VIDEO: A creative way to make Yiddish come alive in the classroom
לעסלי טערנער, אַ גראַדויִר־סטודענטקע אין פּראָפֿ׳ אַנאַ שטערנשיסעס קלאַס בײַם טאָראָנטאָ־אוניווערסיטעט, האַלט בײַם פֿאַרענדיקן אַ מאַגיסטער אין ייִדיש־לימודים. זי האַלט, אַז זי — און אַנדערע ייִדיש־סטודענטן — קענען העלפֿן אױפֿהאַלטן די ייִדישע שפּראַך דורכן שאַפֿן נײַע ווערק אין ייִדיש.
מיט פֿינף יאָר צוריק האָט זי אָנגעהױבן שרײַבן און אינסצענירן ליאַלקע־שפּילן אױף ייִדיש. דאָס איז געװען דער אָנהײב פֿון אַ סעריע אויפֿפֿירונגען, ניצנדיק צוויי ליאַלקעס: אַ הײַפֿיש וואָס הייסט הײַפֿישעלע, און אַ פּיפּערנאָטער. יעדן זומער פֿירט זי אויף אַ ליאַלקע־שפּיל אויף דער „ייִדיש־וואָך“, אין איינעם מיטן שיקאַגער ייִדישיסט אַבֿי פֿריד.
לעצטנס האָט טערנער און אַ צווייטער סטודענט, גריים מײַערס, אויפֿגעפֿירט אַ נײַ־געשאַפֿענע ליאַלקע־שפּיל אין שטערנשיסעס קלאַס, פֿילמירט דורך צוויי אַנדערע סטודענטקעס מרים באָרדען און אליזה אַוטען. די פֿאָרשטעלונג, „הײַפֿישעלע און פּיפּערנאָטער קומען קײן ניו יאָרק“, האָט אַזאַ סיפּור־המעשׂה:
הײַפֿישעלע און פּיפּערנאָטער פֿאַרלאָזן זײער שטעטעלע און פֿאָרן קײן ניו־יאָרק, כּדי פּיפּערנאָטער זאָל קענען ממשיך זײַן זײַן קאַריערע ווי אַן אַקטיאָר. דאָס יאָר איז 1916 און די באַרימטע אַקטריסע בעסי טאָמאַשעפֿסקי פֿירט אָן מיט איר אײגענער טעאַטער־טרופּע. זי האָט נאָר װאָס געהאַט אַרױסגעגעבן איר לעבנס געשיכטע.
בעסי מוז אָבער קאָנקורירן מיט איר אומגעטרײַען מאַן, דעם באַרימטן אַקטיאָר באָריס טאָמאַשעפֿסקי, וואָס האָט אויך אַ טעאַטער־טרופּע. באַשליסט זי צו געבן פּיפּערנאָטער אַ ראָלע אין אַ ייִדישער איבערזעצונג פֿון שייקספּירס פּיעסע „האַמלעט“, וווּ זי אַליין שפּילט די הויפּטראָלע.
דאָס וואָס טערנער שרײַבט און פֿירט אויף ליאַלקע־שפּילן ווי אַ טייל פֿונעם ייִדיש־קלאַס קאָן טאַקע דינען ווי אַ מוסטער פֿאַר לערער און סטודענטן פֿון ייִדיש־קורסן איבער דער וועלט. ערשטנס, העלפֿט עס פֿאַרבעסערן די שפּראַך־פֿעיִקייטן פֿונעם מחבר, די ליאַלקע־שפּילער און די צוקוקערס. צווייטנס, קען עס אַרײַנברענגען אַ היימישע, חבֿרישע שטימונג אינעם ייִדיש־קלאַס.
— שׂרה־רחל שעכטער
The post VIDEO: A creative way to make Yiddish come alive in the classroom appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Competes in World Cheerleading Championships for First Time Ever
Israeli national flags flutter near office towers at a business park also housing high tech companies, at Ofer Park in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 27, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel is competing for the first time ever in the 2026 ICU World Cheerleading Championships.
The competition begins on Wednesday, which is also Israel’s Independence Day.
The ISCU, the official cheerleading organization in Israel that is supported by EL AL Airlines, made the announcement and posted footage on Instagram of the athletes and their final rehearsal before flying to the US for the competition, which will take place until Friday in Orlando, Florida. Ludmila Yasinskaya-Demari is the president of the Israel Cheer Union.
“Today, on Israel’s Independence Day, the Israeli cheerleading team has the honor of competing on the world stage,” the ISCU wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s a very moving and meaningful moment for us to represent Israel on such an important day — with pride, strength, and love for our country. Thank you to EL AL for supporting us in this way. There’s something symbolic and special about flying and competing with Israel’s national airline. From Israel to the world — the Israeli team is ready.”
The championship is being held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex at Disney World, and is organized by the International Cheer Union, the official world governing body for cheerleading. Israel is a member of the European Cheer Union and the International Cheer Union. It will compete in the POM category and in two doubles pairs competitions.
Team USA is after its ninth, consecutive co-ed premier world title at the World Cheerleading Championships. The US has won gold since 2021 and also won the competition from 2016 through 2019. The competition was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2015, the US came in second place behind Team Chinese Taipei. The US is also the defending champion in the All Girl Premier category.