Connect with us

Uncategorized

With a dark winter looming in Ukraine, Jewish groups send generators and other support

(JTA) — Since Feb. 24, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Jewish groups from around the world have flooded the country with support, from food to medical care to evacuations.

Now, as temperatures fall and Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid ramp up, those groups are directing their efforts toward making sure that Ukrainian Jews can remain warm and safe in the coming months.

A Ukraine response group organized by the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement, whose rabbis are the Jewish leaders in many Ukrainian cities, is raising funds to buy hundreds of generators to equip each its sites and the homes of needy Jews with backup power. Since the war’s start, Chabad houses and synagogues have become places of refuge and distribution sites for aid.

“Everyone knows our address,” Rabbi Shaul Horowitz, who leads Chabad in Vinnytsia, told Chabad.org, the movement’s news site. “Now we need the generators.”

Meanwhile, Jewish Federations of North America on Thursday announced another $7 million infusion for the Ukraine effort, adding to the $78 million that the group and its member federations have donated already. The new funding will pay for both supplies to manage the dangerous winter ahead and to help Russian Jews move to Israel, as tens of thousands have already done this year. (Russian pressure on the group that facilitates emigration to Israel has complicated the efforts of those who are eligible for Israeli citizenship to leave.)

Through the JDC, a group that aids Jews in peril worldwide, the donation will go to buy blankets, clothing, portable heaters and stoves, shelf-stable foods and other emergency items that will go to roughly 22,000 Ukrainian Jews and the organizations that serve them.

“The winter forecast in Ukraine is extremely concerning, with the potential for an even graver humanitarian crisis, and our latest allocation reflects our attention to the evolving needs on the ground and our ongoing commitment to provide relief where it is most needed,” JFNA’s president and CEO, Eric Fingerhut, said in a statement.

The moves come as Ukraine’s electrical supply is under extreme pressure, with blackouts increasingly frequent because of Russian shelling that has targeted the civilian power infrastructure. The country has even crafted a plan to evacuate all the residents of Kyiv, in the event that the capital city, Ukraine’s biggest, loses all power. Even if it does not, much of Ukraine is planning for a winter when power, heat and hot water cannot be counted upon.

Already, cities are subject to intermittent power losses and restrictions on use. Chaya Wolff, who with her husband directs Chabad of Odessa, told Chabad.org that their city had just experienced a four-hour loss of power. The group plans to buy 49 commercial generators as well as hundreds of smaller generators meant for home use.

“No lights, no computers, no smart boards — we don’t have any street lamps in the city at night,” Wolff told the site. “We need four commercial generators urgently. And there are only two available for purchase locally, at tens of thousands of dollars each.”

The JDC has supported Ukrainian Jews during the bleak winter months for years. This year, the group says, it will be doubling its aid amid what CEO Ariel Zwang said was a “drastic uptick in needs.” With the support of not only Jewish federations but also the Claims Conference, which supports Holocaust survivors, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and its own individual donors, the group recently delivered firewood, coal, warm clothing and bedding to Jews, many of them elderly, living in the Dnipro region.

“As a new stage in the Ukraine crisis has begun, we have moved from a program of winter relief to winter survival,” Zwang said in a statement. “Our staff and volunteers have not stopped our life-saving services within Ukraine, along with those for refugees in Europe, and will continue to ensure that Jews and Jewish communities have the supplies they need to survive the coming months.”


The post With a dark winter looming in Ukraine, Jewish groups send generators and other support appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’ 

It’s not every day that a kosher dill pickle puppet gets a chance to learn some Yiddish.

Monty Pickle, star of the children’s series The Monty Pickle Show, recently joined Rukhl Schaechter, host of the Forward’s YouTube series Yiddish Word of the Day, for an episode teaching viewers the Yiddish words for various wild animals.

Or as they’re called in Yiddish: vilde khayes.

The Monty Pickle Show, a puppet comedy on YouTube and TikTok, aims to show young viewers what it means to be Jewish in a fun, lively way. The series was created by the Emmy Award-winning producers of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.

So far, he’s met a number of Jewish personalities, including rabbis, musicians and chefs, and explored holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover.

Sitting alongside Rukhl during the lesson, Monty eagerly tries to guess what each word means, providing for some very funny moments.

 

The post Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’  appeared first on The Forward.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria

Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24

i24 NewsIsrael Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.

The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.

The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”

Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.

IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

i24 NewsThe US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.

US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.

Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.

The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.

The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.

Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News