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Jewish Life Carries on in Eastern Ukraine

Feb. 24 2017

Reporting from the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, not far from advancing Russian forces, Dovid Margolin describes the state of the local Jewish community, which lives with the constant sound of artillery fire in the background:

Just as the city continues to function, so, too, have Jewish communal activities continued, even strengthened. Mariupol’s Jewish preschool and day school haven’t skipped a day. . . . In the last few weeks, Mariupol has seen two circumcisions: one of a newborn boy [performed by the local rabbi]; and the other of a fifty-five-year-old man who over the last decade has become an active synagogue member after a life without participation in the Jewish community. The latter bris was performed by Rabbi Yaacov Gaissinovitch, formerly of separatist-occupied Donetsk, who today lives in Kiev and serves as the country’s leading mohel. . . .

Having been made cynical by the ongoing war of attrition, [Mariupol’s Jews] do not believe the background noise of heavy artillery will go away soon, much as they hope [it will]. . . . While the boom of rockets can be heard throughout the day, the main show . . . begins like clockwork at 4:45 pm.

Read more at Chabad.org

More about: Jewish World, Ukraine, Ukrainian Jews, War in Ukraine

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic