Lifeline for Ukraine’s Jews
WITH the recent civil unrest in Ukraine, representatives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) have been helping some 70,000 elderly Jews affected by the street violence in Kiev, according to the JDC’s senior executive of international affairs Asher Ostrin, who has been visiting Australia this week.
Security for Ukrainian Jews became even more critical with news that the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia in eastern Ukraine had been firebombed on Sunday night. The facade of the shul, which opened in 2012, was damaged, but there were no injuries.
Reflecting on the impact of the violence on the elderly, Ostrin told The AJN, “These are generally people who have low pensions, who are house-bound and need home care, because the social safety net there is quite weak.
“It’s difficult for home-care workers to move around. When you go out in the streets now, it’s not safe,” he said.
Additionally, basic prices have risen between 10 and 15 per cent, while pensions have not been adjusted, and in some areas, pension payments have stopped due to the crisis.
Ostrin said elderly Jews have been hit hard by only sporadic supplies of hospital equipment, especially imported items, which have dwindled since the civil unrest erupted about three months ago. “We’ve put together mobile crews of volunteers to make sure that every one of those 70,000 people who get support is regularly contacted to find out if they have any particular needs,” he said.
“People who live in areas that are particularly threatened, such as downtown Kiev, we’ve tried to move them to safer areas. Home-care workers are making sure they have transportation.”
Chesed centres are ensuring that patients are receiving required medications, even if local pharmacies have stopped supplying, he said.
More generally, he is upbeat about the rise in self-confidence among young Jewish Russians and nationals of other former Soviet territories, who are identifying with their Judaism in a post-communist society.
This reawakening has been furthered by JDC’s Hillel youth centres, family retreats, Jewish education, and local leadership development, he said.
“When we think of Eastern Europe, we think of pogroms, persecution, Nazis and communists. Now the picture is of singing, smiling and studying.”
Ostrin is in Australia to rally support for JDC and to hold discussions with the Joint Australia, through which Australians can become directly involved in Russian and Eastern European Jewry’s renaissance.
For further information, visit www.jdcaustralia.org.
PETER KOHN
Asher Ostrin
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