Jews Who Fled Donetsk Are Again in Harm’s Way
Ukrainian Jews who fled to Mariupol to escape their country’s brutal civil war may have to uproot themselves again as the Ukrainian Army prepares to defend the southeastern coastal city, a local Chabad emissary told The Jerusalem Post.
More than 100 families from Donetsk, one of the primary centers of the Moscow- backed insurgency, have arrived in Mariupol in recent weeks, according to Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski.
The leader of Donetsk’s Jewish community, Vishedski had vowed to stay in the city as long as any of his constituents remained, but was forced to leave when the water supply was cut and electricity became intermittent.
His colleague and fellow Chabad emissary, Rabbi Shalom Gopin of Luhansk, led a similar exodus, bringing many of his congregants to a camp for internally displaced Jews in the northwestern city of Zhitomir.
There are several hundred Jews left in Donetsk and potentially as many as a 1,000, out of a prewar community of 11,000, Vishedski told the Post during a telephone interview from Mariupol on Sunday.
