JTA
Typical scene on the streets of Donetsk, Ukraine.

Hundreds of Jewish Families Stuck in Ukraine War-Zone for High Holidays

Hundreds of Jewish families are staying in the flashpoint eastern Ukraine cities of Donetsk and Mariupol and will spend Rosh Hashanah there. The families are hoping for an extended calm after the signing of a cease-fire agreement reached last week between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militias, said the chief rabbi of Donetsk, Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski.

“Hundreds left, but hundreds remain in Mariupol and elsewhere in the hope that the cease-fire holds and ushers the region into a period of calm,” Vishedski said.

There have been ongoing efforts to evacuate Jews from eastern Ukraine. Chabad and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, among other groups, have helped thousands leave Donetsk, Lugansk and Mariupol and other areas to safer parts of the country because of deadly fighting between government troops and pro-Russian militiamen, the fellowship’s founder, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, told JTA on Wednesday.

More than a dozen Jews have died in the fighting, which has claimed hundreds of lives, Eckstein said.

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One Comment

  • wow

    wow what is going on around here Heshem as we Jewish people we all gotta wake up ourselves this is crazy and we need Moshaich now