Surprise in Khmelnytskyi: After 100 Years, a New Mikvah has been Inaugurated in Western Ukraine
Jews of the Khmelnytskyi district in Ukraine celebrated the opening of a new mikvah after a year and three months of massive construction. The dedication of the mikvah took place 100 years after the previous mikvah fell out of use.
“The construction lasted a year and three months,” says Rabbi Yosef Teitelbaum, who serves as district rabbi and Chabad emissary together with his wife Mrs. Mussi. “The situation on the ground hastened the construction of the mikvah, due to the difficulties experienced by local Jewish families in traveling to other cities because of the current situation along with the dangers on the roads. We also had to deal with a surge in the price of construction materials.”
According to estimates, there are currently two thousand Jews living in the district, with whom the Jewish community and Rabbi Teitelbaum are in contact. The Jews are scattered throughout the nine cities of the district: Shepetivka, Izyaslav, Netishyn, Polonne, Kam’yanets’-Podil’s’kyi, Donitsi, Horodok, Starokostiantyniv, Slavuta and the central community in the capital of the district – the city of Khmelnytskyi. The new mikvah will be used by all Jewish families and will increase purity in the city and district.
‘Mikvah Yehudit’, named after Mrs. Judith Teitelbaum OBM, was built with the assistance of the Rohr family and Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Rabbi of the city of Dnipro Shmuel Kaminetzky, the JRNU headed by Rabbi David Mondshine and Rabbi Shlomo Peles, Rabbinical Center Europe, the Meromim Foundation, the Lubavitcher Mikvah Builders Organization, the Federation of Jewish Communities and many donors from the circle of friends of Chabad House of Khmelnytskyi. The construction of the mikvah was planned by Rabbi Shmuel Levin and supervised by Rabbi Chaim Eliyahu Gluchovsky. The building was supervised by mikvah expert Rabbi Daniel Lanau.
