The Jews of Donetsk still living in the midst of Ukraine's ongoing armed conflict
Keeping Jewish life alive is a daily struggle for the local community of 3,000 in a city held by pro-Russian militants.
Before the war came, the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk was home to a thriving community of 15,000 Jews.
This was a place where organisations like Chabad, Israel’s Jewish Agency and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), among others, were all active.
But when pro-Russian militants, backed by the Russian army, took control of the city and other parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014, Donetsk became a war zone, a site of constant artillery shelling and heavy fighting.
Led by Donetsk’s rabbi Pinchas Vishedski, the community organised the evaculation of young families to western parts of the country.
Refugees were housed in hotels and summer camps around Kyiv in the hope that the fighting would end soon. When that did not happen, Rabbi Vishedski started a community in the Ukrainian capital. Others moved to Israel and Germany.
But up to 3,000 Jews did not leave Donetsk.
For more read: https://www.thejc.com/news/world/the-jews-of-donetsk-still-living-in-the-midst-of-ukraine-s-ongoing-armed-conflict-1.481312
Semyon Dovzhik
