Despite reports of impending war, shluchim are determined to remain with the 20,000+ members of the Jewish community in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
By Anash.org reporter
Despite reports of impending war, shluchim are determined to remain with the 20,000+ members of the Jewish community in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
One such shliach is Rabbi Chaim Chazan, head of the Lubavitch Yeshiva in Dnipro. Originally from Manchester UK, Rabbi Chaim Chazan has lived in Dnipro for nine years with his wife Rivky and their seven children.
“We are still here and the community is running as normal,” Rabbi Chazan told the Jewish Telegraph, a Manchester-base paper, who interviewed him for the local connection. “I was at a Jewish wedding this week. Not a single member of the Jewish community has left of their own volition. We will not leave the Jewish community here behind.”
Rabbi Chazan added, “The local media is not reporting on the situation too much, but I am aware that there is a lot of propaganda on both sides. It is hard to know what — or who — to trust. We are part of the Jewish community here. We have yeshivot, a boys’ school, a girls’ school, a mixed school, old aged homes, everything.”
The Chazan family also lived through the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian War. “We saw a lot of upheaval,” Rabbi Chazan told the Jewish Telegraph. This time, however, the Ukrainian army “has improved” — and contains Jewish soldiers, one of whom sits next to Rabbi Chazan in his synagogue.
“It is worrying, even if nothing is actually happening yet on the ground,” he added.
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