Under Heavy Security, Zelensky Joins Shluchim at Babyn Yar Memorial

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined rabbonim, shluchim and representatives of dozens of countries on Tuesday at a memorial ceremony marking 85 years since the Babyn Yar massacre near Kyiv.

The ceremony commemorated the tens of thousands murdered at Babyn Yar during the Nazi occupation. On September 29 and 30, 1941, German SS and police units and their auxiliaries murdered 33,771 Jews at the site in just two days. Mass killings at Babyn Yar continued during the following two years.

The gathering took place amid heightened security as Kyiv continues to face Russian missile and drone attacks. Among those attending were representatives of numerous countries, including Israel and the G7 nations.

A number of rabbonim and Chabad shluchim from across Ukraine participated in the ceremony, including Rabbi Moshe Asman and his son Rabbi Israel Asman; Kyiv Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch and his son Rabbi Dov-Ber Markovitch; Rabbi Motti Levenhartz and his wife, Rebbetzin Devorah Leah Levenhartz; Rabbi Shalom Dovber Gopin; Vinnytsia Chief Rabbi Shaul Horowitz; Berdychiv Chief Rabbi Moshe Tahler; and Rabbi Mendy Alperin of Zhytomyr.

During the memorial, El Malei Rachamim was recited in memory of the victims, Rabbi Markovitch recited a chapter of Tehillim, and Rabbi Levenhartz recited Kaddish.

For Rabbi Motti Levenhartz and Rebbetzin Devorah Leah Levenhartz, who have served the Jewish community in Kyiv for nearly 30 years, this year’s commemoration had a particularly personal significance. Rebbetzin Levenhartz’s great-grandmother, Sonia Posner, was among the Jews murdered at Babyn Yar.

Sonia lived in Romny, in Ukraine’s Sumy region. Her husband, Rabbi Yitzchak-Zalman, had been murdered several years before World War II. At some point, Sonia made her way to Kyiv, where she was later taken to Babyn Yar and murdered.

“Grandmother Sonia was murdered in her fifties. We were unable to find a photograph of her, but we recently located a testimony at Yad Vashem containing her details,” Rebbetzin Levenhartz said. “It turns out that before her murder, she lived not far from where we ourselves lived, and she now gets to be part of the thriving Jewish community we established as emissaries of the Rebbe. It is almost impossible to comprehend.”

Rabbi Levenhartz said that the family’s story underscored for him the Rebbe’s approach to commemorating the kedoshim of the Holocaust.

“When rabbis suggested to the Rebbe adding an empty chair around the Seder table in memory of the six million who perished in the Holocaust, he said: ‘Instead of adding an empty chair, we need to seat another Jew around the table.’

“That is my motto, and that is the most meaningful form of remembrance, to make sure that the synagogues here are filled with Jews,” Rabbi Levenhartz said. “This year, marking 85 years, it was important to me to participate in addition to the activities we carry out in her memory.”

President Zelensky also addressed the gathering, speaking about the memory of the massacre and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The commemoration came just days after 14-year-old Daniel Umansky was killed in a Russian drone strike on his family’s home in Kyiv. According to organizers, Zelensky was briefed at the event by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine on arrangements to bring Daniel’s body to Eretz Yisroel for kevurah.

The 85th anniversary of the massacre is being marked in Kyiv with a series of memorial, educational and historical events centered around Babyn Yar.