Children are still at the beginning of a long journey A group of 140 Jewish refugee orphans and staff from Chabad’s Alumim orphanage in Zhitomir, Ukraine, arrived in the middle of the night in Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg) Romania after a grueling journey, where they were warmly welcomed by the Jewish community. Rabbi Dovber Orgad and his […]

Students from Zhitomir and Dnieper make it across the border As Ukraine descends into a humanitarian nightmare, Chabad-Lubavitch across the beleaguered nation is working day and night to evacuate the most vulnerable community members. In Zhitomir, which is currently suffering continued shelling, according to Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm, director of Chabad of Zhitomir, who has stayed […]

Some are fleeing and some remain, but all are terrified As deadly rocket assaults on Kiev (Kyiv) accelerated and the prospect of street fighting between Ukrainian defenders and advancing Russian troops became more likely, leaders of the Kiev Jewish community—speaking through third parties who said they did not know the community leaders’ locations—pleaded for prayers. […]

Entire city is shut down; Jews ask for prayers As the sixth day of the Ukraine conflict is coming to a close, the fighting is only intensifying. Kherson, a city of 290,000 people only 100 miles east of the Crimean Peninsula, is totally shut down, Chabad-Lubavitch of Kherson director Rabbi Yosef Y. Wolff tells Chabad.org […]

As Shabbat began in Kyiv, eighty of us were in the Chabad House. We sang Kabbalat Shabbat as a community with the sound of exploding bombs ringing in our ears. We ate the Shabbat meal and tried to get some rest; but by 3:00 a.m., the explosions were growing closer, and sleep was impossible.  On […]

“When my father died a few years ago, I didn’t know where to turn,” says Daren Burney. “I’m not religious and don’t belong to a synagogue.”  At the time, his daughters were taking Bat Mitzvah classes with Mrs. Devorah Sufrin of ​​Chabad Lubavitch North East London & Essex so Burney decided to call her husband, […]

Reports identified the deceased as Roman Brodsky, a father of two A Jewish man in his 40s was killed today while attempting to flee Ukraine for Moldova. The man, identified as 41-year-old Roman Brodsky, an Israeli citizen and father of two, was killed when his car—part of a 12-person, two-car convoy headed to Moldova—was fired […]

Chabad-Lubavitch has evacuated hundreds of Jewish community’s ‘most vulnerable’ westward As soon as the war in Ukraine broke out on Thursday, Chabad-Lubavitch of Zhitomir began working overtime to arrange for the children in their orphanage and educational institutions to flee to safer ground. “I’m in the bunker right now, ” Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm told Chabad.org […]