Buses stand ready to evacuate residents as they pray for a humanitarian corridor
Rabbi Mendel Cohen got a call late last week from an elderly Jewish woman in Mariupol, the besieged southeastern port city that has been cut off from the rest of Ukraine. She needed a bit of help and hope, she said. The rabbi, who has been aiding community members since the war began, immediately sent her money to assist with expenses. Then her daughter, who lives in Israel, called him and shared more details; her mother was bombed out of her house, and she was out of food.
“But her mother didn’t tell me that,” said Cohen, who with his wife, Esther, are co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mariupol. “I told her daughter her mother should go to my house; we have a basement, there are other people staying there already, and some food.” Cohen also tried to send the older woman a message via SMS, but he still doesn’t know if it got through.
With no food, water, gas or electricity, the circumstances in Mariupol have quickly turned dire.
“Our city is a battlefield,” he explained. “Even going 50 meters [about 150 feet] is dangerous. It’s a humanitarian crisis.”
The rabbi and his family were in Israel for reasons unrelated to the war when fighting began and Mariupol was sealed off. Traveling between Israel and Romania, through which many Jewish refugees have been traversing on their way out of Ukraine, Cohen has been constantly working the phones and trying to do what he can from afar. He estimates that at least 3,000 Jews live in the besieged city, though he isn’t sure how many remain there now.
“I am in constant touch with people from many cities in the region, not just Mariupol,” he said. “We spoke with some Holocaust survivors the other day; we’re trying to give people hope. That we didn’t forget about them. We have 220 Jewish families in Israel looking for some word of their relatives in Mariupol.”
While electricity remains shut off and people are hunkering down in the heavily damaged city, even getting in touch has been difficult. Cohen did hear very, very briefly from some community members on Sunday who have managed to get cell-phone reception or via a social-media app. They told him that they are desperate to get out.
“Right now, there is no humanitarian corridor to evacuate people. We’re praying it opens immediately. We have buses ready and people to guide us; I am just waiting for the green light from the government. It’s been a frustrating few days,” he said.
So far, negotiations for a humanitarian corridor out of Mariupol have gone nowhere, and the city continues to descend into a nightmare.“We want so much to help, but we cannot,” the emotional rabbi said.
“We need your prayers,” he added. “We are in the month of Adar”—a month of joy—“and we know that the big miracle is about to come, but for the moment, I cannot see a way out to get them out. We are waiting for that miracle.”
The Ukraine Jewish Relief Fund has been established to help provide assistance to the Jewish communities in Ukraine impacted by the war.
Click here for a prayer you can say and a list of good deeds you can do in the merit of the protection of all those in harm’s way.
