Ukrainian Jews, scarred by a bloody history, find themselves refugees once again

By Cnaan Liphshitz from JTA | Times of Israel.. Jews from Odessa are heading to Moldova whose capital, Chisinau, was the site of a major pogrom that became a symbol of Jewish flight from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century.

“Across Ukraine, Jews are engaging in a historically Jewish experience: becoming refugees”

And hundreds of them from Odessa have headed to an unlikely destination, the impoverished nation of Moldova whose capital, Chisinau, was the site of a major pogrom that became a symbol of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century.

As Russian troops pour into Ukraine and bomb its cities, many Ukrainians are on the move both internally and in an attempt to leave for other countries. Border crossings in the country’s west and south are attracting thousands of prospective exiles, according to the Guardian. There are also at least 100,000 internally displaced persons.

“We just put many mattresses in the strongest part of the sturdiest building. It will have to do for now”

Some of the Jews who live in Ukraine — who number at least 43,000 and potentially many more — are part of that unfortunate migration.

“We just put many mattresses in the strongest part of the sturdiest building. It will have to do for now,” Moshe Azman, one of several men bearing the title of chief rabbi in Ukraine, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about what is happening at the residential compound near Kyiv that Azman and his community first set up in 2014 to aid Jewish refugees fleeing the last Russian invasion.

Named Anatevka — a reference to the fictional hometown of Tevye the Dairyman from the famed Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof” and the iconic Sholom Aleichem short stories on which it was based — the compound has seen dozens of families arrive from more densely populated areas, Azman said.

Many of the internally displaced are from cities, some of which have been hit by Russian armaments over the past 24 hours, and are leaving for places seen as less likely to draw fire and to avoid being in crumbling Soviet-era apartment building during bombings, Azman explained.

Anatevka, built at a time of a more limited Russian incursion, has no bomb shelters.

This article was first published on ‘Times of Israel’.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-jews-scarred-by-a-bloody-history-find-themselves-refugees-once-again/