Ukraine’s Jewish communities turned out in record numbers for joyous Purim celebrations this year as they looked to their faith for joy and comfort amid the day-to-day stresses of the deadly, grinding war that has entered its second year.
In the months leading up to the holiday, the Chabad-Lubavitch center in Vinnitsa, directed by Rabbi Shaul and Chana Hadasa Horowitz, has been bustling.
“The war has brought many Jews closer,” Horowitz tells Chabad.org. “We see more Jews coming to shul. They want to connect.”
Horowitz was thinking of renting a theater for the community Purim party, given the hundreds of people he’s expecting. But with continued attacks, he decided to host it in the relative safety of Chabad’s school building—the same building that has housed and fed thousands of refugees during the past year.
One of those refugees, the rabbi noted, didn’t know anything about Judaism other than his maternal grandmother being Jewish. Now, he’s started wrapping tefillin every day. And the community just celebrated three circumcisions and three pidyon habens, the rite of symbolically redeeming a firstborn from a kohen.
Horowitz hopes that Purim will bring some joy to a community ravaged by war for more than a year. He recounts that last week while visiting the nearby town of Mezhibuzh—home to the resting place of the holy Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement—he saw several women from his community, crying and beseeching the holy tzaddik to intercede with G‑d and put an end to the war.
“Every day, we pray for this nightmare to be over. Seven hours every day we have no electricity,” said the rabbi.
The school and Chabad center have generators, he notes, thanks to the efforts of the Jewish Relief Network Ukraine (JRNU), Chabad’s wartime unified effort for funding and providing humanitarian work in Ukraine.
He describes the center as a place where people come simply to warm up and charge their phone, which has become a challenge even for successful business people.
In addition to life-saving support, the JRNU has provided beautiful Purim kits that were distributed to tens of thousands of Jews across the country.
The packages contain wine, mini-sweets, fresh hamentashen, an illustrated scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther), a colorful gragger (noisemaker), and a guide detailing the holiday customs and traditions.
Hundreds of volunteers prepared and delivered the boxes at Chabad-Lubavitch centers around Ukraine.
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