The Moskovitz family of Chabad emissaries, who have led the Jewish community in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine during the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, are safe in Israel, a week after they hosted 60 frightened Jews in the Choral Synaggue.
Damage to a building in Kharkiv’s Constitution Square after shelling by Russian forces, March 2, 2022. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty)
The Moskovitzes — Rabbi Moshe and his wife Miriam, the chief shluchim in the first Ukrainian city that came under Russian attack two weeks ago; the couple’s five children and children-in-laws and four grandchildren — traveled to Israel last week on a special Israir Airlines refugee flight after a protracted trip to Dnipro in central Ukraine, then to Moldova, then to Romania, said Rabbi Mendel Moskovitz.
He is the Chabad shaliach who is the son of Moshe and Miriam.
First, he said in a telephone interview, they had to “find a car. A big van,” big enough to hold the whole family, “all of us,” and the few belongings they were able pack on short notice.
In a city under constant Russian bombing and short of most necessities, like food and medicine, and certainly of luxuries, transportation for the thousands of people seeking to escape was at a premium, Rabbi Moskowitz told the IJN.
“It was a miracle,” he said — a suitable van turned up. He offered no details, but hinted that a large amount of money (i.e., bribes) was involved. He also offered no details about the family’s itinerary since they left Kharkiv (the first major Ukrainian city attacked by Russia in the current war), or the route they took to safety.
“It took 60 hours” of traveling to find refuge, Rabbi Moskovitz said. He said he and other members of the Moskovitz family who managed to escape from Ukraine are staying with relatives near Ashdod, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast.
IJN reported last week on the status of the Moskovitz family and of the wider Kharkiv Jewish community, during the initial days of the war.
Nearly all of the nearly 200 Chabad shluchim couples across Ukraine have left the country since the fighting — including incessant bombing and missile attacks; one explosion damaged a Chabad building in Kharkiv — in the last week, Rabbi Moskovitz said.
“We had no choice,” he said. “We were pushed out. We got bombed, it got so dangerous. We were afraid of getting killed.”
The bombing of targeted government office buildings and universities has left many sites in rubble, including the building where the city’s Hillel chapter was located.
“After a missile hit the house two doors down [from the synagogue] and then our school [Ohr Avner Jewish Day School, unoccupied then],” the families had to leave to keep their children safe, Miriam Moskovitz said. “The whole city is in ruins,” she told theyeshivaworld.com.
“We were warned this might be the last chance.”
The veteran rabbinical couples, and their children, who might stay in Ukraine faced the very real possibility of dying in the indiscriminate Russian shelling, he said. “It’s real war. It’s crazy. It’s like a movie” — nothing like the community-building activities the emissaries were trained to carry out.
Rabbi Moskovitz estimated that 5,000 of Ukraine’s Jews have left the country since the war began.
Now based in Israel, he and his shluchim relatives are spending their days on the phone and in video-conferences with Jews still in Kharkiv, working to arrange such necessities as food and medicine, and transportation out of the country. The Moskovitzes have managed to line up bus and van transportation for “hundreds” of Ukrainian Jews, the rabbi said.
During breaks in the family schedule, Miriam Moskovitz, a native of Australia, offered updates on the situation via Zoom to the Central Synagogue in Sydney.
In his discussions with Chabad staff members in Kharkiv, Rabbi Moskovitz said he learned that the Choral Synagogue, base of Jewish activities, is, “Baruch Hashem,” still intact .
It still is serving as a venue where some hundred people, including some non-Jews, are sleeping at night in a make-shift bomb shelter, and eating and praying and searching for solace and looking for transportation out of danger during the day.
How are the rabbi and other members of his suddenly/temporarily immigrant family doing?
“Physically, we’re fine,” he said.
Emotionally, “we’re broken — heartbroken,” thinking of “all the people left behind,” he said — shluchim shepherds don’t leave their flocks.
How are the Jews in Kharkiv doing?
“Very bad,” Rabbi Moskovitz said. “You can hear the stress” in their voices. “It’s horrible.”
What does Kkarkiv Jewry need?
“Cars, to get out.”
And “prayers,” Rabbi Moskovitz said. “Pray for the community. Everyone should do good deeds. Everyone should do something good” — a typical theme of chasidic belief.
The Moskowitzes will remain in Israel until conditions in Kharkiv are safe again, Rabbi Moskovitz said. Then, back to Kharkiv.
Before they left the city, his father, who established the Chabad presence in Kharkiv 32 years ago and serves as the city’s chief rabbi, approached the Torah ark in the sanctuary of the Choral Synagogue, and kissed the parochet curtain, Rabbi Moskovitz said.
“He said, ‘We’re going to be back.’”
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
