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what I think of this latest upheaval of
the war in
Ukraine it's extremely moving to all of
us it touches us in a very deep place
especially because it's Ukraine every
centimeter in Ukraine is drenched with
Jewish blood I don't know that there's a
community in the world that
suffered like the Ukrainian Jewish
Community you may have heard of the Pags
of 1648
1649 theany pagram
when the kazaks slaughtered tortured in
the most horrific ways which I'm not
going to describe enormous amounts of
Jews men women and children and in
horrific ways this is in the 17th
century and then again in the 18th
century the famous pams again of the
kazaks of
1768 there were the famous heinous pams
of the 1880s after the assassination of
Alexander II thear in 1881 pums were
Unleashed on Ukrainian jury which caused
a mass immigration also to the United
States to England to other places and
then there was during the Civil War
After the revolution of
1917 that claimed some say 50 100,000
lives these are things that are not even
knowing how Ukrainian jury
suffered
poverty Savage Savage subjugation
torture Bloodshed violence and death and
then came
1941 even the most conservative numbers
put the number of victims of Ukraine at
900,000 some say it's more like 1.5 1.6
million Jews in almost every community
of Ukraine
shot literally if you go out to every
stle or every village outside of Ukraine
there's a grave there with thousands of
Jewish holy bodies men women children
old and young shot by the is groupers
that came in after June 41 when Hitler
invaded despite the fact before the
Holocaust there were 2 and A5 million
Jews living in Ukraine and close to a
million escaped many of them came back
after the war but under Stalin's
communism you couldn't practice as a Jew
you couldn't live as a Jew in the open
tremendous anti-Semitism tremendous
hatred and remember the ukrainians
assisted the Nazis in the dirty work and
the filthy work of slaughtering the Jews
and then communism Falls and a miracle
of Miracle happens resurrection of
Ukrainian jury if you want to understand
the miracle of Jewish history you go
back to those places and you see the you
know the prophecy of Ezekiel where he
discusses how he sees the dry bones and
they have no hope and God says the dry
bones will come back to life as I say to
you and I know many of them are friends
and colleagues
183 and this is in kabad movement and
then other rabbis and leaders who have
come and resurrected Judaism and all of
the communities of Ukraine affecting
thousands hundreds of thousands of Jews
in one way or another with schools and
mikas and shes and camps and social
programs and senior citizen programs and
programs for Youth and for middle-aged
people and for the elderly men women and
children Jewish holidays and shabas
simply incredibly inspiring to
understand the secret of n Isel The
Eternity of Israel
so when you look at such a history and
remember something else some of the
greatest luminaries of the Jewish world
came from
Ukraine the Bal who changed the Jewish
world where did he come from Ukraine he
was born there raised there lived there
in meus Ukraine the laich who changed
the Jewish World in our generation where
was he born and raised in Ukraine
luminaries like like of bre the great
one of the great spiritual masters of
Judaism also Ukraine his burial places
in uman which
also experiened some heavy explosions in
the last few days as we pray for all of
those communities in Ukraine I think
three of the Prime Ministers of Israel
come from Ukraine if I'm not mistaken
Moshe shet Le and golden May if you're
familiar with Hebrew literature you have
Shalom shalansky you have yish
literature Shalom Alim
adessa Ukraine uh pulsated with Jewish
culture with Jewish life and many many
different manifestations so Ukraine is
dear not just to Jews who live there or
have relatives there or have friends
there but really it touches something at
the core of the Jewish heart and Jewish
history and as I said we are all one
organism we are all one body even if we
sometimes deny it or we don't feel it or
we don't see it it's the real truth of
our of our reality and those Jews give
us tremendous strength as we want to
give them strength thinking about them
praying for them sending our love our
blessings our prayers and every possible
thing we can do financially and
spiritually to be able to uplift the
morale and strengthen their Spirit
during these very very
excruciatingly challenging and difficult
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times
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