INSIDE KIEV DURING WAR IN UKRAINE (what it's like) PART 2

okay so we got out of the large van and now we're in a smaller Jeep and we are traveling to our next destination the city of bardichev where another great Rabbi is buried and then from there we're gonna go on to Kiev I believe yeah right hello where are you sitting in the car this is my only place your holy place yes so we we are unbelievable if not a place you make place if you if you have placed in the higher place on the earth just place in the home you have always place [Music] I like his name is a Jew from nikolaev a legless okay his grandfather is Putin if putting is coming yes he's 18 people yeah he's 18 people the whole family is now 18 people from nicolaev and the the is his arm is a bomb and they live now in Mexico okay and they know arm to go back and you know it's terrible it was a big a big kabulan contractor a big big contractor and the people walking and now it's now he's driving a taxi yeah wow that's sad so I'm in the town of bardichev right now this is an old town where there was once a very large Jewish community and there still is a Jewish Community today but obviously not as large we're walking on this bridge as you can see the reason there's a bridge here even though there's no body of water is because in the Jewish faith it's considered disrespectful to walk on top of Graves and there are many unmarked Graves here which were destroyed during World War II and we don't know exactly where all the graves are so a bridge was built so that nobody should step on top of the resting place of people which is uh a big No-No in our tradition so here are some of the graves as you can see they are very old most of them do not have any information on them or if they do have information it's not really legible anymore and this in here is the grave the great rabbi oblivious master [Music] thank you so if you hear that outside that's a irid siren which means that at any second the block will fall um kind of reminds you that even though things look very calm here at any second things could get very dangerous very quickly um the problem with exerts events is it's not a um actually not exactly another exact because the system can show the rocket flying but it can no he can't know who is is found okay and hundreds of miles is the all way of of of the Syrian of the raquette is going to Syrian I understand yeah it's not like in Israel you know the area who is calm actually the the location I got it so basically yeah what he's saying is that the sirens go off all the time and in Israel for example there's a system where if a rocket is coming in they know exactly where it's going to land and the siren only goes off in that place but over here if there's a rocket flying for hundreds of miles in all directions the siren will sound so it doesn't mean that we're necessarily in danger because the the rocket could land a couple hundred miles away we are just outside of Kiev not far away from the capital city and we're starting to see a lot of Destruction burned out buildings bombed out buildings bomb Ed a lot of things are being repaired because the conflict is no longer in this region but we're still seeing a lot of remnants of the war and I'm told that this is nothing compared to what we're going to see later thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] Jewish Soldier my friend I mean where's the oh yes exactly another noise and so we have a lot of we have a lot of guys Jewish no Jewish also Muslims we have really really it's now we before we separated now we make clothes clothes the whole population yes exactly it's United Saturdays in Shabbat let me see your necklace oh yeah it's smaller and it's it's cheap it's going every Shabbos to the shoe it's my favorite a lot of Ukrainian Jewish Ukraine Jewish want to fight they want to fight they want to fight because the feeling is is grandmother grandfather everyone it's true so we just parked in a part of Kiev called padol This is where a lot of the Jewish Community lives or used to live before the war many of them had to run away so this is one of the synagogues here in Kiev and then we're gonna go around the buildings there's another synagogue hello this is one of the synagogues here cute this place used to be so busy it's quiet there's no one here very sad I know this whole area very well because 10 years ago when I was a teenager I was a counselor at a Jewish camp for Jewish kids in Ukraine the institutions that ran the camp were based out of these buildings right here so obviously I've been connected with this community for a long time and it's very sad to see that pretty much everyone is gone so many of the people I know here have become refugees hopefully one day they will return [Music] as of now they're not here okay so I managed to find an open door which will let us see the synagogue here wow so quiet I remember the synagogue teeming with activity and throughout so many of my trips around the world I've been to synagogues that were quiet and abandoned the one we're in right now was a busy synagogue only a few months ago hopefully soon people will come back after all this crazy and sins so this is a generator the Jewish Community bought right before the war just in case the power and Kiev would go out and then they didn't need to use it but it's here anyway but nobody here nobody's here so there's no reason for that electricity yeah so this is the Mikvah the Jewish ritual it's not in use right now hello built it how many years ago um I remember when it was brand new you showed it to me okay hopefully very soon will be full of people again what is really interesting is that there's a kosher restaurant here called takida I've eaten here in the past about five years ago but they just reopened last week so we're gonna go inside and have a nice kosher steak yo yes the restaurant episode how are you thank you I'm fine so the restaurant has a lot of nice and unique art what's a rubber Jerusalem so we have a fresh salad steak rice in the middle of a war make it so do you see the guard standing there at the door we are at a undisclosed location in Kiev this is a Ukrainian army base we're coming to visit some Jewish soldiers [Music] thank you okay so where is my Ukraine solidarity socks and the officer liked it a lot we just had a meeting with commander of Italian here it was a fascinating conversation that I'm not going to share on YouTube but I learned a lot okay so we're just leaving the army base these soldiers are opening the door and they're letting our car out hey that's it we're going so we're now going to visit one of hillel's friends here in Kiev and I wanted to show you this we're in a area with a lot of apartment buildings which would generally be full before the war look at these apartments only a few lights on okay so we're in a home the owner doesn't want to be seen so we're not gonna show his face but he's pouring me a drink it's called kvas across thank you very much you're welcome it's made out of fermented what is it wheat if you know you know if you know you know this is one of the best drinks in the world it's a little bit alcoholic right it's not alcoholics not even one percent it's not alcoholic but in many cases yeah [Music] it's a little bit for healing uh yeah from you and from you and the Alexander is uh and you have a phone thank you it was a soldier in 2014. so if you see the highways and the roads are completely empty more or less and I'm being told that because it's after 11 o'clock P.M we are currently breaking the law by driving around you're not allowed to be out on the streets after 11 so there's a good chance we're gonna get pulled over I guess these are the rules of wartime here in Ukraine so we are done with all of our meetings for the day it's about 11 30 P.M once again we're not supposed to be out on the street but at the moment there don't seem to be any police officers or soldiers around just looking at these buildings empty empty empty look there are only a few lights are on one of the ones you see over there those are elevators or hallways they're not Apartments so I'm going to stay at hillel's house tonight yes and tomorrow we have a big day ahead of us we have a long day yes it's gonna be the morning is going to be sad and then in the evening it's going to be happy tomorrow yeah so I'm in Hills Apartment in Kiev and this place was literally abandoned within a very short matter of time they're still Linen on the beds that are not made there are dishes here that were just washed in the sink there's even some matzah on the table it's like Chernobyl it's like this town that was just abandoned and uh everything stayed the way it was as if a family was living here five minutes ago even though this place hasn't been inhabited for four months I'm gonna go to sleep maybe I'll get some work done before I go to sleep I have to write up an article for AMI magazine but we'll see you in the morning so it's a quarter to one in the morning and the Aryan siren just went off um hoping everything's gonna be okay [Music]