(Jewish Group) 'We don't have time to prepare for Passover': An interview with a rabbi in Kyiv
Helen Chervitz is a fashion writer in Kyiv, but since the Russian invasion, has been writing about living in a country at war. In her first piece for the Forward, Chervitz interviews Rabbi Reuven Azman about his efforts to aid refugees who have streamed to Kyiv from parts of the country hard hit by Russian shells and missiles.
Chervitz is a Jewish American, but also a native Ukrainian. She, her husband, and young daughter immigrated to the U.S. in 1988 to escape antisemitism and lived in New York and Boston. For her husband’s business, they moved back to Ukraine 10 years ago. In the post-Soviet era, Ukrainians enjoyed freedom, and antisemitism was no longer a daily worry.
Half of Kyiv’s 4 million residents have fled in the past few weeks. Chervitz stays to find food for elderly neighbors too scared to leave their apartments and to tutor children whose schools are closed.
It took her three attempts to meet with Azman — one of two men who call themselves the chief rabbi of Ukraine — at Kyiv’s Brodsky Synagogue. She was greeted on April 1 by three guards wearing Kalashnikovs like backpacks. As she approached, one moved the machine gun to the front of his body. She said she knows they were Jewish because later that evening, after she proved she was not a threat, she heard one of them help another visitor recite the blessing over Shabbat candles.
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