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Behind the Aegis

(54,854 posts)
Fri Apr 29, 2022, 02:56 PM Apr 2022

(Jewish Group) From Nigeria to Kyiv to a Hillel in Berlin: The long, strange journey for 2 students

From Nigeria to Kyiv to a Hillel in Berlin: The long, strange journey for 2 students fleeing the Ukraine war

Nigerian students Funke Oluwatosin and Deborah Ologbenla, both 16, received a crash course in German Jewish life — as the result of a very unexpected journey.

The friends were studying at Kyiv Medical University when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. They left fleeing the violence immediately and headed to Warsaw, where they split up amid the panicked, fast-paced transports leaving for other countries.

Oluwatosin continued with a group of five fellow Nigerian students towards Berlin where an American Jewish man from New Jersey spotted them at Berlin’s main train station and offered to help them secure housing. He put their story onto a Telegram chat for Jews across Germany who were helping house refugees displaced from Ukraine.

Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz, director of Jewish learning at the Hillel Deutschland — a hub for learning and community engagement for Jewish students and young professionals in Berlin — saw the message and offered to house Oluwatosin’s group at the Hillel headquarters-turned-temporary-hostel.

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