Russia invades Ukraine: Country’s Jews fear being ‘stuck in the middle’

A Ukrainian Jewish leader says his community fears lawlessness and anarchy in the streets, with possible reprisals for Jews, as the mounting crisis in the region spirals into war.

Refael Kruksal, the chief executive of the Tikva children’s home in Odessa, said they had begun stockpiling food and supplies because of a growing sense of danger.

Jews could be “stuck in the middle” and fall victim to gangs and looting as fighting breaks out, he warned.

The grim words of warning came as Britain’s chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis backed the urgent appeals launched this week to help Jews living in Ukraine.

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World Jewish Relief said conflict would be disastrous for the vulnerable and older people they support, including an ageing generation of Holocaust survivors.

Kruksal’s charity Tikva, meanwhile, is responsible for over 1,000 children in Odessa, including 300 living in orphanages.

“We could reach a place where there is anarchy, a time where there is anarchy, and that would be a huge worry for us,” he told Jewish News.

“Definitely we have to ensure we have enough security: we’ve taken a large security firm, international security firm from Israel, and they’ve hired locals and others to ensure our security in addition to our current security to ensure that they would be able to keep us safe within the city.

“Or if necessary to help us find a place within Ukraine where we would be able to stay until things calm down.”

Hopes for diplomatic solution to the crisis appeared all but sunk this week after Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the use of military force outside his country.

Ukraine has declared a national state of emergency and the Russian flag is no longer flying over its embassy in Kyiv after diplomatic staff were evacuated.

Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea coast, is far from the flashpoint zones in eastern Ukraine, but there are fears a conflict could spread there because it is close to pro-Russian breakaway regions in Moldova and to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Kruksal said he was worried that the city’s Jewish community could “stuck in the middle just by mistake, not on purpose, not because anyone specifically wants anything to happen to Jews.

“It doesn’t make sense that anyone would specifically try to hurt us, but they could assume that maybe we’re more prepared, maybe we have money, maybe we have food piles, and that’s why we’re in danger of gangs, or just being caught in the middle of fighting.”

He added that he was in touch with communities across Ukraine and that plans were being made to ensure they could all maintain radio contact if telephone networks went down.

“This is a possible catastrophe that we haven’t seen for many, many years. My father was in Bergen-Belsen.

We could reach a place where there is anarchy, a time where there is anarchy, and that would be a huge worry for us

“They prepared well beforehand, and they ran away from Germany to Holland, and from Holland he was taken to Bergen-Belsen.

“I don’t think this a Second World War, but I’m not sure in 1939 they knew it was the Second World War either. No one knows how this is going to open up.”

Leaving Ukraine was an option and many Jewish families had prepared their paperwork for that possibility, he said, but most had generations of livelihoods here and did not want to leave.

In a statement to support World Jewish Relief’s urgent appeal, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “This is a time of deep concern for the Jewish community of Ukraine, and indeed every one of its citizens.

“The Talmud famously teaches that Kol Yisrael Areivim Ze Bazeh – ‘all Jewish people are responsible for one another’.

“In addition to having the Jews of Ukraine in our prayers, we must do whatever we can to offer them humanitarian support in their time of greatest need.”