After nearly 400,000 people in Ukraine have already lost their homes, and the lives of millions more have changed beyond recognition following the Russian invasion, the Jewish community in the ancient synagogue in Odesa that has already seen human evil, is trying to hold on to the belief that peace will still get there.
And yet - following the warming in the area which in recent days has included night and day alarms and explosions that shook the walls of houses - Rabbi Avraham Wolf, Chabad emissary and chief rabbi of Odesa and southern Ukraine, tells those asking him - to leave: "If you can, get up and leave."
"There is no reason to be in a place of danger without reason," explains Rabbi Wolf, who cares for the Jewish community in Odessa, which has about 35,000 people. On regular days The synagogue in the city was packed until the invasion.
Still, now, after rescuing thousands from Odessa and more than half of the community becoming refugees, the seats there remained empty primarily, and Rabbi Avraham continues to have stayed there with his wife Chaya and children as part of their mission that began there in the 1990s.
On the call to leave, Rabbi Wolf said: "We do these things in a way that will not hurt the morale of those who stay because they can not go out. One because he has a sick old mother, another with a sick old grandmother, small children who can not travel, those without passports... And not just these, not all of them can be taken out. Roads are blocked, and the main problem now is when there will be a Russian invasion of the city and how they will survive the siege they are already in. "It is tough to rescue people; it is tough to take care of the whole operation. We have 120 children in orphanages, 50 Holocaust survivors in an old people's home, 600 children in schools and kindergartens," the rabbi said, adding that "the story is about food shortages and hunger."
"Hunger, not just - in the grain barn of Europe, the country that feeds Israel with wheat. There is going to be a shortage here - no supply. Everything is stopped, and it will be a humanitarian story from today in ten days". Rabbi Wolf does not intend to leave - he has a community and orphanage to run. And yet - how do they intend to survive? "Before that, we already had quantities of water, quantities of flour, quantities of many basic foodstuffs, but these things are running out."
We met Rebbetzin Chaya Wolf at the Chabad house, introducing us to "Mishpacha," the home of 120 abandoned Jewish orphaned children. Among the "Mishpacha" members is Tuvia, a baby less than five weeks old: The rabbi said, "This is a child who feels he is an unwanted child, his heart is torn."
'How are you going to take care of the kids?' We asked, and Rebbetzin Wolf replied: "We need miracles, we pray to Hashem, that's why we're here, that's why we can not get up and take our eight children and say 'I saved myself' There is no such thing. These are our children, And we are committed to them, and we are with them, and we are doing everything we can to make it possible. "