Another year of war brings with it the fifth High Holiday season that Ukraine’s Jewish communities are spending under the shadow of intense and ongoing fighting.
As in previous years, tens of thousands of families in the 169 communities that remain within the country received personal aid packages for the holidays. This time, however, organizers encountered an unprecedented logistical challenge that threatened to derail the entire operation.
Alina Teplitskaya, CEO of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine (FJCU), described the main obstacle this year in a conversation with Arutz Sheva from her home in Dnipro.
“The significant challenge this year was the increased range of Russian FPV drones. The Russian military has increased their production to tens of thousands of drones each month, and their destructive activity is clearly evident."
According to Teplitskaya, the use of these aircraft is no longer confined to the immediate front lines.
“The Russian drones are attacking not only along the front but also civilian targets deep inside Ukrainian territory. The situation today is that they are hitting targets up to 70 kilometers from the front, and among other things, they strike every truck traveling within that range because they claim that the trucks are transporting military equipment to the front.
“This means that in the Kherson, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions, transporting the packages to the Jewish communities by truck, as we do every year, posed a genuine danger."
Asked whether the possibility of using drones to deliver the supplies had been considered, she replied, “That isn’t realistic because the military would intercept them. It is difficult for people in Israel to understand just how desperate civilians here are for assistance, and therefore our packages, which include medical supplies among other things, are extremely valuable, especially near the front, where everything is much more expensive and people are facing very severe economic hardship."
Because of the significant danger to delivery trucks, the organization was forced to find alternatives.
“The solution we found required distributing the aid boxes using small vehicles, but this solution was much more complicated because there was a severe shortage of drivers and vehicles throughout the country. Many of the drivers we worked with in the past were drafted into the military over the past year, and those who remain are afraid to knowingly enter a danger zone, even for high rates of pay."
Describing how long it took to resolve the crisis, Teplitskaya said, “We began looking for drivers immediately after Tisha B’Av, and it took two weeks of negotiations to secure the number of drivers we needed. That is why the distribution took place over a longer period this year - even longer than in the year the war broke out, when we were still ‘learning’ the new rules of the game."
Some of the delivery drivers traveling toward cities in the south and east of the Dnipro region, including Nikopol, Marhanets and Pavlohrad, were forced to turn around after witnessing drone strikes in real time on vehicles traveling ahead of them.
Ultimately, deliveries to those areas were transported by local Jewish residents, who drove themselves to the federation’s offices and aid warehouses in Dnipro to collect packages for themselves and other members of their communities.
Despite the dangers, the extensive aid operation, carried out in cooperation with Chabad emissaries, succeeded in reaching more than 50,000 households throughout the country, with trucks carrying thousands of boxes.
In addition, more than 1,000 packages were distributed to Jewish soldiers serving on the front lines. Distribution at military bases was carried out by Yaakov Sinyakov, who serves as a rabbinic figure for soldiers in the field.
According to Sinyakov, the packages were specially tailored to the needs on the ground.
“As every year, the boxes included a Hebrew-Gregorian calendar in Ukrainian, an elegant booklet explaining the Tishrei holidays, a jar of pure honey, grape juice, a special-edition liqueur, a kippah, a refrigerator magnet with Shabbat and holiday candle-lighting times, a desk calendar, and a set of Shabbat and holiday candles."
This year, the packages also included a toy shofar for children, as well as a personal sports water bottle due to repeated strikes on the country’s water reservoirs.
Rabbi Meir Stambler, chairman of the Jewish communities in Ukraine, concluded, “We are confident that the sound of the blasts rising from the shofars of Jewish children in Ukraine will ascend before the Throne of Glory, pierce the heavens, and bring with it a good and sweet year, a year of peace and hope.
“When the war broke out, we never imagined that it would last so long and exact such heavy costs and so many victims. We pray that in the coming year we will finally merit the true and complete Redemption and hear the sound of the shofar of the Messiah."