When Russia invaded Ukraine, Israeli Rabbi Menachem Kurzweil and his family thought they would stay put in the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro), where he had served the Jewish community for more than 20 years.
But overnight, the Rabbi, his wife Dalia, and their three children, were forced to flee. And less than a week later they found themselves in another country serving others who had escaped.
“First of all, you have to understand that no one wanted to run away,” said Kurzweil, who is part of the Chabad movement, one of the largest Jewish religious organizations in the world. In Dnipro, the movement is headed by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky.
Kurzweil painted a picture of an amazing Jewish community before the war. About 35,000 Jews lived in Dnipro. The Ukrainian people at large are very mixed and the Jewish community was no different, with Ukrainian and Russian Jews living as one.
“Life in the Ukraine is very relaxed, free, open,” Kurzweil told CBN News, and from the “standpoint of thinking” it’s much more like Europe. There’s no anti-Semitism and because the Jewish community is so helpful, everyone wants to be Jewish, he said.
“Therefore, in this atmosphere it was hard to explain to people that they needed to flee,” Kurzweil said.
Nevertheless, he said, when they knew they had to leave, the community organized to help people evacuate – calling, making sure they arrived, giving them rides and helping the elderly.
Along the way, he said, were many miracles, including one that he called “stunning.”
They had arranged to evacuate 18 Jews from one building on the following day.
“That was the plan. It isn’t possible to take everyone in one day. There are not enough buses. There’re no trains. So, they’re in groups. And what happened? They got confused. The building that they needed to evacuated the following day, they took a day ahead. That means it was backwards,” the rabbi explained.
“What happened was this building that needed to be tomorrow, and they already evacuated it, the building was blown up! All the building was zeroed [flattened],” he said.
On a Sunday morning, Kurzweil decided to take his family to another place in Ukraine, but once they were on the road, the reality of the war situation started to kick in.
“Suddenly you have to put your things in the car and there isn’t room for everything and for my daughter the most important thing was “Tzadiki,” a storybook, and everyone can only take one or two changes of clothes not more,” Kurzweil said.
“There are the alarms you hear in the distance, and every [few] kilometers there were roadblocks, with soldiers, scary, with guns. They’re checking and looking at everything. There are no people on the streets. The shops are closed. It’s quiet – not like Yom Kippur, but an eerie silence,” he added.
After days on the road, they crossed the border into Moldova and then to Romania. Finally, they were on their way home to Israel!
“Everyone was calling. They’re waiting for us. ‘We have a house to give you.’ The kids are happy. Life is starting – I wasn’t thinking – for three days I was in the car,” he said.
But then something unexpected happened.
With just hours before their flight to Israel, Kurzweil got a call from his brother-in-law, Akiva Komisar, in Holland, asking him to come and help with the refugees fleeing Ukraine.
“You have to understand it was hard from every direction. First of all, in Israel there’s a large family. In Israel there was work [and] all sorts of things waiting for me. We have sunshine! These kinds of things. It’s not Europe. It’s not cold. My children want to be there,” he said.
Kurzweil had a choice to make.
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“Everything together on the way, the plane was waiting here, but I said to myself, “Who am I? what do I want out of my life?”
His answer was that he was an emissary at heart. He had always said, “Send me.”
“Suddenly I said, ‘yes! That’s it!’ And I made this decision, and I was very happy. It was clear to me in my heart,” he said.
They headed for Holland and less than a week from the time they left war-torn Ukraine, they arrived – just in time for the Friday evening start of the Sabbath!
Since arriving, Kurzweil has been helping the dozens of Jews arriving from Ukraine to get settled in a hotel. They’ve provided kosher food, religious services and small gifts to help the newcomers adjust. He and those he came to work with plan to open a center for Jewish refugees. Though his mission is to the Jewish community, he even helped some Iranian non-Jews fleeing Ukraine to find a place to stay.
“And the people that arrive are simply crying. They’re in shock.”
Even after all Kurzweil and his family have experienced, his message:
“I want to say to the world that there is a reputable God, that the Holy One, blessed is He, is invested in everything. Every moment He’s looking at everyone, and He cares about everyone, and it doesn’t matter where they are, but in every place, the Holy One, blessed is He, is concerned and sees. He wants it to be good,” he said.
