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Update from Ukraine - Events since the September 1st, 2016 charter flight
Bring the Jews Home
The trips to the embassy and airport take priority and lately the Jewish Agency reserve a few seats for olim on the weekly flights between Vinnitsa and Tel Aviv! After a lot of trouble and a lot of fuss and bother with the official documentation, also Alexander (wheelchair bound due to an accident) and Antonina Jacobson too departed from Bela Cherkov for good on Thursday September 29!
Alexander and Antonina Jacobson (on the right) on their way to Israel!
German speaking study/work tour, September 10-16
Together with five Germans and seven Austrians we packed 2,000 food parcels and distributed a large number of them, between September 10 and September 16. Two participants knew that their grandfathers were in the Ukraine during the Second World War, but they never told what they did there! These thoughts continue to occupy their minds!
Waiting in line to receive a food parcel
In Israel with Roger van Oordt from September 20–23
Our brief visit to Israel, with Roger van Oordt for a number of meetings with the Jewish Agency and Nathan Sharansky, was encouraging, as was the visit and speech to the thirty new olim at their ulpan school, close to the Gaza Strip. Read the article about Religious education for new immigrants and our meeting with Boris Kaminski on this website!
Elena Kovarsky, Koen Carlier, Roger van Oordt and Nathan Sharansky
Babi Yar commemoration
Babi Yar official commemoration with 2,000 invited guests on September 29. So, commemorating 75 years since September 29, 1941. I was in Kiev with Ira my wife, from September 28 trough September 30 to attend the commemorations of the mass slaughter in Babi Yar of in total 150,000 people, mostly Jews. We met many Holocaust survivors, whom we could inform about our work in Ukraine! Holocaust survivor and author of several books Boris Zabarko got us official invitations for different occasions. Nathan Sharansky was also present during an official ceremony where a declaration was signed, stating that a Holocaust museum will be built in Kiev by 2020.
Menorah at the edge of the ravine at Baby Yar
And just on that day, a large number of olim left Kiev for good to emigrate to Israel!
Jewish New Year: 2–4 October
25,000 Chassidic Jews came to Uman (a small town between Kiev and Odessa) to the grave of the well-known Rabbi Nachman. He is buried on the location where a pogrom took place and where thousands of Jews were slaughtered because they did not want to convert to Christianity! Eleven planes from Tel Aviv landed in Vinnitsa. It was a delightful chaos!
Ukrainian choir singing psalms with in the backgroud the text in Hebrew, English and Ukrainian
Preparing food parcels for the winter season
Rabbi Mendel from Mariupol (located in the war zone recently visited by Ruben Ridderhof , Pim van der Hoff and number of others were in August) phoned us a number of times to request the delivery of 200 food parcels for his congregation! That was, unfortunately, not possible at that time, due to the many activities, appointments and the nine hundred kilometres between Vinnitsa and Mariupol on bad roads, but we promised to come at a later date! Nevertheless, he phoned again asking if we couldn’t do it and we promised all the same. Via the wholesaler in Vinnitsa we got in touch with the wholesaler in Mariupol and last week two hundred Jewish families each received our brochure, a printed bag and a food parcel! Also for the Jewish New Year we handed out one hundred and twenty food parcels in Vinnitsa! See photographs below!
2,000 Packed food parcels, ready for distribution
Unveiling of Chernovtsy Holocaust monument: Friday, October 7.
On Thursday, last week, we delivered one hundred and fifty five food parcels to the Jewish community of Chernovtsy and Chmilnik where a monument was due to be unveiled in the ghetto, where 55,000 Jews were forced to live like sardines! On Thursday evening I asked local Rabbi Noah why he did not inform us about it. Noah’s reply was: had I done that, something could go wrong! It was an emotional unveiling and when some rain fell during the ceremony, it was as if the heavens joined us in weeping! See photograph below.
Unveiling a Holocaust monument in former getto Chernovtsy on Friday October 7, 2016
Holocaust survivors putting a little stone or candle on the monument to remember
After the ceremony a woman addressed me in Hebrew because she thought I was Jewish but continued the conversation in English. She accompanied the architect of the monument. Her son conducts Jewish walking tours in English through Chernovtsy! At the end of October we have our first study/work trip to Chernovtsy, so this fits in perfectly.
Friday evening we rounded off with a simple meal with a couple of old friends, who happened to be present in Chernovtsy and we had a good long talk!
Koen Carlier - National Coordinator Christians for Israel Ukraine
God is fulfilling His promise to His people, in our generation!
We need your help!
This winter we plan to pack 30,000 food parcels and to distribute them everywhere in Ukraine to Holocaust survivors and poor lonely Jews, Jewish refugees from Eastern Ukraine where the war continues unabatedly and through small Jewish communities! Winter is already in the land with temperatures around zero! The ingredients for the food parcels are purchased at a wholesaler in Ukraine.
Food parcels, costing € 10 or US $ 12 contain the most elementary food products and are packed by volunteers and distributed throughout Ukraine.
Are you prepared to donate one or more food parcels? We need your help urgently!
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