Reflections on Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine reaches its one-year anniversary, there are many lessons to be learned. Thousands have lost their lives and millions have become refugees.

While there are also many lessons for us as a Jewish community, one truth towers above all others. During this horrible conflict, Israel and the global Jewish community accomplished miracles together, and every single one of us should take at least a moment to reflect on that with pride.

In 2022, my organization, The Jewish Agency for Israel-and JUF’s overseas partner-reports that nearly 70,000 Jews made Israel their new home. That’s more than double the numbers from 2021 and the largest number of olim (immigrants to Israel) in 23 years. Many came from Ukraine during a time of war, when their very lives hung in the balance.

Consider the enormity of this development. Many are haunted by not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but the sad fact that American Jews were unable to save their fellow Jews. As the years march on and other wars and atrocities occurred, it was not illogical to ask the question of whether we had learned the lessons of the past.

Make no mistake about it, 2022 was not 1939 and the war in Ukraine-as horrific as it is-is not the Holocaust in any way, shape, or form. That said, in 2022, Jews found themselves fleeing war. Cities like Kyiv and Odessa, where many Chicago Jews trace our roots, shook as rockets landed on them. This was a crisis unknown in most of our lifetimes.

And we responded, with JUF was among the first to contribute to the effort. With the indispensable support of Chicago and other communities, the Jewish Agency deployed hundreds of staff members, Israeli emissaries, and volunteers to rescue Ukraine’s Jews. We deployed a total of 465 buses, taking over 11,000 Jews to the borders with Poland, Hungary, and Moldova. More than 290,000 meals, as well as 354 tons of clothing and toiletries, were given out at our refugee center, where entire floors of hotels were rented out to find shelter for our fellow Jews. The Jewish Agency teamed up with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, World ORT, the Israel Trauma Coalition, Chabad, and a host of others in this lifesaving work.

I will never forget my trip to Poland one month after the conflict began, on a mission put together by the Jewish Federations of North America. At the border, as a steady stream of refugees sadly trudged into the country, the first thing they saw was the Israeli flag at the Jewish Agency booth. It was impossible not to be seized by the thought that being a Jew in Ukraine has historically meant many things, but on that day and in the year of 2022, it meant that you had a nation in Israel and co-religionists around the world who cared about you.

Of course, in many ways this work is only beginning. Moving to a new country and leaving behind your family is not easy, and there will be many hardships along the way.

Yet we must never forget how we met this moment in history. Chicago’s Jewish community and the broader American Jewish community; the Israeli government; Orthodox and Reform groups; and different Jewish organizations that compete for financial resources – every one of them working together with a single-minded devotion to the goal of saving lives. Together, we embodied the Talmudic writing that every Jew is responsible for one another.

And, if need be, we will do it again.

Dan Elbaum is head of North America at The Jewish Agency for Israel and the president and CEO of Jewish Agency International Development.