Imagine that you are a child whose entire home—the entire school, the entire village, the entire way of life, everything — was brutally destroyed in the war. This is the situation of many Ukrainian children right now. As the Russia-Ukraine war receives less attention than before, many people have stepped up to help the less fortunate—and many did so at first and continue to do so. RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: FAITH LEADER SAYS HUMAN LIFE ‘SACRED THAN LAND OR RESOURCES’ In Warsaw, Poland, a 5-year-old girl’s drawing at a summer camp recently caught the eye of one of her counselors. Why did he use black and white, and not red or pink, to make a heart? asked Rabbi Ilana Baird, as reported by the Associated Press. After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year, people across Poland took action to welcome and help refugees from the neighboring country. The girl, sighing heavily, said he was black like the dog he left behind in Ukraine. Rabbi Byrd of California volunteered with several other Jews from Russia or other parts of the former Soviet Union to mentor Ukrainian refugee children in the camp in Warsaw. People with children wait after arriving from the Ukrainian city of Tokmak at a center for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on May 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) The program, which ended last Friday, was created to bring some joy to young people who have been wounded by the war, help them prepare for the new school year in Poland — and give their overburdened mothers some time for themselves. After performing puppet shows and reading stories to her group of 5- and 6-year-old campers, drawing lots of little faces and giving lots of big hugs, the rabbi saw another heart draw. This was pink. “Happiness,” the girl explained. Baird, 48, was delighted to see happy colors and rainbows emerge in the artwork of other children in her care at the Kef Be Kayitz camp, a Hebrew name that means Summer Fun. A boy from Ukraine stands over an exhausted Russian military tank in Lyiv. (Fox News) For the volunteers, the decision to take time off from their regular jobs in the United States and fly to Poland to work with children from Ukraine was driven by a desire to help those in need, a value that is universal and central to Jewishness. . religious teachings. “Jews have suffered so much in the past. We suffered pogroms, we suffered the Holocaust and we suffered anti-Semitism,” Byrd told the AP. “We feel an obligation to help people who are suffering right now.” “And we have a sense of obligation to help people who are suffering right now.” After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year, people across Poland took action to welcome and help refugees from the neighboring country. Poland has taken in more war refugees than any other nation. Local and international Jewish organizations also immediately began working to meet the most urgent needs: to house and feed Ukrainians, most of whom are women and children. Amidst the tragedies of war, Ukrainian children dye eggs to keep ‘living’ alive As the war soon enters its sixth month, the camp at Lauder Morasha School in Warsaw reflects the type of programming that is being developed to meet the changing needs of refugees. A local resident walks next to a house destroyed by Russian bombing in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Andry Andriyenko) Many Ukrainians realize they won’t be able to go home soon — or maybe ever — Helise Lieberman, director of the Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning, told the AP. The mornings were dedicated to Polish, English and math lessons so that the children would be in a stronger position to adapt to school. Some refugee mothers from Ukraine have to look for work — while others are severely depressed. Many of the Ukrainian children who arrived in Poland since February finished the Ukrainian academic year remotely — but will start in Polish schools in September. Campers spent afternoons doing arts and crafts, playing sports, and taking field trips to museums and city parks. About a third of the 90 children who attended the camp are Jewish, according to Marta Saracyn, head of the Warsaw Jewish Community Center. “It’s a great bubble for kids to be kids,” Saracyn told the AP. Refugees with children walk after fleeing war from neighboring Ukraine at a train station in Przemysl, Poland, March 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) Some of the Ukrainian refugee mothers must look for work – while some are severely depressed after being separated from their partners and relatives back home, organizers said. The Taube Center and the Warsaw Jewish Community Center organized the camp in partnership with the Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The Jewish Federations of North America recruited nearly 90 Russian-speaking educators and rabbinic leaders to help Ukrainian refugees in Poland and Hungary, and 10 helped in the Warsaw camp, said Hannah Miller, who runs the volunteer program. “You don’t have to be from Ukraine to help others,” the rabbi said. “You should just be human.” The camp’s 10 volunteers are Russian-speaking immigrants who left the Soviet Union decades ago or children of Russian Jewish immigrants. Only one couple spoke Ukrainian, so they mainly spoke to the children in Russian, which is also widely used in much of Ukraine. Byrd recalled drawing the face of a boy who became upset when he realized he wasn’t from Ukraine. “Why did you come here?” he asked her. In this photo provided by the Presidential Press Office of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, listens to a report on the front line in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (Press Office of Ukrainian President via AP, File) “Because you don’t have to be from Ukraine to help others,” replied the rabbi. “You just have to be human.” Likewise, an extraordinary trip to bear witness to the struggle and strife of displaced Ukrainians—and to comfort them as well as monitor relief efforts on their behalf—took place recently when a group from the Temple Emanu-El congregation in the Upper East Side of Manhattan traveled to the border of Ukraine and Poland. The mission was one of faith, compassion, care and giving. NEW YORK CITY TEMPLE MEMBERS TRAVEL TO UKRAINE BORDER TO BRING COMFORT AND ‘WITNESS’ When most Americans were just beginning to embrace the start of summer over Memorial Day weekend, the team from Temple Emanu-El — New York’s leading Reform Jewish congregation — traveled to Ukraine. As Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson told his congregation before the mission, “Together we will bring in needed supplies, offer comfort to those fleeing war — and bear witness to both the suffering and the extraordinary efforts of the services that offer relief from this suffering.” Rabbi Joshua Davidson described a special mission on the Ukrainian border recently at his New York congregation during a Friday afternoon service. (Temple Emanu-El New York) The team from Temple Emanu-El brought bags full of supplies from temple members for the desperate Ukrainians who have fled for their lives, said Martin Bell, one of the travelers on the mission. Everywhere the team went, Bell told Fox News Digital recently, they saw relief efforts that were “originally started by everyday Poles” — who continued to run them to help displaced Ukrainians, who are mostly women. and children. “We made it too [the journey] to bear witness to the sufferings of the Ukrainian people”. He said, “The testimony part — that’s what really resonated with me and everyone in our group. In part, this is perhaps a Jewish reaction to a world where there are holocaust deniersBelle said. “We wanted to go there so we could go back and tell other people what we saw.” CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER “It’s a story that needs to be told. It’s a story that needs to be told,” he also said, as Fox News Digital reported earlier. “We made the trip to bring relief,” Rabbi Davidson said at a recent service at the temple Friday night as he described the mission afterward to the congregation. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “But we also did it to bear witness to the suffering of the Ukrainian people, in a world that too often not only turns a blind eye to human suffering, but allows it to be completely written out of history.” “We just know from our own experience that bearing witness is a sacred duty.” The Associated Press contributed reporting to this article. Maureen Mackey is managing editor of lifestyle for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be tweeted to @maurmack.
