Two years ago, in February 2022, we gathered here in this Basilica for the first time after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began for a moleben, a Byzantine-rite prayer service during which we pled for peace in Ukraine. I remember the church was filled to the last seat, and there
Holocaust survivor Mariia Simian, her granddaughter Anzhelika Bielova, both from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and Phiren Amenca staffer Anna Daroczi at a memorial for Roma victims of the Holocaust, Mariia Simian, from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, is living through war for a second time. Just three years old when World War II tore across
In the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine my family continued to take part in the usual plans and activities. We ate together, played games, read books, loved one another, talked with our neighbors. The kids went to school, I wrote and answered emails, and my husband planned our congregation’s
The history of the Ukrainian Jewish community goes back over 1,000 years. Located in the Pale of Settlement, a territory at the western edge of the Russian empire where Jews were forced to live beginning in the late 18th century, the country was once home to over 1 million Jews