Holiday Under Fire: Despite Russian Drones, Rosh Hashanah Packages Reach Ukraine’s Jews

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah 5787, Ukraine’s Jews find themselves in the midst of the grueling war with Russia, which has continued for more than five years. Still, charitable work there is continuing at full strength, despite the immense danger and complexity involved in delivering holiday necessities to communities.

"The greatest difficulty is the Russian drones, which do not attack only at the front but are also directed at civilian targets," explains Alina Teplitskaya, CEO of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine (FJCU).

According to her, personal aid boxes prepared for Jewish communities were loaded onto large trucks. But it then became clear that every truck attempting to travel within 70 kilometers of the front became a live target for Russian FPV drones, particularly in the Kherson, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia regions, where transporting large trucks poses a tangible danger.

(צילום: Fjcu)

(צילום: Fjcu)

(צילום: Fjcu)

The solution required transferring the goods from the trucks to smaller private vehicles. But there was no one to transport them: many drivers had been drafted into the military, while those who remained were afraid to enter danger zones, even for enormous sums of money. In some cases, including in Nikopol and Pavlohrad, drivers had to turn back after seeing drones explode on vehicles ahead of them.

In the end, a creative solution emerged on the ground: brave local residents drove their private vehicles to the federation’s warehouses in Dnipro and personally delivered the packages to their communities.

Despite the challenges, and in close cooperation with Chabad emissaries, aid boxes were sent to more than 50,000 households. Alongside traditional holiday items, honey, wine, machzorim, and magnets, this year’s packages also included special items: a toy shofar for children and, in light of the damage to Ukraine’s water reserves, personal sports water bottles for every family. At the same time, more than 1,000 special kits were distributed to Jewish soldiers serving on the front lines by the federation’s emissary, Yaakov Sinyakov.

The federation’s chairman, Rabbi Meir Stambler, summed up emotionally: "We are certain that the sound of the shofar blasts rising from the shofars of Ukraine’s Jews will ascend before the Throne of Glory, break through the heavens, and bring with it a good and sweet year, a year of peace and hope."