Brooklyn rabbi helps thousands of refugees flee Ukraine
NEW YORK -- Rabbi Zushe Abelsky sat at his dinner table in Crown Heights during Hanukkah surrounded by his family. He had just returned from Chisinau, Moldova, after a harrowing few months responding to war efforts in neighboring Ukraine.
He and his family are emissaries who belong to the Orthodox Jewish movement known as Chabad, based in Brooklyn, which aims to help Jewish communities around the world.
He has been running a Chabad center in Chisinau for more than 30 years, in one of the poorest countries in Europe. Then the war in Ukraine started and, suddenly, the mission of the center changed overnight.
"All of a sudden, you see that the synagogue filling up, another refugee with a small suitcase, another refugee. And slowly it's becoming a few hundred," Abelsky said.
Almost immediately, his team switched gears, working 24/7 to help thousands of people, from all faiths, out of Ukraine, turning his small Chabad center into a hub of humanitarian aid.
"We help them with transportation from the border into Chisinau. We help them with food. We help them with a bed to sleep," he said.
Abelsky estimates that since the war started, between 25,000 and 30,000 people went through his doors.
Nearly 5,000 miles away in Crown Heights, his wife, Chaya, and their children turned their home into a command center to support his work.
"We bring in the funds to send there," Chaya Abelsky explained, adding she is in constant communication with the other Jewish couples who help her husband run the center.
"We suddenly became huge. Moldova was small. Our classes were small. Our kitchen is small. Our pots were small. The scale was smaller. Today, the kitchen puts out four times the amount of meals. It doesn't stop," she said.
Eventually, the center started housing refugees in rented resort areas. It also helped open a medical clinic. Despite the loss and tragedies, life went on. Ayala Sharel, who was born in Kyiv, was supposed to get married in March. Russia invaded in February.
"What's scary is not when your life changed, but when the life of the whole society around you is changed," Sharel explains. "You have nothing to rely on."
When she found herself, her mom and daughter in safety in Moldova, the community rallied around her, helping to plan the joyous occasion in Chisinau instead. Now, the family also lives in Crown Heights.
"I could dream about such a wedding back in Kyiv really, in normal circumstances," Sharel said, recalling her wedding with a smile.
As the winter in Eastern Europe gets harsher, Rabbi Abelsky says they face a new set of challenges: the rising cost of nearly everything. But with the help of his family and team on the ground, he's preparing to weather that storm, too.
"My whole life was a preparation for this year...for the big event that took place in '22, to save lives," he said.
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