Community as Salvation: Jewish life during Russian-Ukrainian war

• In Event: Three Jewish Responses to Catastrophe

Abstract

Jewish life in Ukraine has been profoundly reshaped by the 2022 Russian invasion. Due to the war, nearly half of the country’s Jewish population fled to nearby European countries, to Israel, and to other destinations. Many of those who stayed were internally displaced. And yet, despite the war and relocation, many still within Ukraine have been actively participating in Jewish communal life. Indeed, the war has brought previously unaffiliated Jews into religious congregations and Jewish cultural and social community programs. This paper will address the various ways Ukrainian-Jewish communities have responded to the war—often in creative and inspiring turns toward community, which both congregants and religious leaders have come to see as salvation.

Drawing on nearly two decades of research in Odesa, Ukraine and my ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with Ukrainian Jewry at home and in refugee communities in Europe, I argue that community gatherings and programs of social and moral assistance have been crucial to the survival and growth of Jewish communities in war-torn Ukraine. Through testimonies of displaced Ukrainian Jews, I analyze the role community affairs play in establishing a sense of purpose amid the dispossession and disorientation of war. The routine of weekly gatherings around Shabbat and the Jewish holidays, I show, provide order, inspire resilience, and serve as therapy and healing.

Since the events of Euromaidan and all the more since Russia’s escalation, the literature on everyday life in Ukraine has highlighted the role of religion in creating communities of care. This analysis, however, has largely left out Judaism and Jewish communities. My research seeks to fill this gap as it demonstrates that for many Ukrainian Jews, Judaism and Jewish communities serve as a vital replacement from the loss of purpose and hope.

Author

• Marina Sapritsky-Nahum, University College London ( UCL)