{"id":1369516,"date":"2022-03-10T14:50:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T19:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1369516"},"modified":"2022-03-10T14:50:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T19:50:57","slug":"exodus-jews-once-again-forced-into-exile-from-beloved-odessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exodus-jews-once-again-forced-into-exile-from-beloved-odessa\/","title":{"rendered":"Exodus: Jews Once Again Forced into Exile from Beloved Odessa"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexodus-jews-once-again-forced-into-exile-from-beloved-odessa%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1369516&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">Odessa (Ukraine) (AFP) \u2013 Forced yet again into exile, as so many times in their tormented history, Jews are leaving in droves from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, threatening the last traces of a once-vibrant culture.<\/p>\n<p>The Black Sea port, a place steeped in Jewish history, now sees many joining the throngs as they pack buses and trains heading for Moldova or Romania.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Some will go on to Germany, the United States, or Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Many are old, knowing that they may well never return.<\/p>\n<p>Some have already experienced exile, like Gallina Dimievitch, 87, \u201ca child of war\u201d who fled the Nazis with her parents in 1942, and who is now returning to Israel to one of her sons.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Her husband died on February 24, the day of the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thank God that he didn\u2019t see this,\u201d sighs the former engineer in a small and seedy Odessa hotel where departing Jews are gathered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday I have to leave the land of my husband and my parents, leave their graves behind me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>There was little choice: her town of Mykolaiev, 100 kilometres east, has been under heavy Russian bombardment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember my mother telling me about having to flee from the Nazis. I guess I feel like her today,\u201d says 72-year-old Clara.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>\u2018Disintegration\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For Russia, Odessa has strategic and symbolic importance.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>It is Ukraine\u2019s largest port and a commercial hub, but also holds a powerful place in Russian history, from its founding by Catherine the Great to its resistance against the Nazis to violent clashes between Ukrainian nationalist and pro-Russian protesters in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Odessa was home to a very large Jewish community until the 1940s, when it was decimated by massacres and deportations during World War II.<\/p>\n<p>Some 40,000 Jews still lived there before the latest invasion, out of a million inhabitants, according to Rabbi Avraham Wolff, head of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad community in Odessa.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_20183294\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2022\/03\/GettyImages-1239075763.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>A Jewish faithful prays in the Chabad Synagogue in Odessa on March 9, 2022, 14 days after Russia launched a military invasion on Ukraine. Forced yet again into exile, as so many times in their tormented history, Jews are leaving in droves from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, threatening the last traces of a once-vibrant culture. (BULENT KILIC\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Since the start of the war, around 20 percent have already left, the rabbi told AFP by phone from Germany where he has gone to oversee evacuations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most difficult times of my life, seeing this disintegration of the Jewish community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has happened just as the community was starting to grow again, with nurseries, schools, orphanages, a university\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pain is very great, but now the only thing that matters is to get out and save Ukraine\u2019s Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Sick\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The century-old Chabad Synagogue in Odessa, closed during the Soviet period, used to serve up to 150 worshippers a day before the war.<\/p>\n<p>Now only two or three come to pray.<\/p>\n<p>Olexsander Klimanov, 64, retired, with a grey cap on his head, is one of them.<\/p>\n<p>His family was evacuated, but he has decided to stay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy whole life is in Odessa, I\u2019m old, I can\u2019t adapt like young people, learn a new language,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not the first time that we have seen Jews take the road to exile,\u201d he adds, recalling the discrimination and mass emigration faced by Jews during the period of Soviet rule.<\/p>\n<p>But to leave is to abandon a history, roots, a Jewish heritage that makes this city and its region \u201cinvaluable\u201d for the community.<\/p>\n<p>Important figures were born or lived here, such as the poet Haim Bialik and Israeli Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, and it is home to a huge Jewish cemetery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must preserve the heritage,\u201d says Anna Bartaret, a young mother about to be evacuated with her two girls aged eight and 10.<\/p>\n<p>A marketing manager, she was very involved in the Jewish community of Mykolaiev.<\/p>\n<p>Her great-grandfather was a rabbi and she fears for the old books of the synagogue, including an 18th century Torah that she kept at her home.<\/p>\n<p>Her face hardens at the mention of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his desire to \u201cde-nazify\u201d Ukraine whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is himself Jewish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPutin is sick,\u201d she says simply.<\/p>\n<p>She plans to go only as far as neighbouring Moldova, she adds, determined that she will \u201creturn to Ukraine on foot when everything is over\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Odessa (Ukraine) (AFP) \u2013 Forced yet again into exile, as so many times in their tormented history, Jews are leaving in droves from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, threatening the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1369516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1369516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1369516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}