Members of the Jewish community gathered Monday evening in Skokie to pray for peace for Ukraine.
Several hundred people attended the March 7 occasion in the North Shore Ballroom at the Holiday Inn on Touhy Avenue to address concerns about the welfare and safety of residents in Ukraine.
The event was hosted by Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois.
The room became full shortly after the program started and Rabbi Yochanan Posner of Skokie, also of Lubavitch Chabad, 4059 Dempster St., Skokie, noted approximately 300,000 Ukrainians are Jewish.
“Prayer makes a difference,” Posner said. “And, it’s never too late for it didn’t happen yet.”
For those not sure how to help, Posner said, “We feel like we’re so far away, we feel that we’re helpless, and we can’t make a difference, my message is…we can make a difference,” Posner said.
“We can help spiritually, we can help through prayer.”
Acts of kindness are necessary, Posner said.
“Our goal is to tip the balance,” Posner said. “When it’s dark in one place, we can bring out light somewhere else.
“This for us is personal,” Posner added.
“As a Jew, as a member of the Chabad movement, we have our people there, our rabbis there, our families there, our friends there, I have two cousins who are serving there as rabbis, and so it isn’t just some kind of like, distant thing, it’s personal for us,” Posner said.
A news conference before the 7:30 p.m. prayer gathering featured two local residents with a family history in Ukraine.
Mushka Gurevitz of Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood is from eastern Ukraine. Her father, a Chabad rabbi, and her mother have made it past the Ukraine border, she said, but are committed to staying near their homeland to help people find safety.
Gurevitz’s parents are helping to cook and feed anyone in need, their daughter said, and are striving to assist refugees who have lost their homes and personal belongings overnight. Gurevitz’s parents are helping families figure out travel and logistics when gas tanks run on empty or other supplies are depleted.
Gurevitz said she is, “crazy proud but also crazy worried,” about her parents.
“Chabad saves lives,” Gurevitz said.
“We care, and we will continue to be there, to walk the walk, talk the talk, and do what we have to do, to support, to love, to care, to help, you can rely on us.
“But help us. Help Chabad save lives,” Gurevitz said.
Lev Talyansky, also of Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood, is from Ukraine near Kyiv.
“I can only say one thing and Jewish people is one family,” Talyansky said. “And you don’t leave family behind.”
Talyansky added that there is a “duty to help as much as we can.”
Rabbi Moshe Teldon of Chabad of Wilmette, who attended the prayer gathering, said, “It’s amazing how everyone just comes together.
“This is such a global yet local story, it’s heartening to see the community come together but it also just hits home, really, really strong,” Teldon said.
Emuna Arnold, 13, a seventh-grader from West Rogers Park, sat in the ballroom with her mother Alita Arnold.
“Everyone’s entitled to just being happy, to be free,” Emuna Arnold said, “and to just live in peace.”
To support relief efforts in Ukraine, organizers provided the website www.ChabadIllinois.com/Ukraine.
