By COLlive reporter
One of the regulars at the Golden Rose Synagogue in the Menorah Center in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, is a thick-bearded man in military uniform.
He’s not there to secure the large building complex, but to defend the country itself.
Asher Cherkasskiy worked as a handyman in the small town of Feodosia in Crimea. When the peninsula was annexed by Russia in March 2014, he moved his family to Dnepropetrovsk.
And he enlisted in the pro-Kiev militia protecting Ukraine from Russian insurgents in the 20-month conflict that has so far cost the lives of 9,000 people.
“I had to protect my children,” Cherkasskiy told the AFP news agency in an interview held at the Menorah center, built by billionaires Igor Kolomoisky who established the Dnipro militia and Gennadiy Bogolyubov.
As one of the only religious Jews in the country to enlist, Cherkasskiy admits that keeping Kosher and religious practice were difficult to observe at the front, but that didn’t stop him.
“Russia attacked Ukraine. It’s a full-scale war,” he says with conviction having turned into an unlikely icon of the conflict.
Ukranian journalist Dmytro Rozmeritsa commented to AFP, “Cherkasskiy is one of the symbols of a new Ukraine, he is a link between the nations that consider Ukraine their motherland.”
Meanwhile, Cherkasskiy has traded combat for politics, winning a seat on Dnipropetrovsk’s city council in November local elections, beating out powerful businessmen and politicians, AFP reported.
He remains committed to both Jewish life and the militia. “But if I feel military service is preventing me from being an effective city councillor, I will opt for being a lawmaker because I think I can do more in this job,” he states.
one of the main reasons putin is very good freinds with the jews is because they stay out of politics so lets keep it that way
You know, there are Jews in the military on both sides (Ukraine and Russian). So, that means, you may be the one, CH”V, shooting at your dear brother or Yid.
On the one hand, people in the Ukraine are suffering terribly. On the other hand, Putin has been good to Russia’s Jews. This is such a miserable and confusing gullus. May Moshiach lead us to artzeinu hakdoshah b’karov Mamo’sh.
This guy is awesome!
may he have hatslacha ,and may there be peace in Ukraine and
in the world.
Moshiach Now.
Yup and his son David had his Bris in camp and we made him a Bar Mitzvah on last year’s Chanuka trip.