By COLlive reporter
More than 120 Jewish residents of Kyiv gathered on Wednesday to celebrate Yud Shevat, the day the Rebbe accepted the leadership of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
The farbrengen was held at the Beit Menachem Chabad – JCC and led by Kyiv Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markowitz. It allowed for the participants to escape, even for a brief time, from the troubles of the ongoing war with Russia.
Many parts of the city are constantly without power, leaving residents to battle the extreme winter weather of Ukraine.
As participants arrived, dozens of men had the privilege of putting on tefillin and commemorating the yartzeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe. They lit yartzeit candles and studied a translation of the Maamar Bosi L’gani.
Among those who gathered was an 80-year-old Jewish man who said this was the first time he had walked into a synagogue in decades. Mentioning how he was never Bar Mitzvah’d, Rabbi Markowitz encouraged him to put on Tefillin for the first time.
The man agreed and went on to explain to other guests how special this moment was. He even convinced a few others to join him in putting on Tefillin on such a special day – for himself and for the Jewish people.
Rabbi Markovitch and his son Rabbi Ariel Markovitch led the farbrengen with warmth and inspiring words, reminding the crowd that the Rebbe was born in Ukraine. “The terrible war will end, and the Jewish community will come out stronger and more united than it was before the war.”
