For Jews fleeing Ukraine, Passover takes on new meaning
By DEEPA BHARATH

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From left, Danya, 21, Gabriel, 21 and Borden, 17 all refugees from Odesa, Ukraine help to deliver bags with food to needy people during preparations for the celebration of Jewish Passover at the Chabad Jewish Education Center in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, April 7, 2022. Rabbis and Jewish organizations are working round the clock within Ukraine, Eastern Europe and other parts of Europe to make sure that Jews who remain in Ukraine and refugees who have fled as far away as Israel are able to celebrate Passover. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

“Good morning! Happy morning!” Rabbi Avraham Wolff exclaimed, with a big smile, as he walked into the Chabad synagogue in Odesa on a recent morning.

Russian missiles had just struck an oil refinery in the Ukrainian city, turning the sky charcoal gray. Hundreds were lining up outside his synagogue hoping to receive a kilo of matzah each for their Passover dinner tables. The unleavened flatbread, imperative at the ritual meal known as a Seder, is now hard to find in war-torn Ukraine amid the war and a crippling food shortage.

But the rabbi wanted no challenge to get him down — be it the lack of matzah or that he was missing his wife and children who had fled the Black Sea port for Berlin days ago.

“I need to smile for my community,” Wolff said. “We need humor. We need hope.”

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews have fled while about 80% remain in Ukraine, according to estimates from Chabad, one of the largest Hasidic Jewish organizations in the world. Inside and outside Ukraine, a nation steeped in Jewish history and heritage, people are preparing to celebrate Passover, which begins sundown on April 15. It’s been a challenge, to say the least.

The holiday marks the liberation of Jewish people from slavery in ancient Egypt, and their exodus under the leadership of Moses. The story is taking on special meaning for thousands of Jewish Ukrainian refugees who are living a dramatic story in real time.

Chabad, which has deep roots and a wide network in Ukraine, and other groups such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Federations of North America, have mobilized to help Ukrainian Jews celebrate Passover wherever they have sought refuge. In Ukraine, Chabad plans 52 public Seders welcoming about 9,000 people.

In Odesa, Wolff is preparing to host two large Seders – one in early evening at the Chabad synagogue for families with young children and a later Seder at a hotel where participants can stay the night, obeying a 9 p.m. curfew.

He’s been waving in trucks loaded with Passover supplies – matzah from Israel, milk from France, meat from Britain.

“We may not all be together, but it’s going to be an unforgettable Passover,” Wolff said. “This year, we celebrate as one big Jewish family around the world.”

JDC, which has evacuated more than 11,600 Jews from Ukraine, has shipped more than 2 tons of matzah, over 400 bottles of grape juice and over 700 pounds of kosher Passover food for refugees in Poland, Moldova, Hungary and Romania, said Chen Tzuk, the organization’s director of operations in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Ukraine, their social service centers and corps of volunteers are distributing nearly 16 tons of matzah to elderly Jews and families in need, she said.

“Passover is something familiar and basic for Jewish people,” Tzuk said. “For refugees who have left everything behind, it’s important to be able celebrate this holiday with honor and dignity.”

JDC is organizing in-person Seders in countries bordering Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, she said, and is facilitating online Seders where it’s too dangerous to gather in person.

The Jewish Federations of North America has set up a volunteer hub in support of refugees fleeing Ukraine; it’s a partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel, the JDC and IsraAID. Russian-speaking volunteers, such as Alina Spaulding, will help organize a Seder for 100 refugees at a hotel in Budapest.

Spaulding, a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina, fled Kharkiv, Ukraine, as a 5-year-old in the 1970s with her parents. She said the war has rekindled strong connections to Ukraine.

“My mom showed me a photo of me with my grandpa on a street that was recently bombed,” Spaulding said. “We talked about the university in Kharkiv where my mom and dad went, which was also hit. Suddenly, it all felt so personal.”

Spaulding believes spending Passover with refugees will be “an experience to remember.”

“Part of the magic of Passover is finding your own story,” she said. “We’re in the middle of a modern-day exodus. I can’t even imagine the stories I will hear.”

Celebrating a holiday can give people a rush of hope and happiness even in grim situations, said Rabbi Jacob Biderman, who leads Chabad activities throughout Austria, including a center in Vienna that is sheltering about 800 Ukrainian Jews. Days after refugees reached his center, Biderman led a joyous celebration of Purim, a festival commemorating the deliverance of Jews from a planned massacre in ancient Persia.

“The look on their faces changed from sorrow to joy... Their eyes lit up,” Biderman said. “It gave them a sense of normalcy, dignity and the belief that their spiritual life is something no one can take away from them.”

That fueled Biderman’s determination to provide a memorable Passover Seder for the refugees.

Dr. Yaacov Gaissinovitch, his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children – ages 11, 8 and 4 – will be part of that celebration. They fled the Ukrainian city of Dnipro by car on Friday, March 4. Gaissinovitch, a urologist and mohel who performs the Jewish rite of circumcision, said it pained him, as an observant Jew, to drive on Shabbat – a forbidden act on the day of rest and prayer except when lives are at stake.

“I drove nonstop for 12 hours to Moldova to save us all,” he said. “We sang all the Shabbat songs in the car. It was very, very hard.”

In Dnipro, Gaissinovitch had his offices in the sprawling Menorah Center, which serves as a center of Jewish life, housing a synagogue, shops, restaurants, museums and the office of the city’s chief rabbi.

After a month of being severed from everything familiar, the Chabad center in Vienna has been a blessing, Gaissinovitch said.

“We’ve been accepted here very warmly,” he said. “After being disconnected for days, the children have been able to see that our life hasn’t stopped.”

A similar community at the Chabad center in Berlin is housing about 1,000 refugees, including Rabbi Avraham Wolff’s wife and children from Odesa. The center plans to host eight Seders citywide and has distributed matzah and other food to community members. Refugees, including 120 children from an Odesa orphanage who arrived in Berlin along with Wolff’s family, distributed the items to locals, said Yehuda Teichtal, the chief rabbi of Berlin.

“To me, this is extremely touching,” he said. “That people on the receiving end are able to give and not be viewed as victims. It’s empowering and energizing.”

As they prepare for Passover, Teichtal, Biderman and Wolff said they have been inspired by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who was among the most influential global leaders in Judaism in modern times. April 5 marked the Rebbe’s 120th birth anniversary, a special number in Jewish tradition.

“The Rebbe built a strong foundation (in Ukraine) so we’re able to do what we’re doing now,” Wolff said.

Schneerson grew up in Ukraine during a challenging time in the former Soviet Union, Teichtal said.

“In spite of all the darkness, his focus was selflessness, dedication, love for all humanity and the unwavering faith that we are going to overcome,” Teichtal said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The first Passover Haggadah in Ukrainian marks a community’s break with Russia

Holiday text undergoes complex translation as Ukraine’s Jews continue to forge a separate identity, a process hastened by Russia’s invasion

By DAVID I. KLEIN

       30 March 2023

Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi provided the illustrations for “For Our Freedom,” the first Ukrainian-language 

version of the Passover Hagaddah. (Courtesy/Project Kesher via JTA)

JTA — For Michal Stamova, the challenge of translating Passover’s core text into Ukrainian started with the title.

The Haggadah — the book containing the Passover story — starts with an “h” sound in both Hebrew, its original language, and English. In Russian, the primary language of organized Jewish life in Ukraine until recently, there is no such sound, so the book has long been known there as an “agada.”

Ukrainian does have an “h” sound. But the character representing that sound conveys a different sound in Russian: a “G.” So for many Ukrainian Jews, the cover of Stamova’s translation will read as “Gagada.”

The journey of that single sound reflects the complexity of the task Stamova took on to aid Ukrainian Jews in celebrating Passover a year into their country’s war with Russia. A musicologist from western Ukraine who fled to Israel shortly after Russia’s invasion, Stamova was recruited to create a Ukrainian-language Haggadah, a powerful sign of the community’s rupture with its Russophone past.

Stamova knew she wanted to base her translation not on the preexisting Russian translation, but on the original Hebrew and Aramaic. That proved challenging because much of the text of the Haggadah is lifted from other sources in the Jewish canon, but Jewish translations of those texts to Ukrainian are only underway now for the first time.

“At first, it was very difficult to start, because we don’t have the sources in Ukrainian,” Stamova said. “We don’t have Torah in Ukrainian. We don’t have Tanakh in Ukrainian. It was very difficult to know what words to find.”

Stamova’s text, titled “For Our Freedom,” was released online earlier this month in advance of the Passover holiday that starts April 5. It is one of a growing number of efforts to translate Jewish texts into Ukrainian. Translators affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement have produced a book of psalms and are working on a daily prayer book, with their sights set on a full translation of the Torah. An effort is also underway now to translate a chapter of a newer text associated with Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust memorial day, in advance of its commemoration this year on April 18.

A sample page of text from the new Ukrainain Haggadah. (Courtesy/Project Kesher via JTA)

The absence of those texts until now, despite Ukraine’s significant Jewish population, reflects the particular linguistic history of Ukrainian Jews. Under the Russian empire, Jews living in what is now Ukraine in the 19th century tended to adopt Russian rather than Ukrainian, usually in addition to Yiddish, because Ukrainian was perceived as the language of the peasantry and conferred few benefits. That tilt became more pronounced after World War II and the Holocaust, when Yiddish declined as a Jewish vernacular and Russian became the main language of the Soviet Union. The history helps explain why, even as the number of Ukrainians speaking Russian at home fell sharply over the last decade, Jews remained largely Russian-speaking. (Russian and Ukrainian are related linguistically, though their speakers cannot understand each other.)

Over the past 30 years, the vast majority of printed material used by Ukrainian Jewish communities, including Haggadahs for Passover, were created in Russian by groups such as Chabad, which is the main Jewish presence in both countries. But after Russia’s invasion, those materials became a liability at a time when being perceived as having ties to the enemy could be dangerous.

Indeed, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year prompted many Russian-speaking Ukrainians to switch languages as a marker of national solidarity — and sparked a push to translate Ukraine’s Jewish life into the Ukrainian language.

“Ukrainian Jews always spoke Russian. That really was the norm. With the advent of the escalation of the war, that has shifted, and Ukrainian Jews who are in the country are shifting as fast as they can over to Ukrainian,” said Karyn Gershon, the executive director of Project Kesher, the global Jewish feminist nonprofit that commissioned the new Haggadah.

Heavily damaged building seen after a Russian attack in Sloviansk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, March 27, 2023. (Libkos/AP)

Gershon said the Haggadah offers an opportunity to elevate a Ukrainian Jewish identity in other ways, such as by including tidbits about famous Jewish writers from the area that comprises modern Ukraine who in the past might have been characterized only as “Russian.”

“In most of the Jewish world, the things that make a Haggadah unique are the special readings,” Gershon said. The new Ukrainian Haggadah includes alongside the traditional text, she said, “prayers for the defenders of Ukraine, prayers for peace in Ukraine, but also [passages] reclaiming writers who were always categorized as Russian, but because they came from places like Kyiv, Odesa and Berdichev, are more accurately Ukrainian.”

For example, the Haggadah includes passages from the 1925 book “Passover Nights,” by Hava Shapiro, a Kyiv-born Jew and journalist who authored one of the first Hebrew-language diaries known to have been written by a woman.

The additions offer an element of pride for some of the Ukrainian Jews who plan to use the new Haggadah.

Illustrative: Ukrainian Jewish refugees are seen in a newly opened kosher camp on the southern shore of Lake Balaton in Balatonoszod, Hungary, on July 29, 2022. (Peter Kohalmi/AFP)

“It is bringing you to the roots of those Jews who were living here before the Holocaust,” said Lena Pysina, who lives in Cherkasy, southeast of Kyiv. “It’s about rebuilding the Jewish communities in Ukraine as ‘Ukrainian Jews.’”

Pysina said the switch to Ukrainian and the embrace of Ukrainian Jewish history in some ways echoed the themes of the Passover story, which describes the Israelites fleeing slavery in Egypt.

“It’s like an exodus for us. It is not comfortable, because we get used to what we get used to. But we have to be proactive, we have to find our identity,” she said. “It took us 70 years of Soviet times to… celebrate the Jewish holidays and Jewish traditions. And it took us 30 years to understand that we have to build Ukrainian Jewish communities, too.”

Those communities are very much in flux a year into the war, with millions of Ukrainians internally displaced or having relocated overseas. Stamova undertook the Haggadah project from Israel, where she is one of an estimated 15,000 Ukrainians who have arrived since February 2022.

An image from the new Ukrainian version of the Passover Hagaddah. (Courtesy/Project Kesher via JTA)

Stamova grew up in western Ukraine, where the use of the Ukrainian language is more common than in the east. Like most other Ukrainian Jews, she still grew up speaking Russian at home, but her school, university and most of her life outside the home was conducted in Ukrainian. That made her a natural fit for the translation project, along with her background in Jewish liturgy, which she had studied at a Conservative yeshiva in Jerusalem.

The challenges went beyond phonetics. One frequent question was whether to use Russianisms that are widely known in Ukrainian and would be more easily understandable to a Jewish audience, or to use uniquely Ukrainian words.

The most difficult section of the text, she said, was Hallel, the penultimate step of the Passover seder. Hallel is a lengthy song of divine praise heavy with poetry and allegorical language — making for challenging translation work in any language.

Stamova said she sought to stick to the traditional understanding of the text while also making some adjustments for the contemporary seder attendee. For example, the section of the Haggadah about the “four sons” with varying relationships to Judaism is rendered gender-neutral and changed to the “four children” in Stamova’s translation — an adjustment that has been made in other languages, too.

Most of all, Stamova said, she hopes the Haggadah offers some solace to Ukrainian Jews whose entire lives have been turned upside down.

“The Jewish tradition of Pesach is that we every year have to remember that we escaped from Egypt, from slavery. It’s very therapeutic,” Stamova said, using the Hebrew word for Passover. “How is it like therapy? Yes, we every year remember this difficult story, but then we have a plan for the future, we say ‘next year in Jerusalem.’ So we have to have a plan. We have to see the future.”

Make Matzah Not War: Easter, Passover, Nowruz, Eleusis & the Spirit of Max

Susan Block

 March 20, 2026

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Holidays whip up sweet and spicy memories of Captain Max that I stir into a new Spring casserole of vintage photos. Like onions, some make me cry, but most are tasty enough to make me smile and occasionally even lick my lips.

I call it “collage therapy” and, like good holy-dazed comfort food with special herbs – such as *herb,*  also celebrated around this time (4/20, anyone?) – it soothes my bottomless sorrow  since the May 13, 2025 death of my beloved husband Maximillian R. Lobkowicz di Filangieri, helping me navigate this strange space between grief and gratitude.

Max Collage #7 highlights the Passover Liberation from Slavery and the Easter Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Filled with fun and games, Easter egg and Afikoman hunts, these zesty Spring holidays,  can also be harsh, with bitter herbs for Pesach and fasting for Lent, to give us a tiny taste of the great suffering of slavery, crucifixion and other sins perpetrated by human greed, brutality, hubris and foolishness.

Liberation & Resurrection

Both Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) and Easter honor divine Miracles of Return, echoing the primeval Eleusinian Mysteries of spring, which celebrate the pagan return of Persephone, Princess of the Underworld – and queen of the funereal grief I now feel – to her own grieving Earth Mother Demeter.

Yes, long before the Rebirth of the Holy Son returning to His Father in Heaven, the ancients honored the Resurrection of the Holy Daughter returning to Her Mother on Earth.

According to the Greeks, the Goddess Persephone (Proserpina to the Romans – like Max) rises up from the bowels of Hades (Pluto) to the old Athenian suburb of Eleusis, rejoining Her Earth Mama Demeter (Ceres) who is so ecstatic to embrace the fruit of Her loins that She showers the world in spring (now that’s some serious squirting)!

I only wish Max could return to me as Persephone returns to Her Earth Mother Demeter and Jesus returns to His Heavenly Father. That utterly irrational yet profound longing for the return of my beloved has opened my agnostic heart to understanding the deep faith so many place in the miracle of resurrection.

Ahhhh… if only!

Miracles of Spring

Though pretty amazing, the stories of Purim and St. Paddy’s Day don’t feature scientifically impossible *miracles.* No miraculous parting of the sea, and no walking on it either. The Megillat Esther doesn’t even mention the name of God. Easter and Passover are all about God and His (in Judeo-Christian-Islamic lore, God’s pronouns are always “He/Him”) miracles. Things that *can’t* happen – manna from heaven, resurrection of the dead – do.

The closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever experienced was Max himself, his energy and his love that somehow – miraculously – both protected and liberated me. Though agnostic, we tried to honor all the Gods and Goddesses, because as Max would say with a wink, “You never know.” We were fascinated and sometimes aroused by the ancient tales. Our Commedia Erotica interpretations might be considered blasphemous, but they were always heartfelt.

On the Passover/Easter convergence of 2011, we held a big “Last Supper Seder,” sharing matzah and chocolate bunnies, colored eggs, the Pascal lamb, red wine, “bitter herbs” and 4/20 herbs with professors, porn stars, artists and therapists. Max had just recovered from bladder cancer surgery a couple of weeks before, and he wasn’t sure if he was well enough to attend.  But as I began the seder, he slipped into a long robe and suddenly *appeared* from behind my chair, playing the part of the resurrected Jesus… or Elijah, depending on what you believe. It was mystical, hilarious and genuinely surprised me – almost like a real resurrection!

I keep hoping he’ll do that again…

Easter, Pesach, Nowruz

Though we weren’t religious believers, Max fervently believed in consuming all the delicious foods of our elaborate Passover/Easter seder dinners, from matzah ball soup to chocolate Easter bunnies. Both Pesach and Easter highlight eggs, which Max adored, regardless of color.

Iranian or Persian New Year, aka “Nowruz,” also features eggs, sweets, spring cleaning, the idea of rebirth, renewal, sometimes rebellion (how about those Arab Springs?) and other parallels to the spring holidays Max and I grew up on. A 3000-year-old Vernal Equinox festival that’s more cultural than religious, with roots in Zoroastrianiasm, and is observed by over 300 million people around the world, we’d often acknowledge Nowruz or Noorooz (meaning “New Day”) in our Bonoboville Spring holiday bacchanals, but admittedly without nearly as much detail as Pesach or Easter because being the dumb Judeo-Christian-Pagan-Agnostics we are, we really didn’t know Nowruz from Babaghanoush (which is actually Lebanese, not Iranian).

At least we acknowledged our ignorance, unlike many raised in so-called “Judeo-Christian” culture who excuse their war crimes by framing Iran as a savage society or Islam as an especially vicious religion.

Bonoboville Spring Bacchanals

Of course, Nowruz, Pesach and Easter are family occasions, but there comes a time when anyone with a pulse tires of trying to please their aunties and in-laws and craves a spicier blessing. Time to catch Spring Fever and fall in love… or at least party like a bonobo!

Thus, for the past three decades, after spending the first part of their holiday with family, bevies of Easter Bunnies, Passover Kinksters and a few Nowruz revelers would gather together in the Womb Room Sanctuary at the little Love Church of The Bonobo Way in Dr. Suzy’s Speakeasy of Bonoboville to celebrate the erotic, not-so family-friendly, bacchanalian roots of the Judeo-Christian Rites of Spring. And no, it wasn’t a cult; we were just having irreverent consenting-adult holiday fun.

Officiating in my priestly robes, tallit, gold cross (a gift from a devout Catholic therapy client), Star of David (woven for me by Twin Towers inmates from the threads of their prison uniforms), “Lox et Veritas” g-string and bunny ears, I would channel the spirit of The Great Bonobo Spring Easter Bunny Matzah Goddess, or some such mirthful divinity.

And Capt’n Max would channel Capt’n Max. Sometimes he’d wear his own Twin-Towers-woven star or bunny ears, but his sheer presence always projected plenty of divine “main character energy” on its own.

Never Again for Anyone

The pandemic cooled down our bacchanals, and as Israel’s escalating attacks on Palestinians passed over Passover 2021, Max and I sadly stowed our Stars of David, put on Keffiyehs and raised Palestinian flags. At the time, the choice felt simple to us: “Never Again” meant “Never Again for Anyone.”

Yet nothing is ever that simple. With loved ones on all sides, we couldn’t fully root for any *side* except the Bonobo Way, the side of peace through pleasure, ceasefire, sharing and good old-fashioned diplomacy. We also continued to root for Freedom of Speech – a vital aspect of that “freedom” from slavery that Passover celebrates – and that’s free speech for everyone, including the creeps who try to take ours away.

With Max now gone, I still root for free speech and the Bonobo Way, but I miss our painted eggs on the Last Supper seder plate. I miss Max.

Make Matzah Not War

Max passed over (literally) before tRump’s current bombardment of the ancient land of Iran, aka Operation Epstein Folly. Yes, “Operation Epic Fury” (did a gamer come up with that name?) was re-christened “Operation Epstein Fury” by clickbait influencers, but that merely exchanges Epstein for “Epic,” and it’s much worse than that.

“Folly” is more on-the-nose than “Fury” because none of the architects of this mess are authentically “furious” about anything. Certainly, the babbling tRumpus is not furious, nor are any of his cosplaying Cabinet of Dr. Caligari horror actors, yes-models and real estate developers. But they are all remarkably, hubristically and rather dangerously foolish.

The bombing of the girls’ school might be Herr Trumpenstein’s most foolish and horrific deed yet, especially as it appears to be a bloody coda to his Epstein history.

Fools can be funny, but this fool’s errand is devastating to people all over the Middle East. Needless to say, Nowruz 2026 is not as joyous as usual, though some Iranians are observing the pre-Nowruz traditional fire ritual Chaharshanbe Suri by defying government orders, while others are burning effigies of tRump and Bibi.

Poor Trumpty Dumpty was “shocked” that a big *civilized* country like Iran would actually fight back when pelted with American bombs. “They weren’t supposed to,” Trumpty whined (not so subtly blaming Jared), as Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Creeps nodded along, bombing away anyway.

Where’s Moses to part the Strait of Hormuz with his magic God Rod when you need him?

If Max were alive, no doubt he’d be ranting against these mad, arrogant, avaricious fools. And he’d make it personal, telling the story of his own experience as a former starry-eyed U.S. Army recruit to any bewildered soldiers that might be listening. Max was a rifleman, a crack shot being groomed for sniper duty when one fine day, his young brain figured out that after target practice came killing his fellow humans. So, he threw down his rifle, picked up a pen and studied war no more.

Well, it wasn’t that simple (nothing ever is), but that’s a story for another collage. In the meantime, let’s simply end this foolish war, or whatever it’s called.

Max would say, “Listen Trumpty, we all know you’re a bully and a fool, so why not go TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), find an offramp (but that doesn’t mean pivoting to “take Cuba”!), and stop the bombing? Then maybe they’ll stop their bombing (after all, you started it), and we can all go bonobos, eat chocolate eggs and enjoy the miracles of Spring.”

Not that it’s ever that simple, but in the meantime… Happy Easter, Passover, Nowruz, 4/20, Dionysia, Primavera, Eleusinian Mysteries, Spring Break or whatever you celebrate, from me, Bonoboville and the Spirit of Max.

Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For information and speaking engagements, call 626-461-5950. Email her at drsusanblock@gmail.com  

SEE 

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2007/04/passover-song.html

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