Kyiv Jews Mark Fast Day After Night of Missile Barrage

After one of Kyiv’s most intense nights in recent months, marked by relentless missile and drone attacks, local Jews gathered in Shuls to mark the fast of the 17th of Tammuz.

By COLlive reporter

Kyiv’s surreal wartime routine struck again with full force as residents endured one of the city’s most intense nights in recent months during a massive combined aerial assault.

For 12 consecutive hours, from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m., the city was rocked by repeated explosions as hundreds of suicide drones and missiles of various types targeted the capital.

The tension was evident throughout the city. As part of emergency preparations, authorities ordered all gas stations across Kyiv to close in advance to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires in the event of direct strikes.

Thousands of residents fled their homes during the night, seeking shelter deep inside the city’s metro stations.

“The entire city was shaking. The explosions never stopped for a moment, and it was simply impossible to sleep,” said Rabbi Simcha Levenhartz, one of the Chabad shluchim in Kyiv.

For dozens of families from the Simcha Jewish community, led by shliach Rabbi Mordechai Levenhartz, the night marked a painful return to reality. Just one day earlier, they had come back to Kyiv after spending nine days in the peace and quiet of the Carpathian Mountains.

The special retreat, organized by JRNU, Chabad’s network in Ukraine, was designed to give families and children a temporary escape from the ongoing trauma of the war. Instead, they returned directly into one of the most severe attacks the city has experienced in recent months. Many spent the entire night crowded inside the underground shelter beneath the community center.

Despite the sleepless night and the sense of helplessness, Kyiv’s synagogues were filled early Thursday morning. Hundreds of Jews gathered for Shacharis on the Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, exhausted but determined.

At the same time, JRNU’s humanitarian relief network continued operating without interruption. Hot meals were served throughout the morning at Jewish community centers, while volunteers delivered food directly to the homes of elderly, ill, and homebound residents who could not safely leave their apartments under the continuing threat of missile attacks.

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