President Zelensky Attends Ceremony Marking 85 Years Since Babyn Yar

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended the annual memorial ceremony for the tens of thousands murdered at Babyn Yar near Kyiv, alongside rabbis and Chabad emissaries in Ukraine. One Shlucha in attended as a family member of one of the victims.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended the annual memorial ceremony for the tens of thousands murdered at Babyn Yar near Kyiv, alongside rabbis and Chabad emissaries in Ukraine.

The event was held under heavy security, including a special air-defense system deployed to protect the president and numerous snipers positioned amid concerns over a possible attack, including by Russian drones. In recent weeks, attacks on Kyiv by missiles and drones have intensified, with the number of casualties reaching dozens, including Israeli child Daniel Umansky, who was killed by a Russian drone strike at his home in Kyiv last Friday.

Upon arriving at the event, President Zelensky received an update from the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine (FJCU) regarding arrangements to transport Umansky’s body to Israel. His coffin is expected to depart from Chisinau for Israel tomorrow, where he will be buried in a cemetery in central Israel at the request of his family.

In his speech, President Zelensky said: “We must remember the terrible things that happened here many years ago, and now they are happening again — this time at the hands of the Russians.”

Representatives of approximately 50 countries attended the event, led by Israel’s new ambassador to Ukraine, Roi Rosenblit, and the ambassadors of all G7 countries — the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan.

Zelensky thanked the ambassadors and the international community for their “help in fighting against the terrible things the Russians are doing to us, to humanity and to civilization.”

The ceremony was organized, as it is every year, by the Presidential Office, the Babyn Yar memorial complex and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine. Among those attending this year were Rabbi Rafael Rotman, Co-Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine and a personal friend of the President, Rabbi Moshe Asman, one of Ukraine’s leading rabbis, and his son Rabbi Israel Asman; Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv, and his son Rabbi Dov-Ber; Rabbi Motti Levenhartz, Chabad emissary in Kyiv, and his wife Rebbetzin Devorah Leah; Rabbi Shalom Dovber Gopin, a Chabad emissary in Kyiv; Rabbi Shaul Horowitz, Chief Rabbi of Vinnytsia; Rabbi Moshe Tahler, Chief Rabbi of Berdychiv; and Rabbi Mendy Alperin of Zhytomyr.

Rabbi Rotman recited the El Malei Rachamim prayer in memory of the victims, Rabbi Markovitch recited a chapter of Psalms, and Rabbi Levenhartz recited the Kaddish prayer in their memory.

For Rabbi Levenhartz and his wife, Rebbetzin Devorah Leah Levenhartz, the ceremony represented a historic closing of the circle. She attended as a member of one of the victims’ families: her great-grandmother, Sonia Posner, was among the tens of thousands of Jews murdered at Babyn Yar on the eve of Yom Kippur 85 years ago. On September 29 and 30, 1941, 33,771 Jews were massacred at the killing site by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Sonia Posner lived in Romny, in Ukraine’s Sumy region. Her husband, Rabbi Yitzchak-Zalman, was murdered several years before World War II when he was thrown from a ferry by non-Jews. At an unknown point, Sonia made her way to Kyiv, from where she was taken to Babyn Yar and murdered.

According to Rebbetzin Levenhartz, she and her husband, Rabbi Motti, have been running the Jewish community and educational institutions in Kyiv for nearly 30 years.

“Grandmother Sonia was murdered in her fifties. We were unable to find a photograph of her, but we recently located a testimony at Yad Vashem containing her details. It turns out that before her murder, she lived not far from where we ourselves lived, and she now gets to be part of the thriving Jewish community we established as emissaries of the Rebbe. It is almost impossible to comprehend,” she said.

The emissary added: “When rabbis suggested to the Lubavitcher Rebbe adding an empty chair around the Seder table in memory of the six million who perished in the Holocaust, he said: ‘Instead of adding an empty chair, we need to seat another Jew around the table.’

“That is my motto, and that is the most meaningful form of remembrance — to make sure that the synagogues here are filled with Jews. This year, marking 85 years, it was important to me to participate in addition to the activities we carry out in her memory.”

Never Miss a Headline!

Sign up for the COLlive Daily News Roundup and never miss a story

Opt In

• I would like to receive the collive newsletter

Follow Us!