Two ballistic missiles struck the Ukrainian city of Poltava today shortly after 9 a.m. on Tuesday, killing at least 51 people and wounding more than 270 others.
“We were in the synagogue in the middle of singing Aleinu at the conclusion of morning prayers when it happened,” Rabbi Yosef Segal told Chabad.org. Segal, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Poltava and the city’s chief rabbi, said that congregants did not immediately hear the blasts, but that cell phone red alerts rang in the minutes that preceded it.
The Russian missiles tore through a military academy and nearby hospital, Ukrainian officials said. While Chabad’s synagogue is in a different neighborhood, its Or Avner Jewish Preschool sits about a quarter of a mile away from the devastated area. “All of the children were outside in the courtyard just a few minutes earlier, but they were inside when the missiles hit,” a tired-sounding Segal said. “Some of them thankfully did not even realize that something had occurred.”
Segal describes the devastation caused by the twin rockets as “absolutely horrific.”
“The dead, the wounded, it’s hard to describe how gruesome it is,” he said. The rabbi, who has co-directed Chabad of Poltava with his wife, Dina, since 2001, is in close contact with local authorities and said that at this time it does not appear any members of the Jewish community were among the victims.
Though Poltava is in Eastern Ukraine, it has been removed from most of the fighting. “It has been generally very quiet here,” Segal explained. Indeed, in the two-and-a-half years since the war began, Poltava has welcomed thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians from Kharkiv, Sumy, Mariupol and other harder-hit cities in the east.
The Jewish community has likewise grown as a result of the influx of Jews from other cities, and with the help of Jewish Relief Network Ukraine (JRNU) Chabad of Poltava has been helping to feed and house many from the east, some for months at a time.
“This was, in many ways, like a city of refuge,” Segal said. “This attack has shaken that feeling.”
He said that Jewish life will continue. “A mohel is coming on Thursday and will perform a bris on a newborn baby boy as well as three adult Jewish males,” he said. “We pray that the mitzvot we do here will tip the scale and usher in the end of this war with the coming of Moshiach.”
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