A TikTok rabbi helps Jewish Ukrainian refugees feel comfortable in Moldova shelters

CHISINAU, Moldova (JTA) — MacBook beneath his arm and sporting the newest AirPods, Shimshon Izakson regarded as if — with a change of outfit — he might have simply stepped out of a hipster cafe in a stylish neighborhood of Moscow or Bucharest. 

However he was in a Jewish middle’s sports activities corridor in downtown Chisinau, serving to Jewish refugees who had simply arrived in Moldova from Nikolayev, a strategic port metropolis on the street between Crimea and Odessa that has come beneath repeated missile assault since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. A gaggle of youngsters performed within the nook, exuding a way of calm in a room dotted with train mats and picket pallets which were repurposed as beds. 

Izakson, carrying a black hat, a swimsuit and a well-groomed beard, wise-cracked in Belarussian-accented Russian and giggled with a number of the over-excited youngsters. One other toddler pushed himself previous Izakson in a colourful plastic automobile. 

“Most of the smallest ones are excited as a result of they suppose they’re going on vacation,” Izakson stated with a tragic smile.

Izakson, an Orthodox rabbi who was born right into a secular household in jap Belarus and lived for years in Moscow, has a transparent reference to the Jews who’ve traveled to Moldova. Previously a rabbi in Vitebsk in northern Belarus and Vilnius in Lithuania, he’s serving to oversee native aid efforts run by the Jewish Group of Moldova, an Orthodox group. 

Only a few Ukrainian Jews converse Hebrew, and lots of have discovered it exhausting to speak with the numerous Israeli or American Jewish volunteers who’ve little data of Ukraine and have flooded into Moldova to supply help. However whereas the official language of Moldova is Romanian (regardless of a decades-long debate over whether or not it ought to be known as Moldovan), many Moldovans converse Russian, which has been helpful for the Jewish refugees, particularly these from Odessa, who typically converse Russian too. They’ll keep and extra simply discover work. In neighboring Romania, for instance, the place many transfer on to, few folks converse Russian.

Round Izakson, a half-dozen Israelis deployed to prepare refugee aid efforts wandered round — together with Zaza, a “medical clown,” who obtained disgruntled stares from some older Ukrainians who discovered she was not a medical physician.

Izakson chats with a aid employee at a sports activities corridor in downtown Chisinau, Moldova. (Jacob Judah)

Language limitations for lots of the refugees stay steep as they unfold out all through Europe; some international locations are specializing in intensive language coaching for brand new arrivals.

“We try to create essentially the most regular place attainable,” Izakson as a toddler ran round telling folks about his stuffed toy Orangutan. 

“We’re then making an attempt to maneuver folks on the first attainable alternative onto the place they wish to go, whether or not that’s Germany, Israel, or Romania. We have to transfer them rapidly as a result of we don’t know what number of extra refugees will come,” he added. 

Moldova, which is sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine and is one in every of Europe’s poorest international locations, has to this point welcomed over 400,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. Few wish to keep for lengthy: Based on Moldovan authorities, fewer than 100,000 are nonetheless within the nation. 

Izakson has a drive to connect with younger Jews ambivalent about faith and to Russian-speaking Jews in Western Europe — two teams that always intersect. He had meant to maneuver to London in the summertime to turn into a rabbi for the massive however typically forgotten Russian-speaking Jewish neighborhood, estimated at over 10,000, in Britain. 

“I don’t suppose I want a synagogue,” he stated. “No one would wish to go to a Russian synagogue. Russians — all of them — don’t wish to be Russians when they’re overseas. It might be a form of networking place, with co-working and somewhat Jewish taste, managed by me.”

He has additionally carved out an area for himself in one other non-synagogue area: on TikTok, garnering over 40,000 followers by posting movies about Jewish life and non secular follow set to the newest viral music tendencies. 

“I actually love TikTok,” he stated with a giggle. “I’ve Telegram and Instagram accounts too — no person is doing this in Britain, however there are many Russian-speaking rabbis engaged on these platforms.”

“That is the one manner if I wish to carry younger individuals who didn’t develop up with Judaism again,” he added. “I’ve to succeed in out. All people right here thinks that Jewish custom is simply…” 

He laughed and mimicked praying and bowing. “‘Why?’” 

The Jewish Group of Moldova, the nation’s predominant Orthodox neighborhood right here, shares a constructing with a half-dozen different Jewish organizations, together with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. It’s housed in a lately rebuilt neighborhood middle on one of many predominant pedestrian drags in central Chisinau. 

Chisinau’s two different synagogues — one affiliated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch motion and the opposite run by a Hasidic rabbi affiliated with the Belz Hasidic sect — have additionally been offering assist to Ukrainian Jewish refugees. 

The Jewish Group of Moldova is working 5 shelters in Chisinau. (Jacob Judah)

Izakson says that he didn’t count on the worldwide mobilization of Jewish organizations to assist Ukrainian refugees. 

“In regular days, you search for one thing small and you’ll’t discover it. Now, when the necessity is far larger, assistance is coming from each path,” he stated. “I hope that we are going to be taught one thing from this.”

There has additionally been some financial assist from significantly rich Jews in Moldova and different former Soviet states, however extra will likely be wanted. There’s a looming monetary catastrophe on the horizon for a lot of Jewish communities which were on the frontline of the refugee response, Izakson stated.

“We’d like cash,” he stated. “We’re feeding on a regular basis 450 Jews which might be in our facilities. We’re paying all these payments. After we do the accounts, we will likely be within the minus of no less than €100,000. In just a few weeks it is going to be greater than that.” 

RELATED: All of our ongoing Jewish Ukraine protection

Izakson, who nonetheless has most of his household in Belarus, has not been in a position to speak with them concerning the state of affairs and whether or not the Putin-allied autocracy may enter the preventing in Ukraine. “We can not talk about these items over the cellphone,” he stated with a hearty chuckle. “In Belarus, everybody is aware of that you’re not the one one who can hear what you might be saying.”

Again within the sports activities corridor, Irina Marmuta watched her two-year-old son, Artyom, out of 1 eye. They had been on their strategy to Germany, the place a good friend from Nikolayev had discovered them a household prepared to host them. Till she figures out the easiest way to get there, Irina has been staying in one of many 5 shelters which might be being run by the Jewish Group of Moldova. 

“You can’t see, however I can inform that on the within he’s actually afraid,” she stated in a tone that hardly hid a panic. “He wakes up at evening overlaying his ears and shouting ‘mummy, mummy, there are sirens.’ I inform him that he’s having a nightmare, however he nonetheless goes again to sleep together with his arms over his ears.”

Izakson has additionally began posting content material from Chisinau about what Moldova’s Jews are doing to assist — however he’s not all the time pleased with social media.

“I feel that they aren’t selling content material associated to Ukraine,” he stated about TikTok. “They aren’t pushing it.” 

He pointed at his cellphone, exhibiting one in every of his newest movies. “It received solely 350 likes,” he stated.