Hanukkah always brings me home. Not physically — but emotionally. It’s the holiday that weaves together memory, family, ritual, and the quiet reassurance of sitting together around a small, steady light. Each year as I take out my menorah, I remember the people who taught me how to create warmth even when the world outside felt uncertain.

But this year feels different.
This year, for me,  the contrast between the light in my home and the darkness in Ukraine feels impossible to ignore.

As we gather with family and friends, thousands of Jewish elders across Ukraine will spend Hanukkah in cold, silent apartments, unsure when the lights will return. In many communities in the Dnipro oblast, blackouts stretch eight hours or longer. Pharmacies are damaged or empty. ATMs don’t work without electricity. Even boiling water becomes its own small crisis.

And these elders are not just elders.

They are the very people Action for Post-Soviet Jewry (Action-PSJ) — now in our 50th year — was created to support. Founded during the Soviet Jewry Movement, we began as a grassroots effort to ensure Jews behind the Iron Curtain were not forgotten. For nearly half a century, Action-PSJ has served as a bridge of care between Jewish communities here and Jewish........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)