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Posted on 08/11/2025 8:22:21 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
A historic synagogue in Odessa, Ukraine, sustained significant damage following a Russian drone strike this week, one of several Jewish sites caught up in intense bombardments this summer.
The Nachlas Eliezer Synagogue in the Peresyp district of Odessa, which was built in 1898 and served the Jewish community until it was closed in the 1920s under Soviet rule, was struck Monday evening by a Russian suicide drone.
The strike caused a large fire in the building, which had already partially collapsed in 1992, according to the United Jewish Community of Ukraine. No injuries were reported.
“This sacred building, constructed at the end of the 19th century, served as a place of prayer, hope, and spiritual strength for the Jewish community of Odesa,” wrote Rabbi Moshe Azman, a leading rabbi in Ukraine, in a post on X. “Today, once again, we have witnessed how war affects not only people but also holy sites and our historical memory.”
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the exiled chief rabbi of Moscow and the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, urged European leaders to “speak out and condemn this assault on faith and history” in a post on X.
The strike on the historic synagogue marks the latest attack on Ukrainian Jewish community spaces as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues after nearly three and a half years, with this summer bringing some of the heaviest, and deadliest, bombardments yet.
Many of Ukraine’s Jews have fled either to Europe or Israel during the war, but the Institute for Jewish Policy Research estimates that there is a core Jewish population of 32,000 still living in Ukraine.
Last month, the home of Chabad Rabbi Moshe Weber was hit by a Russian missile while his family slept after their Shabbat dinner in Dnipro, a heart of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement that has carried on with difficulty during the war.
“I felt it was really, really close to us, and then I saw from the window that bricks were falling and broken windows,” Weber told the Times of Israel.
The bombardment of Weber’s home came weeks after the car of another Chabad Rabbi, Yosef Yitzchak Wolff, was struck by a Russian suicide drone while driving with his wife and daughter.
Wolff, the director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Kherson, Ukraine, told Chabad.org that it was a “miracle” that his family survived the strike.
“I just saw it, for an instant, and then a few seconds later there was a crazy explosion,” Rabbi Wolff told Chabad.org. “You can see a picture of the car. It’s a miracle that we’re alive and well. You can’t call it anything else — a miracle.”
Chabad rabbis make up the majority of Jewish clergy in Ukraine. While some helped their families leave early in the war, all have returned, in keeping with the philosophy of their movement, whose emissaries typically commit to the cities where they are stationed and stay there through thick and thin.
Azman shared a statement from the chief rabbi of Odessa, Avraham Wolff, who said, “We are here, and we are staying here — and we will continue our work, no matter what.”
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You can excuse hospital and schools being struck by missiles by saying that they were the result of faulty targeting, but it's a damned sight harder to make that claim when drones are used.
I’m an America supporter. You are a dual-citizen?
Asking for a friend ...
You’re an “American supporter”?? Supporter of what?
“America supporter”. Bone up on your reading comprehension.
I support what is in America’s best interests.
Nations have interests, not friends.
The difference is that Ukraine's government couldn't operate without US tax dollars and we haven't given a penny to Russia.
Everything you believe is true about Russia IS true of Ukraine. So, stop pretending there is any kind of moral high ground in supporting Ukraine.
In wars aplenty over centuries, religious buildings have been damaged or wholly destroyed. Coventry cathedral in the UK as the Frauenkirche, Dresden. The Hurva Synagogue as the Old Sheldon Church. ISIS beheading Christians and burning churches in Mozambique as churches in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Using media and public relations strategies to claim some "moral high ground" is so often an extension of war by other means.
In an interview of two widows, which I saw on German TV decades back, one English and one German, neither would forgive the other's nation for the destruction of a "holy place," and neither suggest their nation's destruction of another "holy place" was wrong-headed. In war, all sides find victims aplenty.
Meanwhile, this is from Ukraine supporter Willy OAM:
“Severe Blow, Major Crisis - Russia’s Devastating Tactic Revealed, Attrition Bears Fruit | Map Update”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUpiLExmlYw
Neither side is good, or moral, but Russia is the world's only other nuclear super-power, and IMHO our immediate national interests are better served by preventing a Sino-Russian political/economic alliance then forcing it by supporting Ukraine, as we pragmatically did with the Soviet Union during WWII.
The Soviets interned our servicemen and bombers fighting in the Pacific Theater, they committed numerous war crimes, but we decided it was more important to defeat Nazi Germany.
I’m a Bach supporter. Who in their right mind would think that I support Paul McCartney too?
“... with significant support of Neo-Nazis.”
Look up Russian neo-Nazis.
If we allow Russia’s nuclear arsenal to determine our foreign policy, we might as well turn tail and run from our global presence.
By the way, the chickenshit Russians, from Medvedev to Vladimir Solovyov to Dmitry Kiselyov, have been threatening the West with nuclear annihilation ever since their blitzkrieg fsailed.
By the way, the chickenshit Russians, from Medvedev to Vladimir Solovyov
Funny that once upon a time, Solovyov was cheering Zelenskyy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTmhTxzAH70
You missed the second point of my post, its the combination of Russia's nuclear arsenal with them being forced to strengthen economic and military ties with China that is not in our national security interests.
I am sure you would agree China is on the path to becoming our biggest threat, and IMHO we should prioritize weakening them.
China still needs Russian energy and military know how, and Russia is a natural enemy of China, but we are forcing an alliance between the two with our support of Ukraine, especially with sanctions.
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