Emergency call continues 

Israel is working hard to accommodate the coming  Ukrainian refugees. The Ministry of Absorption has placed them in hotels for a month. After that, the refugees must find other places to live. Ministries like CFI are critical this time to assist them with urgent personal needs. Each of our relief packages costs $250. If you would like to be part of the outreach, please reply to this mailing or visit us at  www.cfi-usa.org to donate. 

 We bless you for recognizing the needs and sending your support today! Psalm 125:1─5. 

 Outreach to Ukrainian Jews 

 Your concern and giving were in action during the recent outreach to the Jewish refugees from Ukraine. CFI was given permission to visit the refugees and bring them relief packages. The events took place first at the hotel parking lots. Without you, we would not have been ready for such a sudden operation. 

As more refugees arrive, the word about our Jerusalem Distribution Center is circulating among them. They currently arrive in the Center to receive assistance. Now also, other Jerusalem ministries are helping with several needs; however, Christian Friends of Israel was the very first organization to reach out to the refugees. We sincerely thank you! 

 Golda Meir, Kyiv’s own daughter 

When Golda Mabovitch was born in 1898 in Kyiv, in the Kyiv Governorate in the Russian Empire, anti-Semitic pogroms were commonplace in her town. In her autobiography, Golda wrote that her earliest memories included her father boarding up the front door in response to rumors of an imminent pogrom. During those years, many Jews were wounded, Jewish property was damaged, and hundreds of families were financially ruined. Until the 1917 Russian revolution, the city became notorious for police “hunt attacks” on illegal Jews. Despite all this, the Jewish population grew from 50,000 in 1910 to over 81,000 in 1913, and probably, even more, evaded the census. 

Golda’s father left for New York in 1903 to find work, and two years later, he moved to Milwaukee, WI for a better-paying job. A few years later, the Mabovitch family was united in Milwaukee. Golda’s first contact with Zionism came in the years when she lived with her sister Sheyna’s family in Denver, CO, where young people met for conversations about trade unionism, literature, women’s suffrage, and more. 

After she married Morris Meyerson, the couple moved to the British Mandate of Palestine, where they joined kibbutz Merhavia in the Jezreel Valley. Their life was full of manual labor until the kibbutz chose Golda as a representative to the General Federation of Labor, the Histadrut. In 1938, Golda was the Jewish observer from Palestine at the Evian Conference, which was called by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss the question of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe. 

 Golda was one of 24 signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948. In the following year, she was appointed Ambassador to the Soviet Union. At the time, good relations with the Soviets were important for Israel to secure arms from the Eastern European countries. In 1949, Golda was elected to the Knesset, serving as Minister of Labor. 

In January 1966, Golda retired from the Foreign Ministry, citing ill health. After Levi Eshkol’s sudden death in February 1969, the party elected Golda as his successor, and in March 1969, she began serving as Prime Minister until summer 1974. Known as Golda Meir, she was the first female and the fourth prime minister of Israel. 

During Golda’s years in politics, she was involved in navigating several domestic and international crises. She met with world leaders, was injured when a bomb was thrown into a Knesset chamber, praised the work of Pope Pius XII, fought for the Jews to leave the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and appealed to the world to condemn the Munich massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics. 

In the days leading to the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Israeli intelligence could not determine that an attack on Israel was imminent. They assured Golda that the situation did not cause an alarm, so she did not mobilize Israel’s forces for a pre-emptive strike. Following the Yom Kippur War, the government was plagued by infighting and questions over Israel’s lack of preparation for the war. In June 1974, Golda Meir resigned from the Knesset and never returned to politics. (Used online resources) 

Golda Meir Memorial Plaque on the building where she was born in Kyiv.

 The war in Ukraine has made Golda Meir, their own daughter, is famous among the people as they apply Golda’s saying to their current situation: “If the Russians lay down their weapons, there would be no more fighting. If the Ukrainians  lay down their weapons, there  would be no more Ukraine.” 

 For people who changed the world through tolerance and peace 

Emergency Assistance 

Ukrainian Jewish refugees are arriving in Israel. Among the first hundreds of new immigrants were 140 orphan children. They flee the war exhausted, traumatized, and emotionally drained. The refugees come with very few personal belonging, so they need help. We are preparing to assist them with the most urgent needs, such as blankets, bedding, sleeping bags, First Aid kits, solar lanterns, water, food coupons, and hygiene/sanitary kits. In Jerusalem, CFI delivers relief parcels to the new Ukrainian immigrants. We are now asking for your help! Each relief parcel costs $250. You may respond to this mailing, or make an online donation at www.cfi-usa.org – 

Project Ukrainian Jews. Thank you for your support in this time of emergency. 

 Ukrainian Jewish refugees traveling via Poland (top), and rescued Jewish orphans on the way to Israel (bottom) 

 A historic fulfillment of prophecy? 

 Over the last 150 years, the Jewish people have been coming home to Israel. They have been encouraged to leave their host countries by Jewish leaders, such as Theodor Hetzl in the 1890s, by Christian leaders for one hundred years, and for the past seventy years, by the existence of their own state, the State of Israel. 

Each significant aliyah came into being by one of the existing factors: wanting to be part of a historic fulfillment of prophecy, or having been uprooted from their home countries by wars, conflicts, and other political circumstances. Anti-Semitism has always been a factor, but in recent years it may have been the deciding factor in people making aliyah. 

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, some 19,000 Ukrainian Jews have made aliyah according to the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Absorption. Although the influx has subsided somewhat, a number of Ukrainian Jews have arrived every month. Today, about 500,000 of Israel’s population of 10.5 million people have Ukrainian origin. 

Wall of Prayer needed 

Standing with the guardians

As guardians, the IDF applies defense and deterrent operational strategies with a strict moral code of ethics. The instructions for ethical conduct given in the Torah are the Jewish people’s foundational principles. The IDF works to stop terror attacks all over Israel and guard the dangerous Gaza border area. Our David’s Shield project supports numerous IDF units with encouragement and needed care items. The project supports also 

Book store−Documentaries for your library 

the reserve units, such as those who are called into active service during the wartime operations. 

 Ukraine and the Jews 

 The history of the Jews in Ukraine goes back over a thousand years. The Jewish community in the territory of Ukraine constitutes the third-largest Jewish community in Europe and the fifth-largest in the world. In Ukraine, the foundations developed for many modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions, such as Hasidic Judaism. While at times these communities flourished, they also faced periods of fierce persecution and anti-Semitic discrimination. 

Ukrainian Jews consist of a number of sub-groups, including Ashkenazi Jews, Mountain Jews, Bukharan Jews, Crimean Karaites, and Georgia Jews. From 1640 to1650, the Cossack and Crimean Tatar armies massacred and took into captivity tens of thousands of Jews, Roman Catholics, and Christians. Hundreds of Jewish communities were completely destroyed. 

In the following centuries, anti-Jewish riots and pogroms continued. During the Russian Revolution and War (1918-1920), an estimated 31,000 Jews were killed. In the years of the German occupation of Ukraine, about one million Ukrainian Jews were systematically killed. Remember the Babi Yar, Kiev, the massacre of 33,000 Jews by Nazis, in one location! 

In the days of the Ukrainian unrest in 2014, the Jewish aliyah to Israel increased over 140% as compared to the previous year. Since then, security has improved. In the 2019 Presidential Election, Ukraine elected its first Jewish President, Volodymyr Zelenski. As the tension is rising again on the Russia-Ukraine border, an estimated 75,000 Ukrainian Jews may be ready to leave the country for Israel. 

 A Mountain Jewish family in Or Akiva hosted one of our tours for an evening of a multi-course traditional meal, music and friendship