Apotheosis In Dublin

The administrator of the Jeanie Johnston refugee ship from the potato famine era welcomes Bohdan, a 13-year-old Ukrainian refugee, to Ireland

Returned home last night from Dublin deeply moved by the enormous kindness of the Irish people toward the people of Ukraine in their hour of need. Over the past six weeks as many as 30,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Ireland, a country of about 5 million. During our stay of eight days, we heard nothing but expressions of solidarity, compassion and love expressed toward the new arrivals;  often directly to Tanya ‘s sister Nila and her 13 year old son Bohdan who arrived in Ireland in early March and whom we were visiting. We heard not a word in conversations, or in the Irish media, of any indication of resentment toward the new arrivals or toward the generous package of social benefits the government is providing them. What a contrast to the situation in the US, where, despite promises by Biden to take in 100,000 Ukrainians, the U.S. has barely begun the intake process—a sad outgrowth of the overall demonization of immigrants here that has been negatively impacting our politics since at least 2016. 

Nila, Bohdan, Tanya and I experienced a deeply emotional moment during a visit to the Jeanie Johnston, the replica of a ship by that name that brought desperately poor Irish refugees to Canada and America during the Potato Famine of the 1840’s. As we were waiting to board the ship—floating on the Liffey River--for a tour, I mentioned to one of the administrators that the visit was meaningful for all of us because Nila and Bohdan were newly arrived Ukrainian refugees struggling to find their feet in a new land. I also asked him for a recommendation of a good restaurant nearby where we could celebrate Bohdan’s upcoming birthday. In any case, 20 minutes later as the tour began for us and about 30 other tourists from the US, France, Spain, Hungary and elsewhere; the administrator and tour guide made a point of welcoming Nila and Bohdan to Ireland. The administrator, with tears in his eyes, praised them for their courage and steadfastness in making the difficult trip to safety and freedom and expressing the hope and belief that they will quickly find their feet. The two men then presented Bohdan with a birthday card with a fold-out image of the ship. Bohdan is a newly minted teenager who keeps his emotions under control, but as he responded with a heartfelt, emphatic "thank you so much!" I could see how powerful the moment was for him and am sure he will remember it for his entire life. 

Certainly, it is clear to us that the incredibly warm welcome Nila and Bohdan have received from the O’Reilly family—Hugh, Ursula, Adam and Leon---who have taken them into their home and hearts and from the principal, teachers and students in the Irish school Bohdan is attending---is helping them to recover and heal from the massive trauma they suffered in having their lives abruptly turned upside down; being abruptly forced out of their home in Kyiv, separated from their loved ones still in Ukraine and fearing deeply for their safety. Nila and Bohdan have no idea what the future will bring and when they will be able to return home, but they DO already have a solid support structure of love and acceptance in Dublin---and that is a very big deal. For our part, Tanya and I are doing what we can to help support Nila and Bohdan from America and feel uplifted to have spent a beautiful week with them enjoying Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains—allowing them to articulate and sharing in all of the complicated emotions they are experiencing. 

As we begin our observance of Passover, we are deeply moved to be connected these beautiful people who have taken the journey to freedom in Ireland and to all the people of Ukraine who are fighting valiantly against Pharaoh Putin who seeks to destroy their nationhood and reduce them to slave status. Ukrainians are upholding the torch of freedom for all of us and taking horrific human losses in the process. We owe it to them to be by their side in this terrible hour.

BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES March 31, 2022 Comparing War In Ukraine To Final Solution By Walter Ruby Guest Contributor As a Jew and lover of Israel, I was filled with outrage to read that, in the wake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent Zoom address to the Israeli Knesset, unnamed senior Israeli ministers railed against what they termed Zelensky’s “outrageous comparison” of Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jewish question and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s present effort to snuff out Ukrainian life and liberty. To add insult to injury, the same unnamed officials claimed that “Zelensky also distorted the part his country played in the murder of Jews.” Outrageous comparison? On the contrary. It is a quite apt and accurate one, given that the Russian military has carried out saturation bombing and shelling that has all but leveled the cities of Kharkiv and Mariupol as well many smaller towns and villages, killing thousands. The Russians have deliberately targeted maternity hospitals and theaters and other buildings where desperate civilians are taking shelter. Indeed, the Russian military machine appears intent on crushing Ukrainian resistance and extinguishing Ukrainian peoplehood by wantonly massacring as many Ukrainian civilians as possible, Russian speakers as well as Ukrainian ones, while forcing much of the rest of the Ukrainian population into exile to create a “Ukraine without Ukrainians” that can be colonized by Russia. Zelensky offended some Israeli MKs with his hectoring tone and refusal to openly identify as Jewish. Yet he has clearly thought deeply about the ways that the Holocaust in Ukraine, in which members of his own family were killed, closely resembles Russia’s present-day attempted genocide of the Ukrainian people. In his speech to the Knesset, Zelensky was correct in asserting that “Ukraine and Israel face the same threat from their respective enemies — the total destruction of our people, our state, our culture, even the name: Ukraine, Israel.” He was on target in pointing out that “Our people are now wandering the world, searching for a place, just as you once wandered … seeking security, trying to stay alive, and in peace.” Finally, he was right again in pointing out, “The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a military operation as it’s presented in Moscow. It is an all-out war, illegitimate, intended to destroy our people, our country, our cities, our culture and our children. Everything that makes Ukrainians Ukrainians.” As to the vexed issue of Ukrainians and the Holocaust, it is undeniable that a minority of Ukrainians did collaborate with the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews during their occupation of Ukraine from 1941-44. Yet the nation-state of Ukraine did not exist during those years and therefore could not have “played a part” in carrying out the mass murder of Jews, as the senior Israeli minister wrongly suggested. Indeed, most Ukrainians joined with Russians, Jews and others to defend their common homeland against the Nazi invaders. Why would anyone with an ounce of rachmanut (compassion) choose this moment, when Ukraine is under genocidal attack from Russia, to visit the sins of a minority of Ukrainians 80 years ago on the valiant Ukrainians of today, fighting against enormous odds to preserve self-determination and democracy? Doing that obviously plays directly into Putin’s false claim that he invaded Ukraine to eradicate Nazism, absurdly presided over, according to the Russian government, by Zelensky himself, who happens to be a Jew. Yes, Ukraine has a radical nationalist right, concentrated in the Svaboda (Freedom) party, but in the first round of the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections, in which Zelensky, a candidate of Jewish origins, took first place with over 30% of the vote. (He later won the runoff overwhelmingly with 73% of the vote.) The candidate of Svaboda received less than 2%. That is a much lower percentage than the ultranationalist candidates in countries like Germany, France and Italy have received in recent elections. As he has done in recent speeches to the U.S. Congress and German Bundestag, Zelensky criticized his Israeli hosts, pointing to Israel’s refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow or share its Iron Dome with Ukraine. He also made clear his disquiet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s unrelenting pressure on him to accept Moscow’s stated terms for allowing the survival of a shrunken, demilitarized Ukraine that would be totally at Putin’s mercy. Seeking to explain the reasons for Bennett’s position of studied neutrality between Russia and Ukraine, Zelensky asked, “What is it? Indifference? Political calculation? Mediation without choosing sides … I want to point out that indifference kills. Calculations can be wrong. You can mediate between countries, but not between good and evil.” Hours after Zelensky spoke, Bennett offered a rejoinder that “I personally believe that it is forbidden to equate the Holocaust to anything.” Yet such pious incantations do nothing to solve the moral issue facing Israel. If Israel refuses to choose between good and evil and instead averts its eyes from the genocide of another people, the Ukrainians, it will be acknowledging that “Never Again” is a meaningless concept, or one that applies only to the Jews. Indeed, Bennett’s cold-blooded realpolitik is staining the honor not only of Israel, but of the entire Jewish people. Jews of conscience have an obligation to speak up now and call out this morally squalid policy for what it is: deeply and enduringly wrong. Walter Ruby is president of Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together (JAMAAT). This originally ran in Washington Jewish Week.